Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Madam Deputy Speaker. Along with my colleagues all around the House tonight I stand in support of the Social Assistance (Residency Qualification) Legislation Bill in its third and final reading. I believe that it's a privilege for me to be speaking to this third reading in appreciation of the years of discussion and consideration that this concept has had around the portability of New Zealand superannuation and the veterans pension.I do acknowledge the early work of the former National-led Government and the support that was given to the background of this bill by our former Prime Minister Sir Bill English when he made his announcement in the Pacific in June of last year and that was well articulated this evening by the contribution of the Hon Alfred Ngaro.At this time I'd also like to acknowledge the work of the Social Services and Community Committee. Generally this is a very good working group of people. It's very well led by Gareth Hughes very conciliatory chairman that he is. He has guided us through some fairly tricky pieces of work through that select committee—this one not so tricky but I do acknowledge the work and the contribution of all of those members.Now I would imagine that some people who are watching this debate tonight may be wondering why we are granting this portability of pensions to the people from the Cook Islands Niue and Tokelau. The reason is quite simple: it's because those people are also New Zealand citizens and so we do have a constitutional responsibility for all of our citizens in the islands and here in New Zealand including those in the Pacific countries.Now the main change that this bill addresses is the requirement for residency. Currently anyone from the Cook Islands Niue or Tokelau must reside in New Zealand for 10 years after they reach the age of 20 and then after 50 they must also have been resident for five years in New Zealand. Now the rationale I imagine for that requirement was so that they had made a contribution to New Zealand and that they also had a legitimate connection to this country. So the residents of any one of those islands who may have spent time here in New Zealand perhaps to further their education or training who had accumulated 10 years of residency here after the age of 20 could go back to the Islands and take their skills with them and support their homeland to prosper and to make a contribution to the economic viability of the Cook Islands Niue or Tokelau.But one of the challenges of the requirement of five years after 50 was the risk of the depopulation of those islands and we heard that from some of the submitters who came to speak to the select committee. Having to come back to New Zealand for those five years after 50 was meaning that they were also bringing their skills and their training away from the Islands. Simply coming back to New Zealand for that provision to qualify for the five over 50 was simply to qualify for superannuation and so it disrupted the residency that they had in those islands.This bill will mean that those people who are eligible for New Zealand superannuation or the veterans pension can now remain in those islands and contribute to their local economy without having to return to New Zealand simply to qualify for New Zealand super or a veterans pension. So it does help to mitigate the risks of depopulation in the Cook Islands Niue and Tokelau by allowing the rule of spending five years after 50 to be spent in any of those islands.This was a real challenge to the Islands in the past because there was a deterrent to having skilled people returning to and contributing to the Islands after they had been here for those five years after 50. I have to say that you know from my own experience once you get to that age and you settle somewhere it's very difficult to uplift yourself from family etc. So this is a very common-sense and convenient way of ensuring that we support in an ongoing way the population to be maintained in those islands.It is a real issue because back in 1960 in Niue the population there was around 5000 people but by 2006 the population had dropped to a little over 1600 while the New Zealand census recorded at the same time that the number of people who associated or claimed to be from Niue was nearly 24000 and 79 percent of those were actually born here in New Zealand. So there was a real issue with depopulation and I believe that this bill will go a long way to mitigating that issue.There were concerns that we've spoken about and that were raised during the submission period about whether this bill actually did comply with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. That was really strongly argued by one of those submitters who had actually taken a case to the Human Rights Review Tribunal. But the advice that the select committee received was that this bill does appear to be consistent with New Zealand rights and freedoms and so as a result we made no changes to the bill.One suggestion that another submitter had was that all of the Pacific Islands would be included in this five over 50 requirement and that that could be spent in any of the Pacific Islands. Unfortunately it was beyond the scope of the bill at the time but I thought it was an ambitious suggestion to make.One other submitter also pointed out to us about the growing fiscal risk from immigration to New Zealand in later life. I have to say I did have some sympathy for the submitter because if we're going as it were to have to spend five years after the age of 50 back here in New Zealand what we were doing was encouraging people to come back later in life. As we know the risk of health issues and more dependence on the health system accelerates as we age and so this requirement to come here after 50 for five years was also bringing in some significant fiscal risk. So I think that in terms of mitigating that this bill actually does address that issue as well.As I said in my second reading speech on this bill I actually thought that we may have delayed the final reading of this bill given that Mark Patterson from New Zealand First has actually had his member's bill drawn from the ballot and it is in conflict with this bill that we are debating here for the last time tonight. Now Mark Patterson's bill which is named the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Amendment Bill—what that bill actually suggests is that the residency requirement be extended to 20 years after the age of 20. That bill is going to be debated in this House before too much longer and it's going to be in conflict with the bill that we have already been debating here.This bill is unchanged from the original. Even though we did have great contributions from our submitters we have not made any changes to the bill. It was so well-written in the first place and I commend it to the House.