Sage Eugenie: Affordable Healthcare Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Affordable Healthcare Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:7954. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koutou tēnā tātou e huihui mai nei ki roto i te Whare. E te Māngai o te Whare tēnā koe. Mr Bennett it is a pity—oh he is not here. It is a pity that he does not listen and that he always jumps to assumptions. The Green Party will not be supporting this bill because we believe it is discriminatory towards migrants and because we think that it is encouraging more private health insurance rather than boosting our public system.We know that the bill is intended by New Zealand First to stimulate higher voluntary levels of New Zealanders taking out health insurance because of the stresses and strains on the public health system but the solution there is to invest more in our public health system not to encourage more private health insurance and more doctors going to the private sector. So we see this bill as a problem potentially because of the changes to the Immigration Act and the requirement there for parent category migrants to have health insurance including cover for elective surgery and for them to have to have this insurance for 10 years.There seems to be an assumption in the bill that the only people applying for parent category status are the elderly when the Immigration Act actually provides that anybody over 18 who is a parent and who has been resident in New Zealand for 3 years or more can apply. The Green Party wants to encourage family reunification so a bill like this that puts an obstacle on family reunification by putting this financial penalty on parent category migrants is not something we can support and we have not seen any evidence that it is these parent category migrants who are at risk of being sick and that they have increased need of the public health system. So that is one reason why we are not supporting the bill.We are also not supporting the bill because it is proposing to remove the fringe benefit tax on private health insurance as an incentive for employers to encourage their staff to take out private insurance. So the Green Party has proposed removing fringe benefit tax on electric vehicles to encourage greater uptake of electric vehicles as part of a good step for New Zealand of reducing our climate emissions. But here this removal of the fringe benefit tax is not increasing a public good; it is actually helping to undermine our public health system so we do not support it.The bill is also proposing a 25 percent rebate for SuperGold cardholders who have health insurance up to a $500 limit annually. Certainly New Zealand First’s SuperGold card for transport has been brilliant in encouraging a lot of older people to use public transport. It has increased their mobility it has increased community cohesion with people getting out more—using the ferry down to Waiheke—but here with this rebate it is reducing tax income and it is for a group in society that we think is not the priority for increased investment.We need to increase investment in our children. We have over 200000 children in New Zealand living in poverty—they need to have safe warm dry homes. If we are going to be reducing tax income we should be doing it to assist them not to assist senior citizens. The instances of poverty amongst the senior citizen community are much less than amongst young children and families. So it is Kiwi kids who are much more likely to grow up in poverty than our senior citizens are to die in poverty. For that reason this is not a bill that we can support because it is not encouraging investment in young people and children in poverty which we see as a much greater priority and because as the bill itself recognises with this exception for migrants from the Pacific in the parent category—why make that exception if New Zealand First is not recognising that the bill is discriminating against migrants? Why accept parent category migrants from the Pacific?In the Green Party we support family reunification. Migrants—we are all migrants in this country and this bill by imposing a high financial penalty on migrants is not something we can support.