Roche Denise: Social Assistance (Portability to Cook Islands Niue and Tokelau) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Social Assistance (Portability to Cook Islands Niue and Tokelau) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 04 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:551. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green):I rise to take a call for the Greens on this bill. We will be supporting this bill because we see it as quite a sensible and positive step forward for the people of Niue Tokelau and the Cook Islands. It is really one of those bills where it is all in the title basically. It is about the portability of social assistance for the people of the Cook Islands Niue and Tokelau.Some people who have contributed to New Zealand’s economy throughout their adult lives are originally from these islands. These islands are nations of the Realm of New Zealand which means that these people who have been working in our country in New Zealand are our citizens—they are New Zealand citizens as well. So what happens now is that they cannot return to their home countries and access a New Zealand superannuation benefit unless they are 65 and are already receiving it. They cannot do that. But the changes in this bill are very positive although it does not go as far as some people would want—in fact there are some problems around that. The changes are that a person who has worked in New Zealand from one of those nations who has worked here after the age of 20 for 10 years—and 5 of those years have been after the age of 5—will be able to access the New Zealand superannuation from their home country if that is what they want to do. It means that they can basically move back to their home country as long as they have been “resident and present” which are the exact words that are in the legislation for the requirements as I have outlined—10 years after the age of 20 and at least 5 of those years after the age of 50.My understanding is that this is not going to impact on a lot of people. In the regulatory impact statement—and the Minister for Social Development in her introduction referred to it as well—it suggests that there are around 245 over-55-year-olds who when this bill is passed would be eligible to access New Zealand superannuation from Niue Tokelau or the Cook Islands and that only a further 16 or so per year subsequently from that would actually be able to do the same. But it does mean that these citizens—citizens of New Zealand citizens of these island nations as well—will be able to go back to their home countries earlier than what they have done previously.It has been suggested that this bill might go some way towards addressing some of the concerns that those small island nations have had around a shrinking population. That is particularly of concern for Niue and the Cook Islands. In the existing situation there has been a disincentive for older citizens from there to go home after they have worked all their lives here for example. It has been difficult for them to return home at a younger age. This bill will actually be more beneficial to them because they will be able to go home earlier. Let us face it: why would you not want to retire to a lovely beautiful Pacific island? It is one of the problems we have on Waiheke actually. It explains why we have a high number of retirees where I live as well.It also makes sense to me that as you get older there is more of a compelling desire to return to your home nations to go and spend that time your last years with the people whom you have grown up with. That was certainly the reasoning that I heard from a man whom I know who lives on Waiheke. He is in his early 60s so he has not been eligible. He is from the Cook Islands originally and he moved to New Zealand as a young man and raised his family here. He has had a hard life of hard physical labour. He described to me his yearning of wanting to go back to his ancestral lands. When this bill comes through he will be able to do that. I can understand that kind of attachment—the call of your whakapapa the call of your whenua to come back home—so it is going to be great that he will be able to do that. It is a shame that he was not able to do it when he was a more active man. However he will get there before 65 if this bill goes through and I am sure it will as it seems to have cross-party support across the House.I guess the point that the Governments of these countries have been very aware of is that bringing those people back to their small island nations will help the economy. There was something that was written in the regulatory impact statement that really resonated with me which was New Zealand’s commitment to those countries to help support them economically. I will quote from the general policy statement and it says: “The changes take into account New Zealand’s close constitutional ties with the Cook Islands Niue and Tokelau and are part of New Zealand’s commitment to support their ongoing economic and social viability.” So basically it is hoped that this bill will enable those islands to attract capital and skills from people who are able to contribute to these island nations’ economies and potentially from other New Zealanders who if they fit the citizenship requirements there would be able to retire there too.We will be supporting this bill. It is good to see the Government actually wanting to assist our smaller island nations. We could be doing a lot more of course especially in the area of climate change impact because it is these smaller island nations that are most affected by the impacts of climate change—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!DENISE ROCHE: I am coming back to it Mr Assistant Speaker. I was just giving examples of other things that this Government could be doing to assist island nations that fits with our nation’s requirement to honour our special relationships with these island nations. They are the ones that are most affected by climate change and that have contributed the least emissions to the global carbon emissions so I think maybe we have a duty for that. In the meantime we support this bill. We acknowledge that it is a very tight and finely nuanced amendment to the legislation that is being called for here and we recognise that there may be submissions that are wider than what is in in the bill so that it could apply to a few more people. I hope the Social Services Committee will actually take those submissions on board when they come in and that we may see further amendments to assist more people. Thank you.