Newman Muriel: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Newman Muriel: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17348] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I would like to make some comments on Part 2 of this bill and in particular I want to look at schedule 27 “Means assessment under Part 4” substituted in schedule 1. It takes us through the changes that will be effected until the year 2026 and shows the progressive increases in the threshold. 
But what I really want to talk about is whether this legislation is good legislation. The initial cost of the bill will be about $110 million. I understand that that amount will increase by about $15 million a year as the threshold increases and more people retire. I also understand that in 30 years’ time the cost of this legislation could be as much as $1 billion a year and I ask the Labour Government whether it has the right to put in place such a small bill—which it is; there are only two parts to it—that will cost this country so much when the important point is that the cost burden will fall on families who are struggling to get by. Those families will be forced to pay higher and higher taxes as the years go by and to pay taxes for people who can afford their own care. I think that that is the important point. 
There has been a means-tested regime in place and although not everybody thinks it is fair it has forced New Zealanders to look at the fact that if they can afford to pay for rest home care then they have been asked to do so. This bill changes all that and it will force poor struggling families to pay for people who could well afford to pay for themselves. 
I say that that is poor legislation. It is ill-advised and it is not based on real need but simply on the need to buy votes. That is what this bill is—vote-driven legislation. I say shame on the Labour Government for doing that because of the huge cost burden that it will put on New Zealand. In particular it is what we call inter-generational theft where one generation has to pay for another generation. 
I say that the answer to the problem of elderly care is to make sure that people can save up and have resources in their retirement. Then if they have some unforeseen event they have the financial means to be able to cope with it. 
However the second point about this bill is that most of the submissions made to the Social Services Committee talked about the fact that this was a broken promise of the Labour Party. Labour charged into power in 1999 promising to abolish asset testing and all submitters including many elderly submitters from Grey Power essentially asked: “Why have you broken your pre-election commitment to the elderly? Where have your principles gone Labour Party?”. They went on to say that they believed that this bill was a breach of faith and they strongly opposed the Government’s move to bring this bill into Parliament. They said it was simply not good enough. 
I concur with them that this is a Government that tries to pretend it is doing the right thing but we see with this bill that it is not. It is simply making a sop to that elderly vote. The Government has not abided by its election promises and as a result I think that members are sitting here tonight voting on poor legislation. 
A more worrying part of this bill has already been brought up in this debate. It is the fact that many of the social service providers who have been in this sector are essentially saying that unless the Government does something to assist them to make ends meet they will have to quit the sector. We have already seen that with The Salvation Army and that situation is not good enough.