Logie Jan: Veterans’ Support Bill — First ReadingText is subject to correctionLogie Jan: Veterans’ Support Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:14108. Text is subject to correction.]JAN LOGIE (Green): I also rise to offer the Green Party’s support for the Veterans’ Support Bill to go to the Social Services Committee. I must admit that I have not had the opportunity yet to read the full 247-page Law Commission report which has prompted this 259-page bill which I also have not quite managed to get through yet. Call me a slacker but that is how it is. I am not quite there yet but I am pretty sure from what I have read that we can offer our support for it to go to the select committee. In the select committee we will be looking to the principles the delivery on the Law Commission’s recommendations and of course most important the views of those affected or likely to be affected by this bill.But I cannot speak responsibly as a Green Party MP on anything to do with war without making a clear statement. As the Green Party we have four core charter principles and one of those is non-violence. So for us whenever we are talking about war it is necessary to make a statement that we dream of and are working towards a world where there is no need for war—a world where armed conflict is not necessary because Governments are upholding human rights and disputes are settled peacefully. We wish to see the support of this country going towards creating that world. Priority for us must always be given to non-violent means of resolving conflict between countries. If armed force is necessary to protect New Zealand citizens and public resources or to help other countries protect their citizens then for us the use of force must be sanctioned by the people of this country and by international law.But although I make that statement it has nothing against this bill. I am making that statement because that is the context that this bill works within and that is who we are as my colleagues have said. But in some ways that strengthens our commitment to veterans particularly of the wars where there has not necessarily been that national agreement or the valuing or the protection of human rights at the heart of the conflict. Those soldiers who were forced to go to those wars possibly deserve our protection and support even more so in terms of their rehabilitation as they deal with the results of those wars.This bill replaces the War Pensions Act 1954 and has arisen from the Law Commission’s recommendations and report. The original Act primarily dealt with physical injuries that occur in a war environment. Now the introduction of this bill will extend that to also recognising the psychological and environmental risks of war which is incredibly important as I will talk about a little bit more later because so much of our learning from Viet Nam was I think around the lifelong generational consequences of the environmental toxic poisoning that happened to the soldiers in that war.The 1954 Act was not updated with the introduction of the ACC scheme in 1974. The ACC scheme applies to serving and former members of the New Zealand Defence Force. A key objective of this bill is to bring a rehabilitation focus as well as providing monetary and other forms of support. That I guess is just updating our approach to fit with this modern world and the understanding that we can actually help with the right systems people to rehabilitate and be able to increase their mobility or whatever participation.As per the Law Commission’s recommendation this bill introduces two schemes for support. Scheme one will cover veterans in service prior to 1 April 1974 so it is including Viet Nam War veterans. It continues the original Act’s practice of paying a periodic pension to veterans with service-related impairments and provides compensation to spouses children and dependants.I would just like to remind the House of some of the consequences that we saw from Viet Nam. There was a report that was released just this year by Otago University that found that New Zealand Viet Nam veterans deployed in a “toxic war environment” were exposed to a significantly higher risk of leukaemia and that “most veterans deployed in the NuiDat area ofPhuocTuy province experienced a ‘toxic environment’ because of the widespread use of 2 4 5-T and 24-D as defoliant herbicides. This mixture is more commonly known to most of us in the world as agent orange and was contaminated with a carcinogen a dioxin. The research from the Otago University study examined from 1998 to 2008 the health records of 2752 of the nearly 3400 New Zealand military personnel who served in Viet Nam and it was the first cohort study done in New Zealand of Viet Nam veterans to assess the long-term health effects of serving in that kind of combat zone. It found “a doubling of the risk of mortality from cancers of the head and neck as well as an increase in oral cancers of the pharynx andlarynx. Lung cancer contributed the greatest burden of deaths in both New Zealand and Australian veterans.”I mention this because I think it brings to life—for me at least—some of the real horror of those wars and the ongoing consequences. And here we are with research in 2013 nearly 40 years later that is just starting to understand the consequences of that war. Those are the veterans with whom my colleague Catherine Delahunty was out protesting for a very long time to get access to treatment and recognition by the State of that toxicity and the harm created by it. That is just a tragic situation and I really do hope that with this bill and that recognition of the psychological and environmental impacts of war no veteran will ever have to fight so hard for an acknowledgment of such harm.Scheme two within this bill covers veterans after the date of the introduction of ACC and it will focus on that provision of medical psychosocial and vocational rehabilitation. It describes rehabilitation as “the gateway to other assistance such as income compensation and lump sum” payments. The Minister went into quite a bit of detail around some of the provisions in that and it sounded very good to me on the first hearing of it. I do recognise that he did say that some of the recommendations of the Law Commission are primarily administrative ones and have not been implemented in this bill and I certainly will be looking at those closely. We know that this sits within the Ministry of Social Development and some of the processes for appeal within that system are definitely proving problematic at the moment. We would not want to see those problems replicated for our veterans and neither would we want to see some of the struggle to have access to ACC replicated for veterans. Our hope would be that if this is a generous scheme as mentioned by the Minister that hopefully that will have a bleed-out effect into the Ministry of Social Development and ACC in return so that all New Zealanders can get the assistance they need to be able to participate fully in our country.But ultimately I will finish this speech again with my hope that one day in the future there will be no more need for anyone else to access the entitlements in this bill and that we have peaceful ways of resolving conflicts. I am not so naive to believe that that is going to happen quickly but we will keep working towards it.