Flavell Te Ururoa: New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill War Pensions Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Flavell Te Ururoa: New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill War Pensions Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Volume:632;Page:3914] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Madam Speaker. I a au e tu nei ka hoki nga mahara ki te hunga kua ngaro. E kui takoto mai ra i te wa kainga. Moe mai moe mai moe mai. 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
Greetings to you Madam Speaker. As I stand here my thoughts go back to the ones who have passed on. Oh kui lie there at home. Sleep slumber sleep. 
] 
Less than a month ago one of much cherished kuia of Te Arawa and Te Whanau-a-Apanui Anne Anituatua Delamere passed away at the age of 85. As we have turned to the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill her name came up in conversation. Ani I understand was one of the five community members on the Senior Citizens Advisory Council that provided the Minister for Senior Citizens with independent advice on issues concerning the well-being of our older people. As such I am sure her input will be evident in this bill as with many others before the House. 
Ani Delamere was amongst a distinguished group of former service people including Ta Hemi Henare—Sir James Henare—Pita Awatere and John Rangihau who were recruited as welfare officers. They were a group of public servants who played a key role in mobilising the Maori workforce helping to facilitate the urban drift during the 1950s and 1960s lining up jobs helping them with housing and education while still supporting them in adhering to their hapu and iwitanga. 
In 1961 Ani Delamere helped to establish and run the then Maori Education Foundation interviewing thousands of school leavers setting them on the track to higher education and watching them and encouraging their progress. Former Maori Affairs secretary Neville Baker said that Ani Delamere was instrumental in helping families with their education health employment and so forth particularly harnessing the strength of Maori women. Indeed Ani was a life member of the Maori Women’s Welfare League having helped to establish it in 1951. 
I mihi to Ani Delamere today because many of those Maori she helped over 50 years ago are the people we are talking about today—those who are seeking to enjoy continued participation in our communities. The New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill helps to make life easier for this group in much the same way that Ani Delamere did in taking under her wing the hundreds of Maori who left their rural communities for the streets of Wellington. 
There is another woman whom I want to acknowledge as we consider this legislation today—Richmond pensioner Barbara White. She along with 1500 others petitioned Parliament to seek fairer pension payments. I am told that Mrs White had received only a single person’s benefit because her husband was in care suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. The legislation that is being debated today is indebted to her initiative. 
The legislation extends eligibility for the single or single living alone rate recognising the discriminatory impacts of the strict and arbitrary forms of income testing that currently exist in the sharing expenses rule. I have received over my desk a number of submissions from people who are in this situation whereby they would have to divorce or declare themselves unmarried in order to be eligible for additional payment. It may not be a huge amount of money that we are talking about—the payments relate to some $20 or $30 a week. But these are significant amounts of extra dollars for Maori who face a relatively high rate of material disadvantage compared with the living standards of older non-Maori. 
This bill is also very significant for Maori in that the changing ethnic composition of the older population means that more and more Maori will benefit from the legislation being heard today. We need to bear in mind that while Maori and Pacific peoples account for only a small proportion of the senior population the demographic is changing. The older Maori population is projected to grow rapidly around 5 percent per year reaching 32000 by 2011 and nearly 84000 by 2031. Older Maori currently account for just 3 percent of the Maori population. This will increase to 10 percent by 2031. This will also have implications for the proportion of Maori within the general senior population—expected to rise from 4 percent of all older people in 1999 to 9 percent from 2031. 
So how will this affect the uptake of New Zealand superannuation? It is extremely significant that older Maori have a slower than average take-up of New Zealand superannuation. Only 78 percent reported having received it in the 1996 census compared with 91 percent of the rest of the older population. According to the Ministry of Social Development the reasons for this are unclear. An issue that has been raised in senior citizens unit consultations with Maori is the effect on Maori of the increasing age of eligibility for New Zealand superannuation. The issue is that the eligibility age for New Zealand superannuation of 65 years combined with lower life expectancy rates for Maori means that some Maori will not receive New Zealand superannuation and indeed most Maori will not receive New Zealand superannuation for as long as their non-Maori counterparts. 
Maori life expectancy is 73 years for females compared with 81.9 years for non-Maori and 69 years for males compared with 77.2 years for non-Maori. Despite some ratbag reporting and political pontificating at the time prior to last year’s election the issues regarding inequities in Maori access to superannuation remain current. These are big challenges which this Parliament must consider carefully. We must invest in our senior citizens Maori and non-Maori by assisting access to health services by challenging all agencies of the State to be responsive to our elderly to ensure that the programmes provided reflect the choices and preferences of a diverse senior population. 
In talking to this legislation today I want also to refer to the War Pensions Amendment Bill that relates to the pensions stemming from service in the Second World War the Viet Nam War and the Korean War with certain New Zealand peacekeeping forces. This bill introduces an entitlement to the veterans pension for spouses or partners of persons in long-term residential care in hospitals or in rest homes. The Maori Party is happy to support these amendments in order to ensure that an equitable standard of living is able to be enjoyed by veterans as it is by any superannuitants. 
There are however some issues that the Maori Party has brought to this House this week that we believe warrant further debate. We have raised with the Minister of Veterans Affairs the discriminatory impact of the differences in pension payments and compensation available for injured soldiers under the War Pensions Act 1954. This compensation when compared with accident compensation clearly disadvantages Viet Nam veterans nearly 60 percent of whom are Maori. 
In a report presented to the Agent Orange Joint Working Group on Concerns of Viet Nam Veterans Viet Nam veteran Bruce Isbister stated: “Their earning capacity has been taken from them by their service to country consigned to an income akin to poverty line and exacerbated by blatant discrimination. Many veteran pensioners have to sell family assets to stay afloat causing huge disruption to themselves and their families.” 
These are major challenges to the well-being and ongoing living standards of our veterans within the senior population and we must ensure that this group—a group that has sacrificed so much on behalf of our nation—is not treated in a way that dishonours the service they have given for Aotearoa. Finally in closing I am thinking of the passing last week of Hapimana Toby Rikihana a retired teacher and principal who was given the teacher union’s highest honour of life membership. This koroua was a passionate advocate of te reo Maori who has devoted his life to promoting and teaching Maori language giving over 40 years of his life to education—making him an inaugural recipient of Te Tohu mo Te Reo Rangatira a Te Waka Toi / Te Waka Toi Award for Te Reo. 
It is so easy for us to dismiss the experience the knowledge and the gracious and generous spirit that our senior citizens should be recognised for. It might interest members to know that neither Ani Delamere nor Toby Rikihana ever married or had children but they cared for so many young people and were affectionately known as Aunty Ani and Uncle Toby to many. That is the caring spirit we are honouring here today and it is the gift of their lives that we think of in supporting this legislation. We will remember them. Kia ora tatou.