Newman Muriel: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Newman Muriel: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:615;Page:11074] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to speak on this bill. I have to inform the Government that our party will not be voting for this bill for a number of different reasons. But to start off with what is really disturbing is the fact that this bill does not remove income and asset testing as the Labour Party has been promising for two elections. In fact it lifts the threshold for asset testing. It puts out the spin that Labour is dealing to income and asset testing when it is actually not. This is just another example of a pre-election bribe by the Labour Party. We are getting used to this sort of legislation passing through the House because it was not too many weeks ago that we debated the Holidays Bill which was going to give workers 4 weeks’ holiday a year to start in the year 2007 for goodness’ sake! 
 This social security bill does not begin until 1 July 2005. The interesting thing is that before Saturday’s poll by Television New Zealand the Government probably thought the election would be over by then. Now there is nothing surer than that it will have to go its full term before it goes to the polls. Instead of the Government being able to use this bill as a bribe at the next election the commencement date means that the bill will have already become law. Labour will have lost its negotiating power with older New Zealanders whom it hopes to tempt into voting for Labour. This bill is a bribe aimed at a group of New Zealanders who are very important New Zealanders. There are 450000 retired Kiwis. They are a significant voting bloc and it is sad that those people will be misled by a Government that will go around the country telling them that it will remove income and asset testing when it will not. One of the worst aspects of Labour Party politics is that its spin is so big but in reality what it is doing is often so small. 
This bill is about the intergenerational transfer of wealth—taking money from the next generation to pay for the debts of this generation. That is immoral. Why should we expect our children to have to pay for our care and for the care of this generation? When we actually look at the cost of paying for the baby boomers we see that this amendment to the legislation will end up costing this country billions and billions of dollars. The Minister brushes off the fact that it will cost $110 million in the first year. So in the second year it will be $110 million plus because the threshold will increase by $10000 a year and then on top of that the next lot of $110 million or $115 million. By the third year there will be another lot of retirees coming on. 
Remember that every year the number of people retiring goes up. The figures are something like 15000 retiring this year and in 30 years’ time it will be about 55000 people retiring a year. So the cost will become unsustainable for this country. The Labour Government does not care about that and that is what makes it such an irresponsible socialist Government. All it cares about is power. It does not care about what is good for this country. What is good for this country is what is good for the next generation of this country and the generation after. 
The Minister had the audacity to claim that this bill will encourage people to save for their retirement. What a laugh! If this Government really wanted people to save for their retirement the first thing it would do would be to reduce taxes so that working New Zealanders could take home more of what they earn and be able to afford to put it into a retirement fund and not have to rely on the Government to look after them in their old age. When I said that taxpayers should be allowed to take home more of what they earn there was a collective groan from the socialists sitting on the benches opposite. I wonder whether those members have actually stopped to realise that taxation is legalised theft. People have a gun held to their heads and if they do not pay up they face penalty rates which just about ruin them. This Government is quite happy to hold the gun at every taxpayer’s head and take more and more tax. 
 In the future there is nothing more certain than that tax rates will have to increase to pay for this policy. The Minister did not tell us what the projections are. She was silent on that because she is embarrassed; so are those members sitting opposite. If they are not embarrassed I challenge any one of them to stand and tell us what the cost of this policy will be in 10 years’ 20 years’ and 30 years’ time when the baby-boomer bubble hits this country because by that time we will be in a financial crisis if we are not prudent now. 
New Zealanders want to know that their kids will not be ruined by socialists who want to spend more money than the country can afford just because they want to win the next election. I think it is despicable to bring in a bill like this for that reason. Ordinary New Zealanders will look at it and think: “Gosh isn’t that Government being kind.” They will not understand the real implications for this country as we go forward of a policy that will be so costly in the future. 
I ask the Labour Government to justify why working taxpayers who are struggling so hard to pay the bills pay the mortgage—and these days pay off their student loans and all the other debts they have lined up—should have to pay to reap the costs of residential care for millionaire New Zealanders who can afford to pay for themselves. Where is the justification in that sort of policy? It does not make any sense at all in my mind. 
Good public policy means providing help for those in need but asking those who can afford to look after themselves to do so. It means that the small funding that a Government has available should be focused on those who cannot get by without Government support. Why would a Government bring in a bill that provides a blanket lifting of asset-testing levels for New Zealanders when many of those people do not need the threshold lifted because they can manage for themselves? 
The most honourable thing the Labour Government could do if it really is concerned about people in their old age is give people back more of the money they earn so they can save it in a decent retirement fund. When they turn 65 they will not only have the pension but they will have a sizeable income coming into their household. They will be able to afford to pay for any of the bad things that might happen to them or incapacitate them in the future. That is the sort of honourable policy that a Government could bring in instead of trying to use this bill to buy votes to win the next election. That is what is so despicable.