Hutchison Paul: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hutchison Paul: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2513. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) 
: 
 It gives me great pleasure to speak on this Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill because this is a responsible bill this is a realistic bill this is a fair bill and this bill certainly ensures the sustainability of long-term residential care in New Zealand with the changing demographic that we have. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Rubbish! It makes no difference to long-term residential care. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: And there we have Trevor Mallard saying “Rubbish!”—and how absolutely typical this is of Labour over there who undoubtedly are in “Cloud Labour Land” once again. 
Hon Members 
: Get the lines right! It’s “Planet Labour”. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: Well “Planet Labour” as well. Those members have totally forgotten about the global recession they have totally forgotten about the Christchurch earthquakes and they have totally forgotten about the unpredictability of the situation right around Europe and elsewhere. They are determined to spend more to tax more and to borrow more if they possibly can. That is what they would do. Only last week I was overseas with their former leader the Hon Phil Goff and it just does bring back to me the absolute reality of how lucky we are here in New Zealand with responsible government with stable government and with enlightened government and that is what this is all about.  
We have heard from this tawdry Labour Opposition that this bill has been kept secret. But this measure has not been kept secret from the sector. Government Ministers briefed the sector just prior to the Budget and neither the Aged Care Association nor Grey Power have put out press releases against this measure. I think it is very important that indeed the Opposition does realise this.  
It is important to realise that from 1 July the change will take place whereby the Government will begin adjusting the asset threshold for rest home care subsidies at the rate of inflation. It is because it comes in on 1 July that it is important that we have urgency at this stage of events. We will be using the Consumers Price Index because that is a realistic and rational way to ensure that there is an appropriate adjustment.  
I looked back at the Hon Ruth Dyson’s speech when she introduced the bill in 2004 and of course somehow she plucked out of the air a $10000 increase that was going to continue on to 2025. The reality of that is that in 7 years for a single person this has increased from $45000 to $115000—more than doubled. It has by far more than doubled and that is just unsustainable. In these times it is quite unworkable and unrealistic.  
So we have over there a party that is prepared in these difficult economic times to pluck something out of the air and have no rationale whatsoever as to the number. Those were the days when we had surpluses when the Government could have been using a much more prudential long-term view so as to get New Zealand well prepared for the future. But no it did not. It was prepared just to pluck this number out of the ether and away it went and consequently we have seen this amount more than double in 7 short years which is totally unrealistic. So we are simply slowing the rate of increase in recognition of tight times and an ageing population. We are making sure we can afford to afford subsidising the cost of residential care for an increasing number of older New Zealanders who need it. When Opposition members talk about $4.5 million in the first year over 4 years this actually amounts to $34.5 million. That is a substantial amount of money. Every million dollars counts. It might not to that wasteful Labour Opposition but for us it is absolutely important. This is a responsible bill this is a realistic bill this is a fair bill and this indeed will sustain long-term residential care into the future.