Seymour David: New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Pro Rata Entitlement) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSeymour David: New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Pro Rata Entitlement) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 16 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6732. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to this bill. At first blush you might have thought it would be at least a topic worth supporting because there are some serious issues and I have to disagree with Jami-Lee Ross; the sustainability of New Zealand superannuation although it may be a politically popular thing to trumpet is not a fiscal reality. You only have to ask Treasury to give you a copy of its statement on New Zealand’s long-term fiscal outlook to understand that. I can also concur with what Grant Robertson said: anybody who has a regular presence in their electorate office—and that is not everybody as we know—will understand that section 70 of the Social Security Act is a real issue for a great many people. There are people who find that they have perhaps as Mr Robertson said a pension entitlement to New Zealand superannuation. They may have a spouse whose entitlement from an overseas pension scheme is greater than that pension entitlement and they find that the excess is actually deducted from their New Zealand superannuation entitlement. I can understand why people find that very very annoying. I have dealt with some of them and often it is actually very saddening.Let us have a few observations—let us have a few realities about this bill. This bill is unworkable. Where was Denis O’Rourke in 1977? Who knows? And you would have to multiply that. You would have to ask everybody where they were during that period and whether it was more than 2 months that they were away. The fact is that it is unworkable and impossible but where it becomes very easy to tell is if you are like Julie Anne Genter. We know that she was not in New Zealand in 1977 because we know that she grew up in another country and that might be why the Attorney-General has given a report showing that this violates the Human Rights Act: because it treats different groups of people differently. This New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Pro Rata Entitlement) Amendment Bill will never be enforceable. For recent immigrants it will be almost impossible to get a fair hearing. They will be treated differently. The problem with New Zealand First in general is that you might say “Oh but their intentions with this bill were at least sound in this particular case.” but they do it so often that you come back to what it was that I think it was Stephen Covey who once said: “I can’t hear what you’re saying because what you are screams so loudly.” Once again in this bill we see the New Zealand First trend of being at the very least I think as one member said borderline racist.But then we come to the section 70 issues—those that all of us who have sat in our electorate offices would like to help with. There is Sarah Dowie. We know she was born in Invercargill so it will not affect her because you will never be able to prove where she was in 1977. Nevertheless we would like to help people affected by section 70. But just take the example that Mr Robertson brought up earlier of the woman who has taught in New Zealand for 30 or 40 years. She has a full entitlement to New Zealand superannuation and yet she finds herself by the sound of it with a husband who has a fairly generous pension from overseas—at least twice as much as the New Zealand superannuation entitlement—and she finds that she does not get any New Zealand superannuation so they miss out. The reality is that under this bill of pro rata entitlement he would miss out anyway. They would still be out by one pension because he by the sounds of it has spent so much time overseas accumulating a pension. You will find that even though it is a lovely idea to at least go forward to select committee and debate section 70 the reason it is so fraught is that there are so many pension schemes that it is simply very very hard to reconcile the many schemes that there are around the world. With that in mind I say that this is a bill that is insincere in its commitment. It will not have the effects that we hope for and for that reason it would not be a good use of the select committee or the House’s time to continue debating this bill through any further stages. Thank you.