O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you Mr Speaker. I should start by congratulating the member opposite for picking up this bill and carrying on the sterling work done by the previous member who brought this bill to the House Mark Patterson. Mark will be no doubt sitting down on his farm down there in the deep South at the moment no doubt watching this having just come in. He's quite a laconic sort of character Mr Patterson but he put this together brought it to this House and argued it very well in his time here I have to say I was very lucky enough to spend some time in London with Mr Patterson and he's one of these characters that is the only person I know that took about half a day to get from Heathrow to central London having taken a few options on the way—obviously the wrong options—but eventually got there. So it was quite remarkable that he was able to get this bill together well organised and get it here so I do congratulate Mark Patterson.What he's done—and when people come to this House there's often a bill that comes here. Again Its time comes." is something I often say when I stand here when a good bit of legislation comes through and it's really what we're here for. Often legislation may in the past not have been a piece of legislation that would have really got the sympathy of the House but coming at the right time as it does you'll end up getting the full support of the House as this one has. So it's important to understand just what and why that timing for this bill is so important because when superannuation—you might remember this was something that was universal superannuation brought by a Labour Government in the 1930s. It's something that in fact was built on and in fact originally it was the 1880s that they suddenly realised that New Zealand had a lot of mostly men and others who really had worn themselves out were destitute. There was no way for them to live. And so the State—and what was to continue in New Zealand was a country that really does look after its people. So in those days most of those people wouldn't have been born in New Zealand and most of them had come here via the goldfields of California Eureka Stockade and various other places. So they would have come here at the end of that trail having left usually the UK and they really needed the State to look after them. So I refer to this bill the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Amendment Bill. That is again a bill that has come on the end of a long journey from that time. So of course in that time also life expectancy as you might imagine was very low. I've just done some research to try and find out just how low it was. Records weren't particularly well—but anyone who was a manual worker who lived into their 50s was regarded to be doing pretty well in those days. Of course that has changed. In fact I look now at the average life expectancy in New Zealand; 82.36 years is the age an average New Zealander can expect to live these days. We're actually ahead of the UK at 81.26 and just slightly behind the Australians at 82.75. So as you can imagine many of the schemes that were devised—in New Zealand we're lucky; it is a universal superannuation scheme. But I know from my own experience with working with a lot of American city pension schemes that they of course very often were schemes that were traded off in lieu of pay rises. Those schemes were fine when the average life expectancy of the fire service firemen or police officers or even nurses was—rarely lived into their 70s. Well of course those schemes—the chickens came home to roost if you like because later on many years later when life expectancies started to climb as they have in New Zealand those figures that I've just given you of course now those individual cities and municipalities have carried the cost of those pensions and often it's a surprise to me they carried them on the annual budget. Actually most of them had made absolutely no provision for them at all. So of course you can imagine a lot of those cities over there are actually now coming to real financial problems. So I bring this back to the bill and why it's relevant but I think it's good to get context for any piece of legislation that comes to this House that affects anyone listening at home—often a piece of legislation by itself without context. So I come back to the bill Mr Speaker because I can see that you're requiring me to do that and I'd hate to have to put you in the position to ask me to do so. So this fair residency bill what it is is it will raise the minimum length of residence and presence in New Zealand after the age of 20 required to qualify for the New Zealand Superannuation. Well of course what actually happens now is that to qualify for superannuation someone has to have spent 10 years before the age of 50 between 20 and 50 living in New Zealand contributing and of course coming back to New Zealand. And it's been five years after 50 working in New Zealand to actually qualify for the full pension at 65. That won't change. Of course what will change is that now the requirement is that people need to have been here for 20 years to qualify for the pension and a very important part of this bill.One thing and again the previous speaker did mention this and it is an important part of the work we did at select committee—many of the submissions we did hear talked about really the hardship this would bring on people who essentially set their retirement planning around the fact that they would get the pension at 65. So as a result of that and being a good select committee and being there to do the job we're there to do—listen to the submitters—we've introduced a scheme or a part that there is actually now going to be a graduated scheme. Now the main date to remember is 1955. And so obviously anyone who was born in 1955 will be now qualifying being at this time—Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does the member?GREG O'CONNOR: No I'm still well shy of that date and if that man opposite had seen me playing rugby or kept up with me he would have seen just how lithe and quick I still am and belying my age.But anyway firstly back to the bill itself which of course is an important part of this presentation. So from 1955 being the main qualifying date so through there—so that person would still now only have a 20-year qualification and moving down anyone who was 46 to 47 would go to 19 years. So you will see the fairness of this to make sure we continue to be in the whole spirit of superannuation as we have in New Zealand we ensured that in fact this remains fair for the vast majority of people. The other thing too is also addressing the issue of the Realm countries and there was some legislation came through here in the last Parliament to address this issue. I know I have a relation who left New Zealand before he was 50 now has a very successful business in Rarotonga and was facing the prospect of having to come back here for five years in order to qualify for the New Zealand pension. That would have meant selling his business. He had many employees. He was unlikely to have anyone able to take over that business. As a result of those changes now if you are in the Realm countries you actually still do qualify a very important part—those Realm countries of course being Niue Tokelau and the Cook Islands. I am running short of time but I'm sure there'll be other speakers who will be able to go into other details of this bill. But it is as I said at the start a bill whose time has come. We have been able to adapt this bill to ensure that it is fair that those who are going to be affected by this in time to come have got time now to plan as the country has to start planning for the fact we have an ageing population and we want to make sure that we can continue to look after the aged in New Zealand the increasing number of aged people. So I have no hesitation in commending this bill to the House."