Goff Phil: Veterans’ Support Bill — First ReadingText is subject to correctionGoff Phil: Veterans’ Support Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:14104. Text is subject to correction.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): On behalf of the Labour Party I want to support the Veterans’ Support Bill and I thank the Minister for giving me an early draft copy of it. I too join with the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs as I stand in this Chamber and look at the memorial plaques around the Chamber to remember those who sacrificed their lives and those who served this country in a way that no current member of this House has been required to do. I look across and I seeMessines and we have a plaque for Passchendaele.On 12 October I joined the Minister to lay a wreath at the Auckland War Memorial hall to commemorate the appalling tragedy of Passchendaele where 2400 New Zealand men were casualties in the first 4 hours of the battle—2400. We stand on the shoulders of those men who made that sacrifice and of those men and women who served our country in that war and subsequent wars. I am also conscious that just a matter of months ago we had new plaques put on the wall commemorating Timor and Afghanistan. The 14 years that our troops served in Timor and the more than 10 years in Afghanistan and in the Solomons—and originally in Timor at battalion strength—means that there will be a need for the provisions of this legislation for many years to come.It is right to say that this bill has indeed been a long time coming. The fact is that by far the largest group of veterans entitled to its provisions is still that group that served in the Second World War and the ranks of those veterans thin with each day that passes. There is no World War II veteran younger than their late 80s now. Most like my father are in their 90s. Regrettably by the time we pass this legislation and it comes into effect in 2014-15 many more hundreds if not thousands of those veterans will have passed away.I as the Minister of Defence was involved in the initial discussions and the decision to review the War Pensions Act 1954. We were aware that the Act was at that stage more than 50 years old. It was outdated it was inaccessible and it was badly in need of change. We believed that we should first of all be providing better support for our veterans—those who served in the Second World War in J-force in Korea in Malaya and in Viet Nam—and we also believed that we needed new and updated provisions for a younger generation of veterans.The natural cut-off point to distinguish between those two groups was the passage under the third Labour Government of the Accident Compensation Act in 1974. ACC makes good provision for injured people but we believed as the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs has said that in respect of those who are injured in the course of service to their country there needed to be a margin over and above the payments that were made to other New Zealanders who are injured in the course of their work or their leisure or at home.We believed that it was not enough simply to make payments—we needed a modern 21st century approach to rehabilitation in order to wherever possible enable people to get back into work and to have early intervention to provide recovery. We looked around the world. We looked at Australia the United Kingdom and Canada in particular and in each of those countries there were new models of support that we believed would be good models for New Zealand to follow. As a result of that we requested that the Law Commission independently review the provisions of the War Pensions Act 1954 and we included that in the memorandum of understanding with both the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association and the Ex-Vietnam Services Association.That was not the only important thing that we did in that memorandum. It was an interesting gathering as we negotiated that memorandum. On one side were those in the Government of my generation who had been anti-war protesters at the time of the VietNam War and on the other side were the men who had actually fought there. But there was no rancour and there was a full agreement from our side under the Labour Government that whereas we did not agree with the war in Viet Nam it was not the veterans who made the decision to go there; it was the Government that sent them there. But tragically the flack—for want of a better term—that followed a war that became deeply unpopular as it was seen as ineffectual and unjust fell on the veterans themselves.We determined out of that memorandum of understanding Tribute 08 where for the first time those veterans were given the honour and the respect that they deserved for the honourable discharge of their duties and the courage they showed. The one outstanding factor that was left was the question of a review of the War Pensions Act and it is important that we now make every progress to try to advance that.In late 2008 Sir Geoffrey Palmer who then headed the Law Commission came up with a 280-page document. It was a very substantial piece of work—[Interruption]—a discussion paper; yes there was a lot to discuss—and then there was a very good consultative process. The Law Commission went around the military bases of New Zealand it went around theRSAs it talked to veterans and it talked to current service personnel. It finally reported in May 2010 by which time there had been a change of Government and the report came to the new National Government.The commission had done the bulk of the work. It had a quite detailed blueprint for what it believed needed to replace the War Pensions Act but it had not done the costings and it had not put it in draft legislative form so there was still work to do. But I regret that it has taken 3 years and 5 months from the time that that document was given to the Government to the introduction of the bill in this House. As I say the tragedy of that is and will be that in the next maybe 12 to 18 months many more servicemen and servicewomen will die without them or their families getting the benefit of the more generous provisions that will come through this legislation.I say to the Minister that at the Social Services Committee we will be seeking an explanation for the changes that were made where what the Government has put into legislation differs from what the Law Commission proposed. I am conscious of the fact that the proposals in this bill are much much cheaper than what the Law Commission recommended. I want to go into that with an open mind. There may be some good reasons why not every recommendation of the Law Commission was followed. But what I do want to say is that we will be determined to find out whether those cuts can be justified or whether they are unfairly to the detriment of our veterans.With so many veterans now dying I think it is time to err on the side of generosity for those who are still surviving. Men of that generation spent years of their lives out of this country away from their families. Many who returned suffered from physical injury and just as important from psychological injury and nothing was done in those days to address the latter form of injury. So we owe these veterans and we owe it to them Minister to be as generous as we possibly can be. This bill and the Act that follows it needs to be about honouring those veterans and their families and frankly it would be hypocrisy for us to sell them short.To be fair the Government has announced some additional funding as the Minister has said. There is some $60 million to be spent over the next 5 years in addition to those payments. That means about another extra $12 million a year. I welcome the increase in the war disablement pension and the surviving spouse pension rates of 5 percent. I think that is a step in the right direction. I welcome the increased eligibility for services such as home care and lawnmowing and so on. For the younger veterans who are unable to work I welcome the fact that if they are still under the retirement age they will be paidan income of 80 percent of the average wage. It will help only a small number but it will be worthwhile for those who are beneficiaries of it.Veterans post 1974 will get all of the relevant ACC assistance and also as the Minister explained a margin on top of that and I think that that is justified by their service and by their sacrifice for our country. We support this bill and at the select committee we will ensure that it delivers what is needed and what was promised.