Bennett Paula: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care)  Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Bennett Paula: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care)  Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:635;Page:6251] 
PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 There is quite a clear reason why this bill is coming back to the House unchanged. That is purely because a mistake was made by the Government in the deliberations on the bill at the Social Services Committee where Government members did not have the votes to make the changes they had proposed. The Minister left that piece of information out. But when it came to voting at the select committee there were very shocked faces on the other side of the table as Government members saw themselves being without the numbers. In fact one Labour member was heard to exclaim: “But I thought we had the numbers to make the changes.” Alas Government members had not counted correctly. 
I would also like to pick up on something with regard to the amendment because the Minister made a very interesting observation when he said he was in agreement that everyone was on the same side in what we were trying to accomplish in terms of wanting to keep older people living together as long as possible. He said that was favourable and no one could disagree with that. We heard submissions at the select committee and we also heard from advisers and those sorts of people. We kept asking questions and I suppose that from the National Party’s perspective our concern was that those questions were not answered sufficiently to allay our fears. Those fears were around the ability of providers to actually talk to each other and to district health boards and then to address the needs of those elderly people who want to stay in their homes. 
It is not a straightforward and an uncomplicated formula to try to come up with how those people are paid how it all works out and how couples can be kept together. But it was certainly said to us time and time again that if an elderly couple was in a home in a residential care village and one of them perhaps needed more care than he or she was currently receiving that person would have to move out of that dwelling—even though it may be attached to the rest home—and into a room in the rest home purely in order to get that care. That seemed quite ironic when someone could be just crossing the road or leaving one building and walking in another door in order to be able to have that care provided. People may not be at the extreme end of the care continuum; they may be only in the middle of it. But if they are assessed as needing more care than they have been receiving they have to move out of their home. That applies in the case of elderly people who have moved into residential care properties in order to get that sort of assistance and that home. But in order to be eligible for the payment effectively the couple would have to separate and the person requiring care would have to go into the rest home. That is what we took umbrage at. That situation is definitely where Dr Hutchinson’s amendment comes from; that is the whole philosophy behind it. 
I also want to talk about the parts of this legislation that I think address stuff that needs to be addressed. The issue was about people receiving a disability allowance on the same basis really as other people in the community and how we can help them with that. We certainly heard stories about those with disabilities requiring assistance or being in residential care and not being able to get hearing aid batteries or having problems when they needed specialist dental care or primary health care. Providers pay for some things but there are a number of things that they just do not cover. That really struck a chord with me because I started to think about choice which is quite a strong value that the National Party stands by. We believe that choice is an important part of all consumers’ ability to ensure that their particular needs and wants are met and that consumers of residential care of course should be no different from other consumers. They should have choice as well. So we note that through some amendments in this bill we are giving people some finance that is their own money which they can then spend in their own way. That gives them a choice about the sorts of services they can perhaps receive—and not only services but consumer goods as we say. It struck me time and time again that that was positive and definitely needed to be done. 
It used to be presumed that all personal health costs and similar items of a personal nature were excluded because those costs were being met by the residential support subsidy. But of course that just was not happening. The sole discretionary income of a disabled person in care is $45 per week and I do not think in anyone’s terms that that is a lot of money or will cover much of what such a person will need. Because of the lack of access to a disability allowance a lot of those people were ending up going for a special benefit. They had to prove that they definitely needed something and they had to go to Work and Income to try to get a special benefit or something to help them. We heard from the parents of disabled twins who were intellectually handicapped about how those parents were trying to have the twins’ needs met in that situation. 
It was also interesting—and this struck me closely because it affects women—to note that women comprise nearly 70 percent of all the adults in residential care. Four percent of New Zealand’s estimated 743800 disabled people lived in residential facilities in 2001. Those figures are from the last statistics I could find. The bulk of those people were aged 65 years and older; only 8 percent were between the ages of 16 and 65. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.