LABOUR BREAKS PROMISE: ASSET TESTING 'REMOVAL' A SHAM

New Zealand First leader Rt Hon Winston Peters has slated the Government over its ?false? claim that it is removing asset testing of the elderly in long-term residential care.

?What Labour promised before it was elected in 1999 was to remove all asset testing in its first term.  What it is now delivering is a $150,000 exemption 6 years later in July 2005, to rise by $10,000 annually thereafter,? said Mr Peters.

?The elderly and not so elderly of New Zealand have been sold a pup, and those living in average housing in New Zealand cities where housing prices are fuelled by out of control immigration are being given very little, and in real terms, with house price rises, will be worse off.

?For the majority of city dwelling New Zealanders the threshold is already hopelessly inadequate. So much for Labour?s credit card ? its plastic words are meaningless.

?Labour?s failure to honour its promises has only been matched by National?s reneging on its 1998 agreement with New Zealand First to remove income and asset testing for the elderly in long-term residential care in public hospitals and asset testing for long-term private residential care,? said Mr Peters.