Hutchison Paul: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17290] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 This bill has been characterised by the absolute silence of the Minister in charge of it the Minister for Senior Citizens. For a decade she went around campaigning that Labour would remove asset testing. She has not denied that and neither has the Government removed asset testing. Despite many of my colleagues asking for her to take a call she has failed to do so. It almost epitomises that little saying: “What a tangled web we weave when first we practise to break election promises.” I was not going to say the “d” word again but really that is what should be said. 
Part 2 is unnecessarily very complicated. It has various sections relating to needs assessments clothing allowances residential care schemes and means assessments. Yet if Labour had kept its promise and removed asset testing as in 1999 it said it would all this complicated legislation and this complicated Part 2 would not be here before us. After all as Muriel Newman read out Labour’s 1999 election brochure said very clearly: “We say asset testing older people is wrong. It will go.” So here we have Part 2 with this highly complex tortuous piece of bureaucracy which requires everything from needs assessments to means assessments clothing allowances and residential care schemes. All those things would not be necessary if Labour was prepared to keep its promises or even if Labour was prepared to make legislation simple and straightforward. But oh no it has gone ahead over the last 6 years and introduced one of the most complicated health systems known to personkind with 21 district health boards. That is just being repeated 6 years later by this very complicated Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill. 
Section 153(1) in clause 4 states: “The maximum contribution is the amount to be prescribed by an Order in Council made by the Governor-General that is $636 per week …”. It is very salutary to see what Major Alistair Herring of The Salvation Army told the Social Services Committee. He said: “The Salvation Army believes that the bill should at the very least commence with the adjusted figure of $757.14.” Not to do so is to continue the situation of underfunding that the residential care sector has experienced over the past 9 years. Right throughout Port Waikato almost on a weekly basis I hear the same cry that the Labour Party Government fails to recognise that residential home care and institutions are going under because it is not prepared to be realistic about funding. It has totally ignored the Price WaterhouseCoopers report of 1999-2000—absolutely ignored it. Instead it has watched as home after home has closed down. 
It is a particular tragedy when we hear that The Salvation Army itself is exiting from residential care. That is one organisation that most New Zealanders trust. It is an indictment on the Labour Party Government that it has presided over the time when The Salvation Army which has been in the business of looking after the elderly for 70 years has due to the Government’s absolutely unrealistic formulations exited the industry.