Shearer David: Veterans’ Support Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShearer David: Veterans’ Support Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 22 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19307. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert):I just want to pick up on a couple of points that were made in the contributions by National members and one is that men did not go to war to get a pension. Of course they did not and really that is denigrating what they went to war for. They did not go to war necessarily for a sense of adventure either. They may have wanted that but most men went to war because they believed that it was the right thing to do. They went to war because they felt a sense of duty—a sense of what was right and what was wrong. They may have gone from a sense of patriotism—that they were standing up and doing the right thing for their country. To try to say somehow that we should not increase our pensions because people did not go to war to pick up a pension is I think just ridiculous.This part of the Veterans’ Support Bill Part 2 is only a short part but it is still an important part. It is the part that actually sets out the purpose of the code. The code is set out in Part 2. It sets out the rights and obligations in the code. It indicates that the code will be put together in a draft form by the persons nominated by the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs. They will work on that and then the approval of the draft code will be done by the Minister after that. A notice will be put in the Gazette to approve the code and the Minister must present the code to this House within 12 sitting days of it going through. In many ways the code sets the sort of underlying architecture of what we are talking about today. It is a solid basis on which the rest of the bill will be supported hence the reason it is in Part 2—it is in there. I will not go on any further than that other than to say that the obligations and the rights to respect that code are also there in Part 2. Provisions for any amendments that need to be made and how they are meant to be made are set out in clause 30.But just coming back—I could not let that one go by—to why our soldiers go off to war. They go off and they serve New Zealand well. They do it for a variety of reasons but they certainly do not have—I mean it is ridiculous to think that a 19-year-old has the possibility of earning a pension in their mind when they go off to war. What we on this side certainly do believe is that anybody who does serve their country in that way deserves the veterans pension and also deserves the lump-sum payment—their family deserves the lump-sum payment. But this Government is scrimping on that last recommendation by the Law Commission a very eminent body. It took 2 years and an enormous amount of consultation in order to look at this. It is supported by the Returned and Services’ Association right across New Zealand. The association supports this as well. It is time that this Government gets with the pace and actually realises that this is a small amount of money—it is $7 million or $8 million at most. It is time that the Government gets with it and gets in behind it and gives our people and those people who serve New Zealand so well the financial recognition that they deserve.