Borrows Chester: New Zealand Superannuation and Veterans’ Pensions (Entitlements of Spouses and Partners of People in  Long-term Residential Care and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee 
Borrows Chester: New Zealand Superannuation and Veterans’ Pensions (Entitlements of Spouses and Partners of People in  Long-term Residential Care and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:631;Page:3109] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I rise to speak in favour of this bill. It is interesting to note that we always seem to make assumptions about the way people live their lives. We have made a lot of assumptions about elderly people who are living together are sharing a home and have been married for many many years. I think back to my grandparents who were married for 71 years and I am sure that from time to time my wife thinks: “Hell I can’t take another 45 years of this!”. 
Fortunately we as a family did not have to go through the situation of that couple being separated. But through my work as a funeral celebrant I have come across this situation on many many occasions. A couple may have been married for 60 years. The wife is in the home looking after dad. Dad is starting to lose his way a little bit and she through loyalty and commitment does all she can for him—covers the tracks makes little excuses and changes the sheets or whatever when there have been problems. I can think of one particular lady who I buried about a year ago in exactly that situation. For years and years she looked after her husband; she did not want him to go into a home. Eventually it had to happen and by the time he got to that home she was absolutely wrung out. She was a spent force. She passed away not very long after he went to the home and he has survived her. 
There have been inequities around that situation for many many years and they extend right back to a time that we are not really allowed to talk about. It is quite interesting but as soon as National members start speaking about this sort of situation people from the other side yell out: “What about the 1990s?” 
Peter Brown 
: Yeah what about them? 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: That is a valid point—what about the 1990s? But if we go back a little bit and start talking about the 1980s then we are told that that is ancient history and that no one wants to know anything about that. After all the Prime Minister apologised to Labour people for the way the Labour Government dealt with them during the 1980s. But a lot of those people knew and Mr Brown would know—because he had less grey hair in those days; he could concentrate on what was happening on the wireless a little more easily I suppose—the situation we found ourselves in in the 1990s. It led to some of the decisions that have been thrown back at us across the Chamber tonight but those decisions were actually being cooked up through the 1980s. I do not know where members on the other side were during the 1980s; maybe some of them were asleep or in some sort of self-induced coma. But some of them had very high positions in the Labour Government and they were part of that situation. When National went into the 1990 campaign the Minister of Finance was saying that there was a $2 billion surplus then we won the election and found that in actual fact there was an $8 billion deficit so I ask members what the hell we were supposed to do. People did it hard; we know that people did it hard. But there is no point in trying to pretend that the situation extends back to only 1990. This Labour Government forgets that Labour has been in Government for 12 of the last 22 years and it is time it started carrying the can for that. But all its members do is swim like a crayfish whenever that issue is raised—“Oh no Chester! That is ancient history.” 
The fact is that Labour has people who have been living with inequity for a long time and it would have been good to have dealt with that through the 1990s. It would have been good to have dealt with that in the last week of 1999 or it could have been dealt with in maybe 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 or—here we are—2006. Labour cracks on that its members are so articulate that they know what is going on and that they have a finger on every button but it was not until the matter was raised by our colleague Nick Smith that they had any intuition it was going on. 
I look forward very much to the day when Labour members start casting their eyes around the other inequities that exist within our welfare system and start to deal to some of those too. And yes I would like to think that they had been dealt with within the term of the National Government but it did not happen. Well now is Labour’s chance—its chance to accentuate just how on top of it Labour is. Let us see Labour deal to all those inequities—just let us see it. I will look forward to seeing that happen. 
The other provision I am pleased to support is the ability for people to spend 3 years overseas working with Volunteer Service Abroad or other aid organisations. That reinforces our role as global citizens and it enhances the cultural values of New Zealanders who have been working overseas for many years. I was speaking to a constituent only yesterday who on a regular basis travels up into Cambodia to train people in optometry.