Sio Su'a William: Social Assistance (Payment of New Zealand Superannuation and Veterans Pension Overseas) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Sio Su'a William: Social Assistance (Payment of New Zealand Superannuation and Veterans Pension Overseas) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:653;Page:2253] 
SU’A WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Mangere) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker Barker. Greetings and acknowledgment to members of this House. 
The Social Assistance (Payment of New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Overseas) Amendment Bill is a great bill and I am privileged to have the opportunity to take a call on it. We in Labour will fully support this bill through the legislative process; this bill is after all a bill that the previous Labour Government did all the work on. Under the previous Labour Government a review was initiated on the treatment of overseas pensions and the payment of New Zealand superannuation and the veterans pension overseas. 
This review began in 2002 and was completed in October 2007. Appropriately the review was undertaken by the Ministry of Social Development and Treasury. It is comforting to know that other Government agencies such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs the Inland Revenue Department and the Department of Labour were consulted and provided advice throughout the review. I am glad also that the review took into account the views expressed in correspondence to the Ministry of Social Development and to various Ministers at the time on the treatment of overseas pensions and the overseas payment provisions. 
I want to therefore acknowledge my friend and colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson for all her work and effort in ensuring that this work took place. The Hon Ruth Dyson as the previous Minister for Social Development and Employment had a good rapport with all of our communities throughout New Zealand and was in tune with the needs of our communities—in this case with pensioners and veterans. 
I also want to acknowledge the Minister for Social Development and Employment the Hon Paula Bennett for keeping this bill alive and for allowing it to proceed through the legislative system of this House. In my view the Minister has done an extraordinary thing and I suspect it would have required enormous courage to do so as I have noticed that anything that Labour worked on or introduced or that is associated with Labour suddenly gets dumped. We have seen examples of this not only with the dumping of Ross Wilson as the chair of the Accident Compensation Corporation board but with the further dumping by the Minister for ACC of other board members. I acknowledge the Minister for bringing this bill through. Some in this House might ask why we should acknowledge the Hon Paula Bennett when she did not do any of the work. I would like to think that she had the courage to convince her Cabinet colleagues that even though this bill had been introduced by the previous Labour Government she should still advance it through this House. So I salute the Hon Paula Bennett. 
Advancing this bill is also extraordinary because of the environment that the National Government has created around superannuation generally. I want to give members some context for the bill that we are now debating. I would say to members of this House that the National Government has created a lot of worry and uncertainty around superannuation. Earlier in the year the National Government created uncertainty around the future of the Superannuation Fund with its comments about borrowing to fund it suggesting investment losses and never for one minute recognising that the Superannuation Fund operates on a long-term strategy. 
National has always been uncomfortable around superannuation and is now refusing to rule out plundering the fund. In fact comments made by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance were captured in newspaper headlines. The  
National Business Review 
 on 27 February this year stated: “Stopping super payment inevitable”. Another quote from the  
Southland Times 
 on 25 February stated: “Key won’t rule out Super Fund suspension”. These kinds of headlines only remind Grey Power and senior citizens throughout New Zealand of the National Government in the 1990s. Members will know about the comment: “no ifs no buts no maybes”. Then the National Government of the 1990s broke National’s pre-election promise to scrap that surcharge and instead increased it from 20 percent to 25 percent and lowered the income exemption so that more superannuitants were affected by the surcharge. In 1998 the National Government linked superannuation to the level of the consumer price index. At the same time it cut its relative level from 65 percent to 60 percent of the average wage which was estimated would lead to between one-third and one-half of New Zealand’s elderly living in poverty. 
Hon David Parker 
: Who was Minister of Finance? 
SU’A WILLIAM SIO 
: Yes that is right. The newspaper headlines captured the National Government’s attitudes towards superannuation in the 1990s. I quote from the  
Evening Post 
 of 13 January 1999: “Govt looked at bigger super cuts”. Another one is from the  
Daily News 
 of 2 February 1999: “Super sacrifice”. That is the kind of background against which we now debate this bill. It is one of the reasons why I said that it must have taken courage for the Hon Paula Bennett to advance this bill particularly when the rest of her front bench is intending to do other things with superannuation. 
We come now to the bill the Social Assistance (Payment of New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Overseas) Amendment Bill. As I said Labour is supporting this bill. It is aimed at ensuring that New Zealanders who wish to retire overseas are able to do so comfortably in the country of their choice. When I look through the bill I see that it is pro-family as my colleague Dr Rajen Prasad has said. 
This bill recognises that we the ordinary New Zealand or Kiwi family have international links. The Minister mentioned Croatia. In my electorate we have Maori whose family live in Japan and in China and the parents like to visit their kids there and to stay a little. We have Pacific people who are linked to family in Rome and family in the USA. We have Latin American people Chinese people and people from the UK in my community. We have parents and grandparents who are travelling and wanting to spend time—sometimes a year sometimes 2 years sometimes more—with young relatives who live overseas. 
I would be very much interested in hearing the views of some of these families with regard to this bill. I am pleased that it will be going to a select committee. In particular we have church organisations that send out elderly people on missions sometimes for 2 years 3 years 5 years or longer and I would be interested in hearing their view in terms of what impact if any this bill may have on them. I am also particularly interested in the views of Pacific communities. This bill specifies 22 Pacific countries that we will have relationships with under the bill and I would be interested to know the views of some Pacific individuals in those specific communities who have experience in this regard. 
I also heard earlier a member of the ACT Party mention the potential problems associated with our relationship with Australia. I have had a couple of families come to me with similar problems with Australia. Australians who have come here or New Zealanders who have gone to Australia have had difficulty in securing their particular pension. I would be interested in hearing the views of families that have had difficulty in transporting their pension to or from Australia and New Zealand. 
I can see that you are getting tired Mr Assistant Speaker Roy and my time is running out so I am pretty pleased to speak in favour of this bill. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker.