Logie Jan: New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Pro Rata Entitlement) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Pro Rata Entitlement) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 16 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6729. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to take a call on the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Pro Rata Entitlement) Amendment Bill which is being brought to this House by Denis O’Rourke from New Zealand First. The Green Party does not support this bill as it is written. We have some very deep problems with it. But we will support it going to the select committee to enable a discussion and parliamentary consideration particularly of section 70 of the Social Security Act.But I do firstly want to outline some of our concerns with this bill and what it does. The bill proposes a pro rata entitlement for New Zealand superannuation so it will erode the universality of New Zealand superannuation based on how long a person has been in this country between the ages of 20 and 65. Currently the requirement to receive New Zealand superannuation is that a person has been present and resident in New Zealand for at least 10 years since attaining the age of 20 including 5 years after the age of 50.This bill replaces that requirement that a person be present for 10 years between the ages of 20 and 65. The pro rata entitlement will then be calculated on the number of qualifying months that a person has spent in New Zealand during that time. One is allowed according to this bill to have short absences of 2 months or less during a calendar year. There is an exemption of 5 years for New Zealand - born residents to—I think the member himself described it—perhaps go on a well-earned extended world cruise. But if you moved here when you were 5 and have lived here your whole life well no cruise for you.This bill has a number of gaping holes including how qualifying months are calculated. What about all those New Zealand residents who travel for more than 2 months a year for work? There is a significant number of them and then there are people like me who have lived outside this country for more than 5 years. Also there are no exceptions for people like refugees who in most cases come here after the age of 20. It creates a blanket rule and this disadvantages many people. And although not the tone or the detail of the first speaker’s bill I understand that it would be possible to interpret some of the provisions in this bill as borderline racist.I would like to be very clear that the Green Party does not support these aspects of the bill. However we do support having a conversation about superannuation and this bill enables that to happen. I note that the Retirement Policy and Research Centre has also indicated that although it does not support the content of this bill it does support its referral to a select committee to open up the opportunity for dialogue in this country.I particularly do note the fact that this bill gives us the opportunity to address section 70 of the Social Security Act. I worked for a member of Parliament who was the Greens’ spokesperson on superannuation 8 or 9 years ago and I remember back then getting the letters from people who were not able to get New Zealand superannuation because they had—out of their own pay overseas—paid into a foreign pension scheme and now that money was just taken out of New Zealand superannuation so they were not able to access New Zealand superannuation or else they had a New Zealand partner who was now no longer able to access New Zealand superannuation because they had paid out of their own wages into a voluntary scheme overseas. That is patently unjust and it does create very strange anomalies in our system. I understand that approximately 70000 pensions are affected by this provision and on top of that it can also affect Kiwis who have worked overseas and even the partners of anyone who is affected who do not even show up in that figure.The Green Party policy is to restrict the dollar for dollar abatement regime on overseas pensions so that it applies only if an overseas pension is paid from an overseas Government scheme funded through taxation similar to the New Zealand benefit and to treat income from contributory income schemes—like our KiwiSaver superannuation saving scheme—no differently from other income for benefit abatement purposes. Therefore we support this bill’s referral to a select committee to give this House the opportunity to redress that injustice.