Macindoe TimHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Kia orana to you Madam Assistant Speaker. Talofa lava to all who are celebrating Samoan Language Week this week and could I particularly acknowledge the Minister for Pacific Peoples the Hon Aupito William Sio. He's not quite as sartorially splendid as he was yesterday but still looking very delightful. Could I also say mabuhay" to all the Filipino community throughout New Zealand and who today are here in Parliament in large numbers to celebrate the maiden statement of my very fine new colleague Paulo Garcia. We are delighted to welcome him to our caucus and we are delighted to welcome his many supporters to our House tonight.As the previous speaker Priyanca Radhakrishnan has just noted this Veterans' Support Amendment Bill was interrupted when the House rose at 10 o'clock last night. So I'd just like to reiterate one or two of the points that the Minister made in summarising the purpose of the Act and at the outset can I acknowledge the Minister of Defence and Minister for Veterans. I had the pleasure of accompanying him on a trip to the Middle East and South Sudan earlier this year. I know that he is a very strong supporter of all of our veterans and indeed of all of our existing serving personnel both here and overseas. I fully support him in that. I also acknowledge his predecessor as Minister of Defence the Hon Mark Mitchell who's in the House who I know has the same level of support as indeed does my colleague from across the river in Hamilton the Hon David Bennett who was the previous Minister for Veterans' Affairs. I think every member of this House in fact would share a desire to do our very best by our veterans.The point of the Act of course is to correct a drafting error as has just been noted by the previous speaker. When the House passed this legislation in 2014 its purpose was quite clearly to do the right thing by veterans who—really time had overtaken the appropriateness of the legislation and it was important to note that not all deployments now necessarily involve active conflict but nevertheless do put our serving personnel into considerable danger. I'm sure that we would all wish to ensure that the purpose of the Act—and I was in the House in 2014 when it was passed and I think was passed unanimously?Hon Michael Woodhouse: Yes it was.Hon TIM MACINDOE: Another previous Minister the Hon Michael Woodhouse can confirm to me yes it was passed unanimously and therefore I have no doubt that we'll have the same degree of unanimity in passing this amending legislation to correct the drafting error.I note that it will have a truncated process. That's been agreed by all parties through the Business Committee. Simon O'Connor the chair of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee when speaking in the House last night expressed some regret that the bill will not be coming to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee of which he is the chair and I'm the deputy chair but I understand the reason for that is because veterans don't actually come under the purview of that particular committee. Nevertheless our committee will be fully supportive of seeing the bill go through.The important thing for members who may not have been here last night and members of the public is that section 9 of the Veterans' Support Act authorises the responsible Minister to declare that a deployment of members of the Defence Force may be considered as qualifying operational service for the purposes of the Act. The previous Act referred only to service in war or emergencies and so the new legislation changed the criteria for "qualifying operational service" and the criteria that are now in force cover a broad range of operational and environmental threats including non-State actors and security forces. Declarations are made on the basis of advice provided to the Minister by the Chief of Defence Force in a report assessing the threats posed to members of the deployment and those with qualifying operational service have a number of entitlements for support under the Act.As I said I was in the House when this legislation was passed back in 2014 and I have no doubt that that new legislation was intended to give access to entitlements to all New Zealand veterans who'd served in deployments where they'd been at risk of serious harm. Indeed that is how the Act has in good faith been interpreted in the years since its passage. It has only been in recent times that a drafting error has been discovered and it is important that we rectify that error as quickly as possible to ensure that those who the House always intended should enjoy the benefits of this legislation are not unfairly penalised and do not find themselves missing out simply because of an administrative or drafting oversight.So as the National Party's spokesperson for veterans affairs the Hon Maggie Barry indicated when she spoke last night the National Party is strongly in support of this bill. We wish to renew our absolute support for all our veterans who have served us in conflict who have served us with such distinction. They really are held in the highest regard and again when I travelled with the Hon Ron Mark earlier this year I saw at first-hand members of defence forces from many other countries around the world speaking so highly about the New Zealanders with whom they mixed. It made me incredibly proud to be a New Zealander. It made me incredibly proud of the considerable contribution New Zealand has played to the resolution of some of the major conflicts over the last couple of centuries but also in more recent times to the peacekeeping efforts and the various other deployments with which we are engaged around the world. So I've closed by just saying that the National Party will do everything we can to facilitate the rapid passage of this rectifying amendment bill through the House and I commend the Minister for bringing it to our attention."