Hutchison Paul: New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHutchison Paul: 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:10120. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua): Thank you for the privilege to speak on this New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2). This morning a prominent disability spokesperson said the sector will be relieved that a resolution has been arrived at. The bill indeed does respond to the Court of Appeal’s decision inMinistry of Health v Atkinson and Others and it does create a fair policy to pay for family members who care for their adult disabled children.It is very important to emphasise that this has been about since 2001 since the Human Rights Commission first ruled. That of course was at the time of the Labour-Green Government. In 2002 I must say the Hon Ruth Dyson did speak about paying carers in limited circumstances. In 2005 the Office for Disability Issues on its website said a family carer’s payment would raise ethical issues such as monitoring the care quality and the impact on family relationships if one member became a service provider and another the client.Then in 2008 Ruth Dyson in her Carers’ Strategy “later included the idea of a carer’s payment to some carers limited of adults.” What I do also note is that this was never responded to by the Labour-Green Government at any stage with any payment whatsoever; in fact it was not prepared to do so. So during that whole time the Labour-Green Government did nothing even though the Human Rights Commission had ruled as early as 2001. I think it is very important that this debate is taken in the context of the history that I have just gone over.This is the National Government’s solution to the court challenge and it did come after extensive consultation with the sector in 2012 where a large number of submitters responded and where there were a wide number of meetings throughout New Zealand to ensure that the disability sector was well informed of the complex issues associated with this challenging issue. Indeed it does shift the boundary between family and taxpayer responsibility. In the New Zealand context we have had a situation whereby families have not been paid for looking after fellow family members for many decades. The solution we have arrived at is indeed a very fair place. We recognise the importance of families in providing care and support to their adult disabled family members. This of course does mean that there is always a delicate balance. There is no doubt that there will always be a grey zone in terms of what persons have extensive disabilities and that has to be judged on an individual basis. One will never be able to have the fiscal ability to pay for all.I think the Attorney-General came up with a very well-thought-out report when he made his statement. It included the fact that the objective of the bill is to ensure that the Government does not incur unmanageable fiscal cost as a result of the decisions. We will have the Green Party of course wanting to print money. That is how unrealistic it is and how unrealistic it would be. It is important that that very well-written report of the Attorney-General is also taken into context.This is a significant investment in family care and gives choice and control to more disabled people and their families in the support they receive. It amounts to $92 million over 4 years to pay some family members who care for their disabled adult children. Funding will now be available for about 1600 disabled people with high or very high needs to pay some family members to provide care.This is something that could have been resolved under a Labour-Green Government. Over a period of 8 or 9 years it failed to do so. I am very pleased to be able to say that the National Government is at last resolving this. In my view it would be hugelyhelpful if the Labour Party supported this bill otherwise it might be accused of providing a response that perhaps we could apply that word to that we are not allowed to say in this House; it is known as the “h” word.