O'Connor Simon: Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Simon: Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 13 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7145. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I am very pleased to take a call on this Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill. I want to acknowledge the words of the Minister in bringing this bill to the House but also the member who has just sat down the Hon Annette King for her words and the support of the Labour Party at this stage. I think that it is indicative actually of I suppose the conducive discussions that have been had by various parties to bring this bill to the House.I am very pleased it is coming to the Health Committee.Scott Simpson: A good committee.SIMON O’CONNOR: Well I think it is a very good committee Mr Simpson. We know it is a busy committee—Hon Ruth Dyson: Who chairs it?SIMON O’CONNOR: —but I hope you do find time to get back to the Coromandel to serve those good people down there. It is actually a busy and hard-working committee. We have a couple of bills before us at the moment so this will be the third one that we will begin considering—so quite a hard-working and busy committee—but I think as has been noted in two speeches to date this is a bill that has I believe the widespread support of the House. We will be interested to hear what the other parties are saying in further speeches.This bill is bringing into effect discussions that have been had. I think that it is important for those listening out there to know that this has come out of a court case and a series of concerns and we heard some of that raised in the previous speech. This bill puts those agreements into effect. I am just making a distinction here. This is not the Minister of Health or the Ministry of Health making a series of arbitrary decisions. Instead it is listening to what came through the courts in discussions effectively between the Crown the Ministry of Health unions and so forth. I think it is really important to note that it is incredibly critical work that these people do.I do not claim to have huge experience in this area other than a couple of years of if you like providing home help to people in Fiji. There was no need for transport costs mainly because you had to walk between villages and everywhere. But I think it is just a small hint of appreciation for the enormous good work that these people do in caring more often than not for our most vulnerable in society.I think we have provided ourselves with a very good outcome here that we are acknowledging not only the work but also—as was pointed out through the court case—that transport in between clients is work as well and should be covered. I think importantly—and it was mentioned several times by the Minister—this has to be something that is sustainable. I think that has been part of the negotiations since April—to come to a way of providing adequate recompense that all parties can agree to but importantly recompense that is sustainable into the future. The Minister did note that the Government in Budget 2014 has put I think about $96 million into this with a further I think $14 million. So the money is there but it has been important to bring all of those parties together.Again this is a bill to bring into effect the discussions that have been had. I think as chair of the committee I just want to acknowledge the hard work that has clearly—Hon Ruth Dyson: Oh! Now we know who’s the chair.SIMON O’CONNOR: —gone on. Yes the Hon Ruth Dyson was having a moment when she could not remember who the chair was so I thought that we had better indulge her. But we are really pleased at the enormous work that has gone in already so I want to acknowledge those different parties. We obviously have the service providers those involved with the union 20 district health boards and of course the Crown and then the ministry and the Minister himself.It was being noted at the end by the speaker the Hon Annette King who was speaking formerly—the previous speaker; there goes grammar at this time in the afternoon—that it is a two-staged process that we are looking at. There are going to be two series of payments: one that effectively kicked in from 1 July this year and that recompense will run through until 29 February next year—so a leap year clearly. Just reading some notes here because I think it is important to be specific the payment for that period of time is going to be calculated using a figure that represents the minimum wage for the weighted average of time spent travelling. Then from 1 March 2016 an ongoing regime will be in play. I think it is at least a minimum of 50c per kilometre around transport costs but again it is to try to reflect some of the costs involved with travel to provide that enormous support.Again I am very pleased that this bill is here bringing effect to those negotiations and very pleased that the Health Committee will have it. Can I end as I started by thanking those people who work in the homes and in the community to support our most vulnerable and to say thank you for the tremendous work that you do and we look forward to progressing this bill through the House.