Rich Katherine: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Rich Katherine: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17289] 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 One of the things that Part 2 deals with is changes in the provisions relating to needs assessment. At present there is a very complex process for working out who gets what. In talking with the people at the Montecillo Veterans’ Home and Hospital in Dunedin I was concerned at the long drawn-out process that needs assessment currently involves. Sometimes it can take months and months of caring for a person before the hospital or residential care facility gets its first payment. There is so much toing and froing between the district health board and the residential care facility that it is no wonder there is a lot of concern about how this part will be interpreted. That concern led not only to quite a few minor amendments to the bill but also to some major ones seeking clarity on that particular point. 
There is one aspect in this part that I do agree with. It is that those New Zealanders who are aged between 50 and 64 will be captured within the funding so that if they are in need of residential care they will not be in the position of having to sell everything in order to pay for their care. The reason for that is that some New Zealanders from the age of 50 and onwards suffer from the early onset of for example Alzheimer’s disease and from other sorts of disabilities and illness that required them to go into residential care facilities to be looked after much earlier than most other Kiwis would like to go into such facilities. 
Muriel Newman in her speech read out two very pertinent points from the brochure. One of them was that Labour would abolish asset testing. It did not state Labour would kind of abolish asset testing nearly remove asset testing or partially change asset testing; it stated Labour would abolish asset testing altogether. The second part of what Labour stated in its brochure was if my memory serves me correctly that the asset testing of old people is wrong. Well has Labour not changed its tune I say to the ladies and gentlemen sitting over there on the Government benches as arrogantly as ever about what it will actually deliver? Young Darren Hughes can be as smug as he likes because basically this legislation will be fully implemented by the time he retires. I can see why he is smiling: he is thinking that this legislation will be in place ready for when he retires. I think he will be very disappointed. One of the things we have seen is a number of groups say that they will get out of the provision of residential aged care altogether. I wonder who will be providing those services when members of Parliament who are here today require that level of care. 
As we have heard from previous speakers we have seen quite a change in the residential aged-care market over a period of time. I think that some of the amendments to Part 2 will introduce greater clarity to the understanding of the sector but I am concerned about the complexity of the legislation. That was something that was brought up by submitter after submitter to the Social Services Committee. People were unsure how an eligible person would be defined. They were unsure of what constituted a contracted service of what was a specific service incorporated within the $636 funding cap and of what was part of the contract and what was not. One of the things that indicates that ideology plays a part in this legislation is that the Government is not only stating what the publicly funded providers can charge but also telling private providers exactly what they will charge. In any other business that is called price fixing. The Government is getting involved in meddling in areas that it should not be involved in.