Gudgeon Bill: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Gudgeon Bill: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:624;Page:19397] 
BILL GUDGEON (NZ First) 
: 
 We are witnessing the commodification of our seniors within the elder-care sector due to a stand-off between the Minister and those providing services in the sector. Many of those currently working in the sector are exiting particularly the religious providers; namely Presbyterian Support the Salvation Army and the Methodist Mission. These are charitable service providers but they cannot sustain large losses. They are being replaced by large overseas corporates that are in this business only to make profits. They are not interested in the quality of life of our seniors but only in the profits their overseas shareholders can make. 
If this Government would simply pay those already in the sector more per patient than the current $88 a day then these committed groups would stay. They would also be able to pay their elder-care nurses more—these same nurses who are watching their pay fall way behind that of other nurses. Our seniors are missing out in our hospitals. As well waiting lists get longer and longer and the time before receiving treatment grows along with them. 
Prior to Christmas 2004 the Government offered a 3 percent increase in funding. This was welcomed by the sector; however it should be noted that additional funding is still urgently required to maintain services for the elderly to provide staff with a realistic wage and to attend to such necessities as maintenance which has for many operators been deferred for some time. Power prices fuel and rates all go up faster than inflation but superannuation stays stagnant with a meagre inflation adjustment. Our seniors are forced to stay in bed because they cannot afford heating. This is not dignity. This is survival which this Government has forced on them. 
When we look at how much it has cost the Government to get four people into work—in excess of $400000—could that not have been put to a more worthy cause like taking care of our elderly who have contributed enormously to the tax take of this country and deserve better? 
Aged-care facilities throughout the country are watching anxiously as rest homes have been forced to close because of inadequate funding over the past 10 years. The Government promised a 3 percent increase unconditionally but the funding has not been passed on to providers. If too many providers exited the sector then the choice would become limited. Although we fully support a person’s right to be cared for at home if he or she so chooses we believe that there will always be a place for residential care services for those no longer willing or able to remain at home. 
In Auckland those who have withdrawn or who have publicly stated that they are pulling out are Presbyterian Support the Salvation Army the Methodist Mission and the Northern Masonic Association Trust Board. These organisations are charitable service providers that are focused on quality without commercial interest. However they cannot sustain large and continuing losses. Funding has reached the point where these services are being lost. 
I hearken back to the 1999 general election when I said in Hastings: “We are breeding a nation of people who have lost the work ethic.” Five years later in 2005 this has been confirmed by a report from officials who reported to the select committee that it was difficult to get the unemployed into seasonal work and that immigrant workers were being employed instead who have little if any grasp of the English language. This quote surely is applicable to our situation: “Give a person a fish; he or she will eat for a day. Teach people how to fish and they will eat for the rest of their lives.” 
Daniel Webster on 1 June 1837 said: “I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe. … Our destruction should it come at all will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government from their carelessness and negligence I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing.”