King Annette: Social Assistance (Payment of New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Overseas) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
King Annette: Social Assistance (Payment of New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Overseas) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
[Sitting date: 20 October 2009. Volume:658;Page:7288. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 I commend the Minister for Senior Citizens John Carter for reading that speech so beautifully. It came straight from the Social Services Committee’s report back to this House but I think it is important that we get that on the record of the House so I thank the Minister for that. 
There does not need to be an extended debate on this bill. The reason is that the Social Assistance (Payment of New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Overseas) Amendment Bill was a Labour bill introduced to this House in September 2008 by the Hon Ruth Dyson. The only thing that has changed in respect of this bill with the change of Government is the name of the Minister on the cover of the bill. It is one of those moments when we can say that there is general agreement across this Parliament on the changes that have been made to this bill. I commend the Minister for not trying to put a lot of flannel around his speech and take credit for a bill that started under one Government and will be finished under another. Unfortunately the speech from the Minister for Social Development and Employment when she last spoke on the bill was all about the wonderful achievements of National in this respect. I found that to be just a little dishonest in that this bill was started under Labour as I said and will be finished by National. 
Is it not good that in this Parliament we have agreement on a bill that will benefit those who are retiring? You know I look at Mr Carter and he is obviously looking into the horizon—many years ahead—and thinking that maybe one day he would like to take his pension and head off to the Caribbean or wherever he wishes to go. For many people this is an important bill and an important change that is being made. We agree on this bill and hopefully we will stick to the key issues. I think the key issues have been set out pretty clearly by the Minister. 
Those issues go to the fact that under the legislation that has been in place since 1990 there was the provision of a flat rate of 50 percent of the domestic rate of the pension where a person left New Zealand with the intention to reside in a country with which New Zealand had no agreement relating to the reciprocity of social security monetary benefits. That was the formula that was used. That flat rate led older New Zealanders to defer retiring overseas because obviously that would be insufficient income to allow them a reasonable standard of living in retirement in another country. The payment is also currently linked to residents in one particular overseas country which means that superannuitants or veterans pensioners cannot travel to or between multiple countries and continue to receive their pension. 
From the passage of this bill which I assume will be around November this year qualifying superannuitants and veterans pensioners who wish to travel between any overseas country and retain their entitlements will be allowed to do so. As the Minister set out this bill allows people to make decisions about where they wish to reside. We can look at the formula and see that it is very fair. The formula that is being put in place is not the 50 percent flat rate any more; people will receive New Zealand superannuation or a veterans pension overseas based on a formula of 1/540th of the full rate of each month of residence in New Zealand between the ages of 20 and 65. It might sound rather complicated but it is able to be worked out relatively easily. People will know what they are then able to take if they retire in another country. 
Submissions were made to the select committee that we did not consider because they really were outside the scope of the bill. Some submitted that when they arrived in New Zealand and became a citizen of New Zealand they should be able to receive the full pension as soon as they retired. That was as I said outside the scope of the bill. There are issues around fairness when it comes to people who have paid for superannuation through their taxes over many many years and would receive a particular formula if they went overseas and then a person who arrived in New Zealand and had been here only a short time would retire and get the full pension having the same rights. That was not something that the select committee dwelled on. 
The bill was sent to the Social Services Committee on 31 March this year. It received 99 submissions and we heard 13 of them. We did not hear more because many of the submissions did not relate to the bill itself at all. They raised an issue in respect of section 70 of the Social Security Act 1964 and that relates to the direct deduction of an overseas pension from New Zealand superannuation. This has been a longstanding issue and I see the Minister John Carter nodding: he has no doubt had representation particularly from people of Dutch descent who have come to New Zealand with a Dutch pension and wanted to retain that pension alongside their New Zealand superannuation. We as a Government saw that as unfinished business and in fact the previous Minister for Social Development and Employment Ruth Dyson had done a considerable amount of work on that. I think the challenge now for the new Government is to look at that issue and to proceed with it. It will not go away because many New Zealanders feel that this is unfairness and a disincentive. When they have saved in another country in a private pension scheme for example or in a pension scheme that they could have in New Zealand it is a disincentive and they are not able to have it or that they can have it but it affects their New Zealand superannuation. I say to the Minister and his colleagues that the challenge is to look at that issue. 
We made very few changes to the bill itself and I think the Minister has set out pretty clearly what they are. In fact one of the changes we made was as he said for people who are outside New Zealand for special purposes—those who have gone to get medical treatment are serving on a New Zealand - registered ship are in the armed forces are working for Volunteer Service Abroad or doing missionary work or perhaps are employed in embassies overseas—their time outside New Zealand would be counted as residence for the purpose of the formula that I have just set out. 
Some people are engaged in charity work overseas but are not part of Volunteer Service Abroad; there may be some other organisations that are not covered here. We did not put them in the legislation but we said that should the opportunity arise it would be valuable for the Government to consider this issue further in the future. That was one of the changes that we made. 
One submission that I think was pretty important was from the New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association around the veterans pension. I know that there is a lot of concern by veterans that they have been counted with New Zealand superannuation in terms of this formula and in terms of the portability of their pension overseas. The case they put to the select committee is that they receive a veterans pension based not on their age but on the disability they received in their service for New Zealand. They may receive their veterans pension at 45 not 65 and in their view if they wish to travel and live overseas in another country they ought to be able to take their veterans pension with them and it should not be linked to New Zealand superannuation but based on the fact that they are entitled to it because of their disability. 
We could not address that issue at select committee but I believe it needs to be addressed and I know that the previous Minister of Veterans’ Affairs Rick Barker has been responsible for the rewrite of the Veterans’ Affairs Act. He first of all started the work with the Law Commission which hopefully will lead to a rewrite of the Act itself and I hope that this issue is addressed in relation to that. The Returned and Services’ Association obviously a very significant group made a very compelling case but we could not address it at the select committee itself. A number of other issues were raised and I think that they were really unable to be addressed by the committee either because it was an income tax issue or it was an issue that would have made the bill unfair for other New Zealanders. We looked very carefully at the non-qualifying spouse—how he or she could be included—but we did not want to make this bill unfair for other New Zealanders. I commend this bill to the House.