Bradford Sue: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Bradford Sue: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 As I pointed out when this bill to amend the asset-testing regime for older people was first introduced to Parliament 9 months ago the Green Party cannot help but give qualified support to this legislation given that it is our policy to abolish asset testing for residential care for the elderly. Like many submitters to the Social Services Committee we see the current asset-testing regime as iniquitous discriminating as it does against one part of the population—the elderly. In 1999 the Labour Party promised to remove asset testing. At that time Labour seemed to appreciate like the Greens that older people have already spent a lifetime paying taxes which they presume will assist with their care and support in later life when they need help the most. Through the asset-testing system they become now the only category of citizens who have to pay twice for long-term residential health-care—once out of their taxes and then all over again if they have sufficient income and assets basically to be taxed twice. 
Like many submitters the Green Party recognises however that while this bill is far from satisfactory in that it does not remove asset testing altogether or solve the other very real problem of adequate funding for residential care all round it does take significant steps in the right direction. These include progressively raising the value of assets that people can keep before they have to use them to help pay residential care costs removing asset testing for people aged 50 to 64 who currently have to use what they have to pay for care by excluding the spouse of a person in care from the income test by making $636 a week the maximum contribution payable and by a number of other measures intended to make the system somewhat clearer and simpler to administer. 
The Government has made it clear that the reason it cannot go further or even all the way towards redeeming its own election promise to end the asset-testing regime lies purely in the cost. The Green Party recognises that while we can and should continue to press Labour to go further in this direction we have to be realistic too and to some extent at least accept the fiscal constraints under which the Government is operating. The fact that the Government cannot or will not go as far as we would like does not mean that we should not support this bill. After all many many of our older citizens and their spouses will breathe a huge sigh of relief once this bill becomes law and I do not believe there is any virtue in standing in the way of that positive outcome. 
We have also taken on board the submissions and other representations from the many rest home proprietors who express anxiety about the future of long-term residential care in this country because of inadequate funding and other matters. In particular we note all the submissions that stated that the $636 a week cap is unrealistic in that if inflation had applied over the last 10 years the rate would now be over $750 a week. 
 However the Green Party recognises the positive commitment by the Government as outlined in the commentary on the bill in which the select committee was informed that Cabinet is considering this issue further. What is more I also note our recommendation to alter the bill’s commencement date to 1 July next year which will mean that the bill comes into effect on the date that the maximum contribution rate will have had its first consumer price index adjustment upwards. 
There is no getting away from the fact the bill does not even attempt to resolve the difficult issues underlying and surrounding it. Discrimination against the elderly should be carefully and deliberately phased out over time. Above all we should look seriously at what alternatives there might be to the current rest home funding model. Why are property value gains excluded from the equation when taking into account rest home profit and loss? Do we ever stop to consider that the quality and cost of residential care might improve along with staff wages and conditions if perhaps the Crown provided land and buildings for rest homes in the future just as it does with State housing hospitals and schools? We need to find a more equitable long-term solution to the current inequities and difficulties in this sector but it is not the elderly themselves who should continue to bear the brutal costs of a discriminatory regime. This bill does make progress but from whatever perspective one likes to take it we still have a long way to go.