King Annette: Affordable Healthcare Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Affordable Healthcare Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:7952. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): That was a disgraceful speech from David Bennett. The Minister of Health is sitting in the House and he could have given a reasoned response to a bill that has had a lot of work put into it and a lot of consultation. In fact if you read the history of this bill being put together and who has been consulted on it you will know that it is being supported by a wide range of the very people that the National Party goes and asks for donations from. The House has been treated tonight to a disgraceful display of—it was just vitriol just vitriol. What did we get? We got a member talking about it as if it was an immigration bill. The member had not even read the bill. It was a disgrace. Then he said that one of the reasons National would not support it was that it breached human rights. Well did the Government think about that when it passed the bill about adult carers of disabled people? It breached the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Its own Attorney-General said so. Did that stop it from passing a bill that has been an absolute failure for people who are disabled in New Zealand and have to have adult carers? There is a word for it; it starts with “h”.This bill is a bill that is worthy of consideration and will be given it by this party the Labour Party. It will not only be given consideration but should we be in Government with the New Zealand First Party we would look to see how we could implement parts of this bill and we would work on other parts of it.It is the first real try to do something for old people in New Zealand who increasingly have lost their medical insurance at the age of 65. If that member was any sort of constituency MP he would have been to his Grey Power meetings—has he been to a Grey Power meeting? If he had been they would have raised this bill with him. If he had been to Grey Power and if he had held constituency clinics he would have had older people over 65 coming to him and saying: “We used to have medical insurance. We took it out when we were 30 and we were well for most of our lives. We hardly claimed anything but when we reached 65 the premiums on our medical insurance were so sky-high that we had to get rid of it. We are now on a fixed income. We have no medical insurance and we are on the never-never for our hip replacement.”This bill puts up a suggestion that there be the equivalent of a rebate of $500 on medical insurance. Let us think if there is a comparison to some other policy here. Let us think about the rates rebate for example—Hon Ruth Dyson: Who brought that in?Hon ANNETTE KING: —brought in by a very good Labour Government. A rates rebate that says that for older New Zealanders rates can get a bit high. Working through local government you can apply to get up to—it is over $500 now I think—Dr Megan Woods: $600.Hon ANNETTE KING: —$600 in a rates rebate. It helps those older people to pay their rates. So this suggestion is that there is a rates-type rebate on their medical insurance. Is that a stupid idea? Is that not worthy of consideration and sending to a select committee?The second issue that is raised in this bill is around fringe benefit tax and I find it fascinating that the Prime Minister said that he supported this part of the bill. Did he not tell the National Party? He actually said it out in the Hutt Valley. He said that he came out in support of removing fringe benefit tax from health insurance. I have got it. Shall I table this Mr Assistant Speaker? It is the cover story from Health Insurance News and I think if I was to table it the members opposite—including Chris Bishop who prances around the Hutt thinking he is Mr Hutt—maybe would like to read what the Prime Minister said about the removal of fringe benefit tax. Yes I will seek leave in a moment to table it.The other part of this bill—and my colleague Clayton Cosgrove will speak on this—is around the issue of medical insurance for people coming to New Zealand. He was a former Minister of Immigration and he will give an insight of how things did work when he was Minister. So why should we not support this bill to a select committee and let those hundreds—