O'Rourke Denis: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Rourke Denis: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2503. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take this call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. There are one or two things I want to say about it and about the Budget as a whole. This is a penny-pinching measure and it is symptomatic of the Government’s whole approach to this Budget. It is making more elderly people in residential care pay more for their residential care and sooner by the indexation of asset thresholds. This will save very little. In the year 2012-13 it will save $4.5 million in 2013-14 it will save $8.4 million in 2014-15 it will save $12.4 million and in 2015-16 it will save $16.4 million. 
In terms of the Government’s overall Budget over these years this means actually very little. But for people in the last years of their lives it means less access to their savings for the comforts that they should have during those years it means earlier State dependence and it means they are robbed of the pleasure of passing a financial legacy on to their family. That is something that is so important to so many of them. But this Government of course does not actually care about the elderly at all. New Zealand First on the other hand has a well-deserved reputation for caring for the elderly and their needs. 
As I said this is a penny-pinching Budget. It attacks the most vulnerable people in our community it does very little to stimulate the economy and it does practically nothing to stimulate exports despite the declared objectives of this Government. Rather than punishing the elderly it should try to support them further as this community as a whole should do. New Zealand First therefore does have policies along those directions including a 10 percent discount on power bills for the elderly and people with a SuperGold card and free doctors’ visits for the first year and then a $10 cap for the years after that. 
Those are the sorts of positive policies that New Zealand First has for the elderly and what do we see from the National Government? We see not only nothing for the elderly we see a policy of punishing the elderly punishing paper boys and providing nothing whatever for the low-income people in our community. The Prime Minister referred to “Planet Labour” during his speech but the architects of this Budget are from “Asteroid National” a dull lifeless rock from outer space producing no life no light and no warmth especially not for the elderly in our community. That asteroid is very much like this Budget in its approach. Like an asteroid National and this Government go endlessly round and round in circles. The underlying policies—asset sales austerity especially for the elderly and low-income earners and an obsession with an early surplus for no good apparent reason—are the same failed policies from the past. They did not work in National’s Ruth Richardson Budget the mother of all austerity Budgets and they will not work now. 
This Minister of Finance is like a witch doctor trying to give life to the undead and producing zombie policies—policies more dead than alive. These policies will not work because they are really about the Government’s financial and political objectives. They are not about people and their welfare. They are not about communities and their viability. They are not about the elderly who are ignored in this Budget except by being punished in the same way that we see in this particular bill. They are not about students who will find it harder to manage their student loans under this Budget. It is not about stimulating employment. In fact without the economic windfall of the Christchurch earthquakes with the thousands of short-term jobs provided by that employment under this Government would get worse and worse and worse. It is bad enough already. 
This bill and this Budget are all about political economics. It is 2 years of excessive austerity as a surrogate for genuine financial management with all the damage that does to people young and old as we see in this particular bill. Then after 2 years of unnecessary pain the Government plans a small surplus. This is solely for election-year purposes. No doubt in that year National will find some lollies but not for low-income people not for the elderly—for National supporters only. So National’s approach is to punish the paper boys and to punish the elderly and low-income people so that in 2014-15 there can be some lollies for National’s mates. 
The leader of the Government’s political economics is the Prime Minister John Key—always richer in politics than economics. He cast an aspersion on Mr Shearer when David Shearer’s slip of the tongue referred to Mr Speaker as “Mr Australia”. But that was misdirected. It is the Prime Minister who should be “Mr Australia” because he is the principal cause of the exit of thousands of talented young Kiwis to Australia. They have no confidence in him or his Government’s policies—especially in this Budget. The Budget will produce no real long-term jobs no real growth no worthwhile assistance with housing and it will punish people with student loans. There is no mention of anything positive in this Budget for the elderly at all. In fact this bill which punishes only the elderly is the only reference to the elderly in the entire Budget. 
In response to these failing policies all we get are the tired old excuses of recession from 2008 4 years ago; the global financial crisis also originating years ago; and the Christchurch earthquakes. Those are three tired old excuses for these failed policies. But this Government has had over 3 years to deal with the recession and the global financial crisis has in fact had a limited direct effect on the New Zealand economy. In fact the Christchurch earthquake recovery is actually funded more by insurance money and to a lesser extent by $5 billion to $6 billion from Government borrowing. 
It is very very difficult to see why measures that are set out in this bill are really required at all when you see the magnitude of the issues facing this country. The small amount of money that will be saved is penny-pinching when the elderly should be more supported by our community. This Government’s failed policies relying on tired old excuses for not doing more will not advance this community and this nation at all. We see that right throughout the Budget. It is a failed Budget. It is an old-fashioned Budget. It is a penny-pinching Budget that we can do without.