Bradford Sue: Social Assistance (Payment of New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Overseas) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Bradford Sue: Social Assistance (Payment of New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Overseas) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
[Sitting date: 20 October 2009. Volume:658;Page:7294. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will continue to support the Social Assistance (Payment of New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Overseas) Amendment Bill through all stages in the House today. We agree with the previous Labour Government which introduced this legislation in the first place and with National which followed through with it that people on superannuation and the veterans pension should be able to continue to receive their entitlements while travelling or living overseas even in countries with which we have no reciprocal social security arrangements. Up until now people could not receive their full pension in that situation and that has had an ongoing negative impact on many older New Zealanders. 
During the consideration of the bill by the Social Services Committee members heard a number of submissions supporting the bill from the perspective of the yachting fraternity. Clearly a considerable number of our older citizens use retirement as an opportunity to take to the ocean wave. For those people the current law and regulations make such cruising highly problematic as they have to return home every 6 months to retain any eligibility at all for the pension. Those citizens are delighted with the freedom to travel that this new law will provide. Of course it is not just those roaming the high seas who will benefit from this bill but all our older people who want the freedom to choose the country they live in while still receiving full entitlement to superannuation. In an age when so many people here are still migrants themselves and would like the chance to spend time in their country of origin and also at a time when many of us have children living overseas the ability to spend considerable periods with family elsewhere is particularly precious. 
One improvement we made at the select committee that was endorsed by the Green Party was to make it clear that people who are outside of New Zealand for special medical treatment or training who serve in the armed forces or our embassy service abroad who work on a New Zealand - owned ship or who are undertaking VSA work or missionary work should have that time counted as New Zealand residence when it comes to working out the formula to calculate the proportion of superannuation they are paid while overseas once they turn 65. However I continue to have a concern that Kiwis who have worked overseas in either a paid or a volunteer capacity for non-governmental organisations other than Volunteer Service Abroad or religious bodies will not be covered by the same provision. I think it is a glaring inequity as working for Oxfam or Save the Children should not be seen in a different light from working for a religious mission or VSA. We were told that to extend the provision to other not-for-profit organisations would create inconsistencies that would be beyond the scope of the bill to deal with but I hope the Government will look at how to address the anomaly as soon as is practicable. 
On a rather more significant issue a number of submitters raised the same matter that I talked about in my first reading speech on this bill: the vexed question of the impact of the dollar-for-dollar deduction against New Zealand superannuation payments imposed in regard to private contributions made to Government-administered overseas pension schemes. The matter has come before the Social Services Committee over and over again in the 10 years that I have been a member of Parliament. People are deeply upset by the fundamental inequity of missing out on the benefits of private pension funds in other countries—such as the United Kingdom Canada and others—that they contributed to often for a major part of their working lives. Although it is true that this issue is outside the scope of this bill heartfelt opposition to the direct deduction policy of section 70 of the Social Security Act 1964 will not go away in a hurry. 
I am aware that when in Opposition some National members spoke encouragingly to superannuitants in that situation about changes that they might make should they be part of a Government. I urge National to have the strength and foresight to grasp this admittedly thorny issue and make a determined effort to deal with it in a fair and equitable way rather than leaving it to one side as being too difficult or problematic as has happened up until now. It is good to see one group of superannuitants and people on the veterans pension being treated with more fairness by the bill before us today but I am very sure that a section 70 problem will linger until and unless a Government of whatever hue is willing to address this underpinning injustice that impacts on so many of our citizens.