Williams Poto: Social Assistance (Portability to Cook Islands Niue and Tokelau) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Poto: Social Assistance (Portability to Cook Islands Niue and Tokelau) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 16 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4457. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I rise to take a call on Part 2. This is actually the most substantial part of the bill. There are a couple of things that I want to raise in this contribution. This part is about the kind of technical operation of the bill. One of the things that this bill does is provide for the mechanism to make the application for the superannuation a little bit easier so that if you are actually already resident in the Cooks at the age of 65 which is the age at which you can qualify for and apply for the superannuation you can do so from the Realm of New Zealand islands. You do not have return to New Zealand to make that application and have it accepted. You can also apply for the superannuationbefore the age of eligibility. It will not get paid to you until you reach the age of eligibility but you can still have that application in place ready for when you do turn 65.The other thing this bill provides for is the checking mechanisms. In one of my earlier contributions I talked about how my father would winter sometimes in the Cooks and would be required to come back to New Zealand and that was part of the old checking mechanisms for New Zealand superannuation. With this bill you are now able to remain resident in the Cooks Niue or Tokelau and the ministry can check with you—usually by writing to you—that your eligibility requirements are still in place so it makes it a lot easier. It also provides for the application to stay live for a longer period of time because let us face it there are constraints around having documents sent in the mail etc. So it just clears up some of those difficulties that some applicants may have had in the past.But also in Part 2 are those contentious eligibility requirements which we have already traversed quite a bit in the first part of the Committee stage but they are very relevant. I want to reiterate what I see as the huge inequity in this. To qualify under this bill for 100 percent of New Zealand superannuation you have to do twice as long a residency in this country as any other New Zealander. Under current superannuationlaws you can be resident in New Zealand for 10 years after the age of 20 and qualify for 100 percent of your superannuation. However if you are going to apply from the islands of the Realm you have to be resident in New Zealand for 20 years to qualify for 100 percent of your superannuation. That is inequity No. 1 as I have already described.Inequity No. 2—the whole crux of Supplementary Order Paper 71 and the really difficult part which is actually the part that the National member from the Cook Islands could carve out as his contribution to our country. This is the nub of the matter which is that you have to come back to New Zealand after the age of 50 and do 5 years’ residency here in order to qualify to collect your superannuation.When I was talking to members of the Cook Islands Government about this earlier in the year they asked: “Why is that the case when in order to qualify for New Zealand citizenship you can be resident in the Cooks for 5 years?”. In fact I met a gentleman who was doing just that. In order to qualify for his New Zealand citizenship he was resident in the Cook Islands. It makes no sense to me that you could have that requirement for New Zealand citizenship but you could have a completely different requirement in order to collect New Zealand superannuation when you are already a citizen of this country. The Minister in the chair Anne Tolley did not explain well enough to me why that is the case. I do not understand why that is the case. It is blatantly unfair for someone who holds a New Zealand passport as a New Zealand citizen to be treated differently from another person who holds a New Zealand passport and is a New Zealand citizen. That is the crux of the argument on which the members of the Opposition have so much disagreement.The rest of the bill we completely agree with. The rest of the bill is great and it actually provides an opportunity to have a discussion in this most important year for the Cook Islands when we celebrate 50 years of being self-governing in free association with New Zealand. This a great year an important year and I suspect the reason that we are actually debating this bill in the House is that it is a gift to the countries of the Realm to have those things passed. However would it not be wonderful if we could actually do something that made a difference by removing that requirement for residency of 5 years after the age of 50?There are a couple of other parts of this bill that have caused the veterans some difficulty. That was the other submitter on the bill—the only one who did not submit on the residency clauses. The submitter who spoke about the veterans pension said very clearly that it was his belief and the belief of returned servicemen that veterans pensions were not superannuation and that they should not be covered under the same bill. They should be treated separately because a veteran attracts the veterans pension because of the service that they have given to our country and because they have put themselves at the ultimate risk in terms of fighting for our country. I have to say that no one has actually picked up that part of the submissions tonight so I want to honour that submitter who made that submission and say that I understand what you were saying in that submission. That submitter was wanting to differentiate between someone who collects a pension because they are of an age and someone who collects a pension because they have provided service to their country.I just want to say in conclusion that this is an important piece of legislation for the countries of the Realm. I would again ask the Minister to please explain why in terms of our citizenship there is different treatment for people who want to collect their superannuation in the Cook Islands Niue and Tokelau. We are citizens of New Zealand and we do hold New Zealand passports. Thank you.