Scott Lynda: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Scott Lynda: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17284] 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 As we have been hearing tonight Part 1 states that we will see the implementation of this legislation in 2005. Back in 1998 National increased the income and asset level that people could keep when they were in residential care. At this time 6 or 7 years later I certainly support an increase once again in the level of assets that people can keep when going into care. It is a principle that National established and the level has increased over time. The problem is that this bill will not be implemented until 1 July 2005. The reason the date is so far away is that when Labour became the Government it realised how much this promise would cost. This legislation is costly because we have an ageing population and aged-care services are expensive. 
Members should think about what the elderly can get for $636 per week. We are talking about specialised care. No longer do rest homes have to have a set number of parking spaces for residents. People do not drive to the door of a rest home any more—they come in an ambulance. The level of disability and the level of care is much much higher than it was in 1994 when the figure of $636 was set. The people who come in an ambulance to a rest home are generally very physically frail or have some form of dementia. They may not be bad enough to go into a dementia care unit—if they are basically in a semi-terminal phase they will go into a hospital—but rest home services provide very high levels of care now. What do residents get for $636? They want to have a rest home with good facilities in terms of the size of the rooms and the showers. The home has to have equipment. It has to pay for doctors be warm provide good food and often cater for special diets. The home has to provide for medications. All those things come out of that figure—one does not get a lot for $636 per week. 
Time after time the Social Services Committee heard submissions from the rest home sector which was concerned about that $636. The Salvation Army has said clearly today that after 70 years it can no longer afford to provide rest home care. This Government has kept between $100 million and $200 million in order to honour part of a promise. While in Opposition Labour members irresponsibly said that Labour would take off income and asset testing. It came into Government found out that that was an extremely expensive promise and has backed off it ever since. It has come up with what we see in Part 1 today which allows people to keep $150000 worth of assets. Those assets really are for the relatives not for the person in care; it is the relatives who get those assets when someone dies. 
That change means people will have to pay for a lot more services. Part 1 clearly clarifies: “… the funder’s obligations to pay for contracted care services”. District health boards are now contracted funders. District health boards from all over the country are screaming about the risk that has been handed to them by our aged-care services. Every district health board that came to the select committee said that it was really worried about the devolvement of aged-care funding to district health boards and the financial risk they were taking on. We see that they have offered rest homes a 1 percent increase in funding when the rest home and hospital sector says it needs at least a 20 percent increase. This Government has devolved its responsibility to district health boards and has kept the money that should have gone into improving services in order to fulfil the half-promise that it irresponsibly made to older New Zealanders. 
National has never promised that it would totally remove income and asset testing. We have never said that. We certainly support increasing the asset level but we have not broken a promise. We realise the financial implications of this legislation for New Zealand given our ageing population.