Hutchison Paul: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17279] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 In many ways this bill epitomises the deceit of the Labour Party. During the 1990s—and I hope the Minister will take a call— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Would the member withdraw that word please. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: I am prepared to withdraw it but I must say I believe that the Labour Party has been somewhat slippery. I hope the Minister will take a call and tell us what she campaigned on during the 1990s because the clear message from the Labour Party was that it would remove asset testing for the elderly. In fact it started off as more than that: it said it would remove asset and income testing for the elderly. That was altered slightly as the decade wore on but during the 1999 election campaign the clear message was that the Labour Party would remove asset testing. 
Let us have a look at this bill. When do its provisions commence? On 1 July 2005. That is almost 6 long years since the Labour Party campaigned on an absolutely clear-cut issue—categorically it would remove asset testing for the elderly. But what is this bill really about? If we look at it we see that it is to progressively increase the value of assets that people may retain. There is nothing about removing asset testing and though I am not allowed to use the “d” word I do believe that it is quite right to say that the Labour Party has been as slippery as a Waikato River eel in terms of that—and that is insulting the Waikato River eel! [ 
Interruption 
] That is right—absolutely. But this is a very serious matter. Obviously that was a promise to older people and the Labour Party has made an absolutely clear backdown on it. 
A little while ago my colleague Dr Linda Scott was talking about The Salvation Army withdrawing from the residential care sector. I was not on the Social Services Committee during the submissions but I note that Major Alistair Herring said that the legislation was based on the false assumption that the bottom-line weekly payment of $636 represented the actual cost of providing basic residential care for an older person. He said that a more realistic bottom-line figure would also take into consideration the 21 percent increase in the consumer price index since 1994. Again the Labour Party has absolutely ignored that. It has absolutely ignored the reality of what has happened since 1994. 
Clause 3 the purpose clause goes on to state that the bill’s purpose is: “(d) to clarify the funder’s obligations to pay for contracted care services associated with long-term residential care;”. What does Major Herring say about that? He says he believes that there will be many opportunities for district health boards to disagree about payments for services deemed by the provider to be additional services. That is a sort of fine-tuning and an example is specialised equipment such as a shower chair for a morbidly obese resident. There could be disagreement between providers and district health boards as to whether a shower chair is covered in the contract and there will be example after example in terms of the detail. Yet that has been totally ignored by the Minister. I hope the Minister will take a call and explain just where this very very important fine detail is indeed defined in the bill—because it is not. This Labour Government has presided over the genesis of one of the most complicated health bureaucracies ever known to mankind.