Dyson Ruth: New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10135. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Can I just begin my comments by saying to the Hon Tony Ryall that actually this is not about politics; this is about the quality of the policy decisions that have been made in relation to a matter that has as the Minister of Health quite rightly said been live as a topic of debate for 20 years 11 of which have been under a National-led Government of one form or another. So it is a bit rich for the Minister to say that the Labour Government did nothing when this is now his 11th year of having this matter on his plate.This New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) should be an issue where a lot of discussion is had between the many parties that make up this Parliament carers in the community and family members who are affected by this policy to see whether we have got it right because this policy is not straightforward. This bill is a determination by this Parliament about the caring responsibilities that should naturally go with a family and that where the threshold is reached that that caring should be paid for out of taxpayer money. That is not always an easy call.The determination that the Minister has made is that a very high threshold of need has to be met before a family is entitled to be paid. I do not understand why that threshold would be at all relevant. If it is a matter of rationing the money then the Minister should be upfront and say that. If it is because he genuinely believes that parents who look after their disabled adult daughter or son are not entitled to be paid forthat because they do not have much of a need then I think he is wrong. I think that in terms of a public policy position it is absolutely wrong.But the worst thing is that this Parliament is debating this legislation through all stages under urgency without any opportunity for us to hear from the families who are affected. These are families who subjected their personal lives to public exposure by going through the Human Rights Commission to the High Court and then to the Court of Appeal. They deserve better respect than this rushed legislation is giving them in my view. I do not think it would be much of an effort to have even a shortened period of consideration by a select committee.The reason the Minister wants this to go through all stages under urgency without any member of the public having an opportunity to have a say is that this bill extinguishes the right of family members who will not be allowed to be paid under this family caregiver policy and who will not meet the criteria to go to the Human Rights Commission and have a case heard against the Government. I think extinguishing rights is not something that this Parliament should do at any stage let alone by ramming legislation through all stages under urgency. It is wrong to do that to family members who just want their work supporting their disabled son or daughter or husband or wife or parent recognised.I do not understand why the Minister decided—instead of explaining to the members of Parliament who are so interested in this legislation the rationale behind this public policy behind extinguishing the rights of those families who are excluded—to spend the whole of his time attacking the former Government. How is that going to progress thinking and rigour in this debate which affects so many families who frankly deserve better? They deserve better consideration and they deserve respect. They are certainly not getting that from the National Government.There will be time in the Committee stage for amendments and questions to the Minister. I hope he answers the questions because it is going to be the only time that we will have in which to have any questions addressed. In his first reading speech I thought I heard the Minister specifically exclude spouses from the consideration of being paid as a family caregiver and I think that is wrong. I do not think that this Parliament should determine who in a family provides care for one of their own family members. I think that is a determination that should be made by a family. Why as a parliamentarian should I Tony Ryall or any member of the National Government say: “No this is wrong. We won’t be paying you as a husband or wife but we would pay you as a son or daughter or parent.”? Why would it be our determination that decides who receives that payment? The report of the Attorney-General—which actually has got nothing blanked out so I would recommend it to colleagues to read—specifically includes a spouse as being a family member under this legislation. That point is actually quite important and I am confused as to the reason that the Minister said the spouse was excluded and yet the Attorney-General the Hon Chris Finlayson has clearly included spouses in his report on this legislation.I want to move just briefly to the regulatory impact statement. This is an opportunity for all members of Parliament to see independent consideration of the impact of this legislation. Normally it is a pretty robust process. I have seen some regulatory impact statements that are a bit weak but this one looked like it had a lot of pages so I got quite excited. I thought we were going to have a very good analysis of this legislation. Looking through it I have never ever seen a regulatory impact statement like this before. Look at this. It is blanked out—it says “legally privileged”. And on the next page this whole page in the regulatory impact statement is blanked out. How are we to judge the quality of this legislation based on the regulatory impact statement when the whole of this page is blanked out? On the next page the contents of this column are“legally privileged” and blanked out. Page after page after page has blanked-out information.This is the information that Parliament is entitled to have so that we can have a proper robust debate based on facts. What we have got is a regulatory impact statement that has page after page after page blanked out. Here is another whole page blanked out. No wonder the Hon Tim Groser is hanging his head in shame. We would never see that Minister bring a regulatory impact statement to this House with page after page after page blanked out. We are not able to have a robust debate. This goes through the entire document—through the entire document page after page is blanked out and is “legally privileged”. It is Parliament that makes the law of our land not some bureaucrat based in a department down the road blanking out information that we should be entitled to have. How do we know about the robustness of this legislation if we are not even entitled in this Parliament to have the information and therefore have a proper debate?This is one of the most important issues in the disability sector and as the Minister quite properly said it has been a live debate for over two decades. A number of family members took this case to a Human Rights Review Tribunal hearing. It later went to the High Court and then to the Court of Appeal. I was very pleased when the Minister of Health decided not to take it further but to call it quits. I thought the Minister of Health would then work with other parties work with Carers New Zealand and come back to this Parliament with a robust agreed sensible decision.When the options that have been considered by the Minister are looked at—they are contained in the regulatory impact statement on one of the few pages that is not blanked out—we see that this whole issue could have been addressed for the 5400 family members family carers of disabled people. This could have been totally addressed for a mid-point cost of an estimated $65 million a year. That is actually not a lot of money in the scheme of things. The Minister has boasted that he has addressed it for $92 million over 4 years. That is only $23 million a year. I think that the family members who are excluded from this because they do not meet the very very high threshold that the Minister has imposed deserve better. In my view they should have been considered in this payment and they certainly should not have had their rights to take a case of discrimination to the Human Rights Review Tribunal extinguished by this legislation.