Faafoi Kris: 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 
Faafoi Kris: 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:2541. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Thank you very much for giving me the chance to speak in the third reading of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. The previous stage—the Committee stage—I think could best be described as unbalanced because not one member opposite took a call in the Committee stage. The bill is such a priority for this Government as the Minister for Social Development said in the first reading but there was not one contribution from the other side of the House. Actually to be fair there were two contributions: a point of order from the junior whip and Maggie Barry actually answered a question for the Minister in the chair. If this Government thinks this bill is a priority then it might have been good for members opposite to take a few more calls—or a call—in the Committee stage. 
I feel sorry for the members opposite who did not know that this measure was coming in the Budget. It is going to be a very long plane ride or car drive home because those members opposite know they are going to have to go home to their local electorates if they have got one or to their piece of New Zealand and explain this to the people in their electorate. Maggie Barry has got quite a few rest homes in her electorate so she can consider herself to be very very busy soon having to explain the measures that are contained in this bill which will adversely affect quite a number of the older people in her electorate I would say. I am sure that the families of those concerned on the North Shore will make their opinions known to her so the phone in the electorate office of Maggie Barry MP will be going off the hook now—off the hook. As she explained to us she did not know at election time that this was going to happen. This is a new initiative from the Government so I feel sorry for all the members at the back of the House in the National Party who will have to go home at the end of this urgency and say: “What the hell happened there?”. They will have to go home and explain this rubbish piece of legislation which was brought sneakily into this House. 
This has been sneakily put through this House. It was not mentioned once—you know I have been saying this ad nauseum today—in the Minister of Finance’s Budget speech. Not once. How were the people of New Zealand notified about this legislation? By one and a half sentences in a throwaway line in Tony Ryall’s health budget press release. Shocking appalling process—that is the way that the Government announces what Paula Bennett called a priority. 
Darien Fenton 
: She did 2 minutes during the first reading.  
KRIS FAAFOI 
: Sorry yes—2 minutes. I will give her credit for that. The other travesty here in this process is that this is being rushed through under urgency. In the first year of this measure being introduced 170 elderly Kiwis who are currently in rest home care are going to be affected. That is 170 families out there and probably more who are going to be very concerned about what is happening in this House today.  
Hon Annette King 
: That’s just to start with.  
KRIS FAAFOI 
: It is just to start because—if Ms King could advise me about the fourth year—I believe it is 640 individuals who will be affected in the fourth year. So over the next 2 or 3 years even more families will be affected by this. Those families are not going to get the opportunity to take their concerns to this House. They are not going to be able to come and say that they are unhappy happy or indifferent or ask: “Have you thought about this? Have you considered that? How much money is it going to save?”. We can answer a few of those questions now because the Ministry of Health has quite helpfully given us some numbers in the regulatory impact statement: $4.5 million saved in the first year and I believe that in the fourth year it gets up to $16.5 million. This is in a measure that earlier someone from the other side of the House and I think it was Tim Macindoe said was a measure to ensure the sustainability of residential aged care in New Zealand—to save $46 million. If this Government thinks saving $46 million in— 
Hon Annette King 
: It’s $16 million by the fourth year.  
KRIS FAAFOI 
: I say $16 million; $46 million I think in total. If this Government thinks saving $46 million is the answer to sorting out residential aged care in New Zealand it has got some problems. 
During the Committee stage many people on this side of the House did mention the silence of the Minister who was in the chair the Minister for Social Development. Well to be fair one member of the National Party did answer a question even though she got herself into a bit of grief with the whip. But the silence from the chair just shows you the tactics that the Government has employed to bring this piece of legislation through. It wants to sweep it through this House as fast as possible so that nobody outside of this House realises what is going on. That could be put in the category I believe of dodgy process. Those people outside of this House who are worried about this—and as Annette King said Grey Power is watching—wanted to hear from the Minister as to why this is being brought in what the rationale of it is how much money it is going to save and why they were not consulted earlier on. None of those questions were answered at all apart from the response that we got from Maggie Barry to say that members did not know about this before the election. Well I am sorry about this but that is just not good enough when serious questions are being asked and especially when this House does not get the opportunity at the select committee to let other people answer questions. So we are here asking the Minister in the chair questions and there was not a peep out of the Minister. I think that is a shame given what I think are the large ramifications of this bill to elderly people around the country. 
This is a serious issue about how we look after our elderly. It is an issue that personally I think needs the heads of this whole Parliament to get round a table and sort out. It needs a broad cooperative approach to make sure that our loved ones—and I am sure that we all in this House have people whom we hold dear and who are around this age—are looked after properly. If some of those people cannot afford care we must look at how we provide that for them and if there are some who can we must look at how we make sure that they are looked after as well in a way that is not overly burdensome to them. But it is an issue that needs a proper debate a broad debate about all the issues that are concerned in aged care not a piece of flimsy rushed through the House last-minute legislation that the Government would prefer be swept through this House very very quickly. 
This is a piece of legislation that unfortunately has gone through this House under urgency. It did not deserve that. This issue is bigger than this. It should not have been swept through under urgency people should have been able to have their say and as I said during my Committee speech about the silence of the Minister in the chair when we were putting questions to the Minister—I think some of them were reasonable and some of them might have had a slight political edge to them—the silence was golden. I think that shows the level of respect that this Government through this process with this bill has shown the elderly people of New Zealand.