Dyson Ruth: SuperGold Health Check Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: SuperGold Health Check Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 24 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4754. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Well that is 10 minutes of our lives that we will never get back. What a tragic waste of space—absolute waste of space—from the patronising heights of Orākei telling us that older people do not need better support to go to a doctor. Thank you very much for that contribution Mr Simon O’Connor. I am so pleased it is on the public record and I will enjoy knocking on the doors of SuperGold card holders in your electorate and making sure that they have heard your contribution to this debate. I want to commend the Rt Hon Winston Peters for bringing this bill back to the House. I think it is a very good bill and I am delighted to be supporting it.The member Simon O’Connor who tragically is the chair of the Health Committee still I think said that National would do anything to improve the health of New Zealanders—any proposal would have good discussion. Three minutes into his speech the first speaker from National said that he was going to vote against this bill. One of those statements is not true and perhaps neither of them is true but you cannot give a good idea any consideration unless it goes from this House to a select committee and that is where it should have gone. The member also made I think it was a sort of Ian McKelvie - type of contribution. Remember Ian McKelvie a couple of weeks ago said that he was wondering whether there was any difference between people-trafficking and sheep rustling? Ian McKelvie said that in the House. Mr O’Connor said: “It doesn’t really matter when old people go to the doctor. You know if it’s early on in their illness or later on they will end up in hospital anyway.” It was an extraordinary comment. It is on the public record. It is in Hansard. It will be another one that I think will need to be distributed.Why do we not get some facts on the table to consider in this bill? It costs about $30 to $35 for a person who is over 65 to go to the doctor—that is the average across New Zealand. Over half of over-65-year-olds in New Zealand are totally dependent on New Zealand superannuation and if you go up to the next 20 percent 80 percent of their income is from superannuation. We can be very proud of our level of superannuation compared with many countries but it does not leave a lot left over. It does not leave a lot left in your pocket every week and if you have had something big break down—whether it is a fridge a washing machine or a car or the roof is leaking and you need some big expenditure—that would chew away at your savings pretty fast. If you have been on a low fixed income for your entire life and then you go on to superannuation then going to the doctor might just be that expense you cannot afford. We know that if frail people are sick and do not get treatment they end up in hospital and who wins from that? Who wins from a person with a preventable illness not being treated and ending up in hospital? I cannot see any winners out of that.Simon O’Connor clearly can see a winner out of having someone who is 75 who has contributed all their life to the good of our community in one way or another who cannot afford to go to the doctor ending up in hospital. He said: “That doesn’t matter. They would have ended up in hospital at some stage anyway.” Three doctors visits a year for an over-65-year-old is about the equivalent of a quarter of one hair straightener at the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. For every pensioner who has three doctors visits a year it is about a quarter of a hair straightener. I think that for every person who gets early treatment and who ends up not getting worse not being sick not being hospitalised or just not being really unwell actually—that is bad for them even if it does not cost us money—it is a good investment.I would not often say this to the Rt Hon Winston Peters with regard to his view on people for superannuation but I think he could have gone further in this bill. I would like to see him go further. Access to primary health care should be something that this House should strive for so that people who get unwell get access to a doctor or a nurse as early as possible. If it is money that is the barrier then we should ask what the priority is for spending of this Government and this Parliament. I think older people should be quite high on the list. They do not have an opportunity to make additional money often. They are dependent on what is compared with all of us in this House a low fixed income. This bill would have given them better quality of life and reduced our health expenditure. With just 1 percent of uptake of these people not going into hospital it would have been financially neutral. I urge the Government members to think again support old people and support this bill’s referral to the select committee.