Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora Madam Speaker. Thank you for that. It is good that this small but important reform seems to have broad support across the House today because superannuation is absolutely one of the cornerstones of New Zealand's society. The idea that in older age we look after our citizens with a pension if you like is really an important part of what it means to be a New Zealander. But as has been said striking an equitable balance is equally as important. And whilst we can pitch this as part of managing ongoing costs—and the reduction in the cost of superannuation by this is not insignificant; it's hundreds of millions of dollars over the life of it—I think the more important point is to make sure that we have a framework where people coming to New Zealand essentially understand that they can't walk in at a relatively late stage and get all the benefits of people that have been in New Zealand contributing to society in all kinds of ways for pretty much their whole life. I must say when this did come to the committee I felt slightly sorry for Mr Bayly in the sense that it was a far from perfect bill as he's alluded to. It basically said Cross out 10; put in 20." if I remember rightly—Andrew Bayly: And implement it now.Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Ha ha! And it was a little blunt. But Mr Bayly with his usual tenacity has done well here and I can say obviously he did well to sort of insist that there was something there that was worth investigating that we shouldn't pre-emptively throw it out and so we didn't. But also the submitters were really important here. Can I just thank those submitters from all across different aspects of society but particularly those from some ethnic communities who came and made their case. I wanted to tell those people small community groups often that they were a really important part of looking at this and saying "It is too blunt. We need to make it a little less stringent and immediate. We need to have a gradated framework in which this comes into play." In that conversation—it was very much a conversation—there was a general acceptance that something needed to be done but it just needed to be done over a greater period of time. And that's how we arrived ultimately at this period of transition at ultimately a 20-year period of transition. I want to identify that Naisi Chen was a very good advocate for her community the Chinese community and of course Priyanca Radhakrishnan also was very very much speaking out for the interests of the communities that she represents as well. So yeah Mark Patterson did a good job here in the sense that he got us to think about it. Andrew Bayly certainly then took it a lot further.I do want to just identify the fact that not everyone is on board with this bill necessarily and it does reduce the entitlements of some people. But to be perfectly honest given the transitional period it is unlikely to affect anyone who is in New Zealand today and kind of had an expectation that they would have an entitlement. Whilst it came back from select committee—and I must say it came back from select committee with that transitional period starting pretty much straight away but the Retirement Commissioner thought that that was too harsh. I was surprised I must say that those views weren't presented at select committee. It would have been good to have had a thoroughgoing submission in that regard. But the Retirement Commissioner ultimately did make her views known and they were taken into account. The Minister the Hon Carmel Sepuloni did a lot of work here to make sure that she got it right and I know she engaged with Mr Bayly and ultimately got a framework which I think everyone will be happy with. These long transition periods can be criticised I think but when you've got a kind of legacy piece of the superstructure of our country I think those long transition periods are absolutely justifiable. Also I want to recognise as Mr Bayly did the importance of the Realm countries and the idea that in fact we need to make sure that people can move pretty much freely between them. There is absolutely something to be gained both for our Realm cousins and New Zealand in allowing those people who have absolute rights of residency here to move freely between the countries so that if they want to spend some of their latter years perhaps in their country of birth with wider family and then come back to New Zealand as they perhaps get a little bit older then that benefits everyone. And we're not only enabling them to do what they want but I think we're richer for it in a cultural sense as well. So that was an important recognition of Realm countries there as well. The other point that came out was the difficulty of refugees who of course don't choose to come to New Zealand. In a perfect world they would not have to flee the conflict zones from which they often run and they'd be able to stay with their families and in their place of birth. They're forced out and so it's not the case that they can be criticised in any way for turning up and you know making some unwarranted demand. They'd rather not be doing that at all. So given the kind of compulsion of their arrival in New Zealand and that of course under the UN programme they don't even choose which country they end up in in those situations it is entirely appropriate that they have the shorter period and they can access the support that is there pretty much straight away. Again the equitability of superannuation is really important. The fact of the matter is that because of the agreements we have with a number of developed nations it doesn't affect as many people as other people might have thought—the UK a lot of the European and Scandinavian nations that we have agreements with. So it's really countries which don't have superannuation frameworks State-based superannuation frameworks themselves where this really has the greatest effect and that is people who are coming from India China and other developing nations. And I think it does strike an equitable balance. So once again really congratulations to Mr Bayly—again I'm pretty sure the last member's bill he had wasn't his own either. I'm pretty sure he picked that one up and he made something of that and picked this one up and made something of it. But despite everything he does work well with others pushing them when needed haranguing them sometimes sometimes persuading them. But it's a good bill. Well done to Mark Patterson. Well done to Naisi Chen. A good bill. I commend it to the House."