Tolley Anne: New Zealand Superannuation and Veterans' Pensions (Entitlements of Spouses and Partners of People in Long-term Residential Care and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee 
Tolley Anne: New Zealand Superannuation and Veterans' Pensions (Entitlements of Spouses and Partners of People in Long-term Residential Care and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:631;Page:3507] 
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
: 
 What a fantastic contribution from my colleague Mr Carter and how true his words are. It is a disgrace that it has taken this Government so long to bring this legislation to the House and when it did it had the full cooperation of all the other parties to bring it through in a timely fashion because we all knew that it made sense and that it was fair and just legislation. 
But I just want to speak tonight about one little part of it that disturbed me throughout the whole process. I cannot see many of my colleagues from the Social Services Committee here but it was very difficult for me to get to the bottom of this part of the legislation during the select committee stage. I refer to clause 8 “Absences up to 52 weeks with aid agencies”. In the information that was provided to the select committee the case was made to change that 52 weeks because there were a reasonable number of superannuitants or veteran pensioners overseas undertaking voluntary work who were penalised for being out of the country too long. 
I do not have a problem with that; the problem I had was that all the information that came to the select committee members talked about a 2-year period and about the fact that the request for an extension of this time was to cover the 2-year duration of a standard Volunteer Service Abroad assignment. I was actually very happy to do that. The case was made that some people have had to take a shorter assignment because otherwise they would be penalised. I agree with all the logic in that. The question I kept asking however was why in this legislation we do not see a 2-year period as all the evidence and all the requests were about. No we see a 3-year period. I do not have a problem with whether it is 2 years or 3 years but I take passing legislation seriously and as a member of Parliament I want to know that I understand the reason for all the legislation that I am involved with and that I have to defend out in the community. 
Throughout the process I could not get a valid reason for having an extension to 3 years rather than an extension to 2 years. It was not that there was any great call for 3 years. It might be a pedantic point but I think that legislation is an important part of the role of a member of Parliament. Legislation affects people’s lives and we should have good reasons for passing laws in this country. We as parliamentarians need to be able to understand the reasons for them. At the very last minute when we were getting ready to deliberate in the select committee I was finally given a reason for the 3 years. It is because the term of our representatives overseas our ambassadors is 3 years. In actual fact that is quite a different issue from what is raised in this legislation. I thought we were talking about volunteers working for recognised aid agencies overseas. That has nothing to do with people working in the diplomatic service; that is quite another issue altogether. 
Because I had made considerable attempts to get some rationale behind the 3 years I did not want to pursue it anymore. I must confess I gave up but I did say that I was going to raise it during the debate. There is still not a good reason for extending it to 3 years. If there is a good reason I ask the Minister in the chair the Hon Ruth Dyson to take a call and explain to the Committee why there is this extension to 3 years rather than the 2 that was requested which was backed up by the information that had come in to the select committee. Why we are we now passing something that was not called for? I hope the Minister will take the opportunity to tell us whether the answer is as some of her colleagues are suggesting something that we should know.