O'Rourke Denis: 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 
O'Rourke Denis: 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:2528. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 This Budget as I said in the first reading is a penny-pinching Budget and this bill the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill is the most pathetic of the penny-pinching measures in it. It imposes costs on the elderly and it confers absolutely no benefits whatsoever on them anywhere in it. So for them it is a zero Budget. It is a zero care Budget for the elderly. 
In the first reading I referred to the Prime Minister Mr John Key as “Mr Australia” because of his policies and intentions to ensure that many of our most talented young people will disappear to Australia as a result of Government policy. But maybe it would be more appropriate to refer to him as “Mr Fagin” because he is pinching pennies from the pockets of the elderly and of course from newspaper delivery boys. That is the level at which we see the National Government’s pitch to the elderly in this Budget. It is an insult to the elderly of this country and it follows an insult by the Prime Minister to the elderly during the last election campaign in which the Prime Minister referred to New Zealand First supporters dying off. Of course in fact more and more New Zealanders are going to be reaching retirement age so it is the opposite in effect to that which the Prime Minister referred to. It will be his problem to regain their confidence in National policies. Well if he did want to do that this Budget sure ain’t going anywhere near there and certainly not with the measure proposed in this bill. They will lose confidence in National the elderly people of this country in droves. 
Where is the strategy to deal with the elderly? Where is the strategy in this Budget or in Government policy to support the elderly long term to ensure funding of superannuation for 65-year-olds in the future? There is nothing but silence for the elderly in this Budget except of course for this bill which will only make life harder for them. Only New Zealand First can be relied on to support superannuation for the elderly from 65 years permanently. At least the Labour Party is open about its policy to increase the retirement age to 67 but that will never be adopted by New Zealand First. 
The Government was hoping to slide this bill through unnoticed and when you have a look at it you can see that that is not surprising. Maybe the Government just forgot to do a press release or perhaps could not do one in this case. Well I could help the Government. I could help it do the press release. I could tell the people of New Zealand how the elderly are being treated and how the elderly are being punished in this Budget and by this measure. The Government did not consult did not assess the negative effects on the elderly or their families and did not allow reference to a select committee. It did not care about the elderly. It did not care about their views. That has been typical of its approach to this all along. This is a disappointing Budget for the elderly. Compare it with New Zealand First policy. If we were part of Government right now we would be looking at a 10 percent reduction in power bills for the elderly—for SuperGold card holders—and a $10 cap on visits to the doctor with the first year free altogether. Those are the sorts of policies that the elderly in this country want to see—not the kind of thing we see in this bill. 
I want to talk next about the Minister for Social Development’s claim about indexation somehow preserving the assets. What utter nonsense that is. In fact this policy ensures that those assets will be whittled away and whittled away sooner. More people will be forced to reach the threshold sooner as well. Otherwise how indeed could the money be saved at all? National is making a political football out of this issue. This is not what the elderly want and not what the people of New Zealand want either. What they do need—