Lees-Galloway Iain: Veterans’ Support Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Veterans’ Support Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 22 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19297. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):This Veterans’ Support Bill is a bill that has been long in its gestation. Its genesis goes back to—and Phil Goff will be able to help me with this—about 2006 I think.Hon Phil Goff: 2006 under the Labour Government.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: It was 2006 and as Phil Goff points out under the Labour Government. That is true. Rick Barker who was the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs at the time asked the Law Commission to carry out a comprehensive review of the War Pensions Act which of course came into being as far back as 1954. That review of the original legislation was a very long time coming. Then the review itself took a long period of time and that was appropriate because there were a lot of opinions that needed to be canvassed there were a lot of people who needed to be spoken to and there was a huge range of issues that needed to be dealt with. The Law Commission eventually came back to Parliament after the current Government had been elected with a comprehensive report and then the Government sat on that report for a very very long time indeed. Frankly veterans and their families started to despair that progress would ever be made on this legislation.We went through the whole term of the last Parliament without any progress being made and here we are right at the end of this Government’s final term—the second term of Parliament under this Government—and we are only just now at the point where this legislation has been progressed far enough that it may well indeed be passed finally into law just in the very last breaths of this second term. It is over 8 years on from when the original instruction was given by the then Minister of Veterans’ Affairs the Hon Rick Barker to embark on this process. We knew it was one that was always going to take a long time because there are a lot of issues that need to be dealt with but it simply did not need to take this long to get to this point.The question that is at the front of our minds over on this side of the Chamber in this part Part 1 is the question around the veterans pension. Through Phil Goff’s advocacy I am really pleased to see that the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs Michael Woodhouse eventually saw reason and saw fit to propose the changes to the legislation—or most of them—that Phil Goff was proposing around a universal application of the veterans pension. This is something that does not cost Governments a large amount of money. It is unusual in that as time goes on the cost to the Government actually decreases. Usually when you introduce a new entitlement or a new policy the costs actually tend to go up over time. The costs for this policy actually reduce over time.It is a small way of recognising the contribution that our veterans have made around the world to our safety our security our peace and our place—not just that of the veterans themselves but their families as well. As Phil Goff rightly pointed out the impact of serving overseas particularly on those veterans who served in full-scale combat in a full-scale war that a generation ago took people away from their family for years—not just for 6 months at a time in a rotation but for years and years and years—is a significant contribution to our nation that has been made by the veterans themselves and their families.It was a shock really that it took as much advocacy from the Opposition spokesperson as was required to get the Government to see fit to apply the veterans pension universally to all veterans. What the Minister has not seen fit to do yet is allow a lump-sum payment to be handed out as well. That is the final component of this issue that Labour would like to see put in place. We implore the Government to take that last step. It has come a way—I was going to say a long way but it was never a long way to get from where it was to what Labour has been proposing. It was never a long way. The Government has taken most of the steps required. It just needs to take one final step so that we as a nation can properly acknowledge the contribution of veterans and their families to ensuring that we have security and safety here in our country and that we are contributing to peace and security around the world. New Zealand has for a long time had a very good reputation as a keeper of peace and as a pursuer of peace both in a diplomatic fashion and where necessary by deploying our military.Until recent times we of course had our forces serving overseas in three different locations on multiple rotations and that is something that is well acknowledged by the international community. We should justifiably be proud of that and we should be proud of our veterans who carry those tasks out on our behalf. It is not a huge ask for us as a nation to recognise those efforts through the changes that are being made throughout this legislation particularly in Part 1—in particular around providing a veterans pension and for lump-sum payments that certainly in some cases may be of direct benefit to the families rather than to the veterans themselves. But as Phil Goff has outlined plenty of military families have made a significant sacrifice themselves as well as the person who was actually in uniform and serving offshore on behalf of the nation.There are a number of parts to this legislation and there are a number of aspects that we on this side of the Chamber do want to consider. We believe that given the long gestation of this legislation and the comprehensive nature of it it does deserve a comprehensive consideration here at the Committee stage of this legislation. So I look forward to future contributions.