Bradford Sue: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care)  Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Bradford Sue: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care)  Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:635;Page:6258] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 This Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill as even its most avid supporters I think will agree is simply aimed at fixing up some of the confusions and anomalies discovered after the passage of the parent Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Act in 2004. The Green Party has no problem with continuing to support the key goals of this amendment to the amendment Act. The changes made here are on the whole technical ones and the low number of submissions from the public to the Social Services Committee—only eight altogether—seems to indicate that this bill overall does not deal with matters of intense controversy or matters of deep immediate concern for most New Zealanders. However we are also aware that a huge number of people are in fact affected or are potentially affected by the provisions of this bill. 
First of all we are pleased in particular that this bill does clarify that people with disabilities who are living in community residential services and who are receiving a residential support subsidy are also eligible for the disability allowance. Secondly we are also completely behind the extension of the current backdating period for a residential care subsidy from 28 days to 90 days. As several submitters pointed out at the select committee there are a number of circumstances in which the 28-day rule does not allow for the realities of someone’s situation to be taken into account. Thirdly we are also pleased that the bill enables the continuation of a personal allowance and that clause 12 restores the discretion that was perhaps inadvertently removed by the 2004 legislation in terms of how the ministry deals with cases where people are found to have deprived themselves of assets and income directly or indirectly prior to their means assessment. 
I will now turn briefly to the matter that has been raised tonight by other speakers before me: the situation of people in “licence to occupy” units who become eligible for subsidised rest home care. Dr Paul Hutchison from the National Party will be putting forward an amendment attempting to deal with this during the Committee stage of the bill and Green Party members have been having serious discussions of our own about whether to support Dr Hutchison’s Supplementary Order Paper and/or to find other ways of making progress on this issue. Like many in this House Green Party members feel it is unacceptable that one partner of a couple who becomes injured ill or impaired to the point that that person needs full care services and who is otherwise eligible under the income and asset testing regime should not be able to stay with his or her partner in a “licence to occupy” unit or apartment rather than being forced to move to another part of a residential complex. There seems to be an inflexibility on the part of both the district health boards and in some cases the providers in trying to work through this situation. 
I have been stunned to find that as part of the district health boards’ standard Age Related Residential Care Services Agreement clause A14.1 states outright: “To avoid doubt you must not be party to any other arrangement (for example a licence-to-occupy or similar arrangement) that results in you effectively receiving payment benefit … to a Subsidised Resident …” and so on. I would have thought that the Government as part of its “ageing in place” strategy should be doing everything it could to encourage people to stay in their own homes for as long as possible rather than the district health boards having a national policy of forcing people apart should they still be fortunate enough to be a couple. 
It was heartening to hear the Minister of Health say earlier tonight that he was interested in calling on residential care providers and district health boards to address this issue—in the case of the providers how they write their occupation right agreements and in the case of the district health boards how they write their residential care contracts. But I am unsure as to how forceful the Minister’s message will be without legislative backing. It is not that the Green Party wants to see providers double-dipping in any way; it is just that we cannot see why someone who would be eligible for the residential care subsidy anyway and who happens to live in an appropriate level apartment or unit as part of an existing complex—profit or non-profit—should not be able to receive the subsidy without having to move into another part of the complex without his or her partner. 
However having said this I point out that we have some reservations about the National Party’s amendment. Although we sympathise with the amendment’s intent we feel unsure about whether it will achieve its goals in its current form. I am keen to discuss the amendment further with Dr Hutchison and other colleagues in the hope that we may find a clear sensible way through this problem without allowing inadvertent double-dipping or other unintended consequences.