Collins Judith: New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill War Pensions Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Collins Judith: New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill War Pensions Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Volume:632;Page:3907] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 This is good legislation and we should congratulate all parties that have voted for it. It is good legislation because it deals with a situation in New Zealand in relation to married couples where one of the spouses may be very elderly and in care in a rest home and where because he or she can recognise her husband or wife that husband or wife cannot get the living alone allowance. There has been a petition in relation to this matter—the Barbara White petition—which we supported. There has also been the work done by my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith who on behalf of Mr Page of Nelson—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon Mark Burton 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I notice that the noise from the National members who are leaving the Chamber is really quite distracting. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Yes there is far too much noise. All members should either be sitting down or have left the Chamber. They should leave the Chamber in silence. The noise level is just not fair to the speaker. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. As I said this legislation has come about because of some good work done by Mrs Barbara White who I note today has been congratulated by her colleagues and also because of the work done by Dr Nick Smith who took up the issue of Mr Page. He fought for Mr Page a Nelson resident who had not been able to get a living alone allowance. He had been married for 70 years and his wife who was in aged care still recognised him. That is something we should all think is a good thing but in Mr Page’s case it meant he could not get a living alone allowance even though he was very obviously living alone. That is why we in the National Party have been particularly pleased to support this legislation. It is not often that we see in this Parliament legislation that receives the broad support that this is getting. 
This legislation deals with let us say a very unfair situation. Elderly people who have been good New Zealand citizens all their lives who have paid their taxes and who have been trying to keep their relationships going after 70-odd years—and that of itself is worthy of note—have been finding themselves in situations where at one stage they were told to go off and get divorced in order to qualify for the living alone allowance. They were told to separate—to leave their spouses. That was a terribly cruel piece of advice to have been given in the case of Mr Page and it is certainly a situation we are happy to support fixing through this legislation. 
However it is unfortunate that this legislation—in spite of having been called the New Zealand Superannuation and Veterans Pensions (Entitlement of Spouses and Partners of People in Long-term Residential Care) and Remedial Matters Bill—will not help some of our veterans. I say that in particular because of the situation of Nancy Wake. I brought that issue to the attention of the House the public and the media and I would like to thank the parties—including New Zealand First and the Maori Party—that supported my call to support Nancy Wake and give her an honour as a war veteran. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: Why didn’t the National Party give her an award 40 years ago? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Mr Anderton who keeps calling out all the time was the person who insulted Nancy Wake. He is the person that said of her: “Being famous and born in New Zealand are not of themselves sufficient reasons for her to be considered for an honour …”. Well frankly in her case that was a shocking insult and he has not apologised. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: National was in Government for 40 years and never gave her an award—not one. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Unfortunately Mr Anderton has not apologised. I am one of the many New Zealanders who did not realise until just a few years ago what a marvellous woman Nancy Wake was or who knew her story. It was only because of Peter FitzSimons’ book on the issue that I and many other New Zealanders found out about Nancy Wake. For some reason her story had not been celebrated in her own country. 
One of the complaints Nancy Wake had about the Australian Government was that it would not give her an honour because she was a New Zealander. The reason the Australian Government gave for many many years for not giving her an honour was that she was a New Zealander. Then Peter FitzSimons wrote about her work and the Australian people demanded that their Government give her—a New Zealander who still has a New Zealand passport—an honour. I have been told by the Prime Minister and others that Nancy Wake a war veteran does not qualify for an honour because she was not with the New Zealand services. Well that did not stop the Americans from giving her an honour and it did not stop the French the British and the Australians from giving her an honour because there are some people for whom we actually have to bend the rules. 
Honours in this country are given to New Zealanders but we know that the people who help us and work for us do not always live here. We honour some of those people every year—and good on us for doing so. But we have that pig-headed attitude from Mr Anderton and his ilk that says that because Nancy Wake left here as a child and because she has not been to New Zealand for some time—for many years to be frank—we cannot honour her. That is in spite of the fact that she just happens to have led 7000 resistance fighters in France to have helped many Allied servicemen and to be our greatest living war hero. That we cannot honour her is absolutely disgraceful. That woman is 94 years old. She is still alive and she would like an honour. 
In this country we constantly give out honours to people for deeds not nearly as strongly deserving or as remarkable as those of Nancy Wake. If we cannot give her a military honour then why do we not give her a non-military honour? Why do we not make her a member of the Order of New Zealand? We made our High Commissioner to Britain Jonathan Hunt a member of that order so why not honour someone like Nancy Wake—a woman who went way beyond the call of duty a woman who took actions that many others would not? I cannot think of anyone else who would act in the way she did yet we do not honour her. She is alive so let us do it now. It is not good enough to say that we will stick up a statue later on. [ 
Interruption 
] That is what Mr Anderton said I tell Mrs Pettis. He said we would put up a statue. That is no good to her. We should give this woman something now while she is alive. While we are at it we should do something a bit better for our Viet Nam veterans. I am sick and tired of hearing about how we cannot have the relevant report through. 
Hon Annette King 
: What’s this got to do with the bill then? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: And by the way I tell Mrs King many of these veterans will not live long enough to get the old-age pension because they are dying like flies. Since the time of the report back in March another five veterans have died while waiting. That is how they have died. They have died waiting waiting waiting—just as Phil Goff does in his caravan in Mt Roskill. They have been waiting for something to come out. Why can we not have that report? It is supposed to be unedited so why can we not have it? We know the answer. It is because the report slams the Office of Veterans Affairs. It slams the fact that those veterans have been waiting for months and months—sometimes 9 or 10 months—to get their benefits when in many cases they are very sick and in some cases terminally ill. They have to wait but anyone else who as a civilian goes through Work and Income receives his or her benefit at the click of a finger. That is disgraceful. So we just sit here giving to this legislation that beautiful name that says it is for spouses’ entitlements for veterans and for people in long-term care. 
Hon Annette King 
: This is a party that denied we even had a problem. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Well unfortunately I tell Mrs King a lot of those veterans will never live to be in long-term residential care because they simply will not live. When we poison people as they were and we then lie about it for years and years—[ 
Interruption 
] It was the Labour Government in 1989 that refused to allow Geoff Braybrooke’s bill to come in. The Labour Government refused to support its own member then it brought out the McLeod report— 
Hon Annette King 
: People know you are not telling the truth. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: The McLeod report was put out by the Labour Government—a Government that said those veterans were not sprayed. Well they were. Unfortunately it took the work of a cross-party group to come to the truth. New Zealand First the Greens ACT and United Future all supported National. The only party that did not want it to happen was the Labour Party. But we got to the truth. It did not happen only once it happened 320 times. It took us to do it because Mrs King who was then Minister of Health did not want it to happen either. No no she was going along with the party line. That party has now been embarrassed because it has been asked to front up. This is the Year of the Veteran and unfortunately we have in Mrs King yet another Minister who does not want to admit that we need to do something about it. 
I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. We have a stream of barrage— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: There is barraging going on. Would members please confine themselves to interjections and not barrage. 
Hon Annette King 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The member is bringing me into the debate directly. It is not unreasonable that I respond. If the member wants to personalise the debate then I think I have the right to interject on her. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The member does have the right to interject but she does not have the right to barrage. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: It is time we stopped saying: “You did this you did that.” and actually—[ 
Interruption 
] Madam Speaker we now have a stream of barrage from Mr Benson-Pope. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: They are interjections. Would the member please carry on. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: We have a Government that is happy to say to the few veterans who are still alive and who are in fact in aged care that it will help their spouses—and good on it for that. But there is something so much more important: it is doing the decent thing by veterans not just talking about it.