Ngaro AlfredHon ALFRED NGARO (National): Thank you Madam Chair. Before I speak on a proposed amendment to clause 167 in Part 3 I just want to address some of the comments that were made by the Minister in the chair in regards to the amendment to insert clause 93(b) that I spoke to in the name of the Hon Louise Upston. Her comments were that—the fact that this amendment was not in line with the intent of being policy-neutral. I would have to say that this amendment all it does is actually extend the aspect of what are some of the grounds in which there can be an exemption. So it wasn't changing the intent of the policy; actually it was in line with it. It was actually giving clarity in regards to steps to explain the reasons why a beneficiary may have been absent. So I still don't understand as the Minister has said where that amendment is a change in the direction of the policy when it was just a simple amendment to the current intent of the policy. I just wanted to make a brief remark on that.My contribution at this time is in regard to Part 3 and the amendment to clause 167. It's amending clause 167 on page 113. Currently under that the amendment says  'Obligations suspended where MSD has exercised discretion to pay benefit while beneficiary overseas' under subclause (2) insert new subclause (3) …" The new subclause that I would like to insert—and before I do that I'll just read the other two clauses that are there. Clause 167(1): "This section applies if MSD has exercised its discretion under any regulations made under section 415 …"; clause 167(2): "During the period of absence for which the benefit is paid [a person] is not required to comply with his or her work test or work-preparation obligations or young person or young parent obligations." So subclause (3) proposed by this amendment would then include: "Any person is exempt from the obligations in Sections 163 164 and the regulations under section 415 should they be overseas for the purpose of attempting to gain access to an overseas pension or equivalent scheme".And I put this forward for a number of reasons. One of them is that I've had a number of constituents that have come to see me in my office who have talked about the fact that although they may have worked overseas—and one of the examples of the countries that they worked in was Canada—and while there are social security agreements with that country they've often had difficulties in working with officials to try to work out the rough calculation in regard to the proportion of the social security agreement from Canada to that in New Zealand and to try to see how they can work out those jurisdictions. And so one of the challenges they've often talked about is the time and residency in that country and trying to work that through.So it's a genuine concern that has been raised—and not just one; I've had three of them that have come over the period of time through my office who have talked about some of these challenges. And so I feel that this amendment is genuine in the sense of being able to give a provision so that it allows for discretion. And the discretion that the clause is talking about is where a person can be exempt from those obligations in clauses 163 and 164 and for the purpose of attempting to gain access to an overseas pension or equivalent scheme. Even in the Social Services and Community Committee we've been talking about the sense that social security agreements that are currently with ten countries—and in those ten countries they then have to work out what the equivalent ratio is.So I hope that the Minister and officials will look into this amendment. I think it's a genuine attempt to try and meet what is sometimes an anomaly inside the system where people who have genuinely lived in New Zealand for a period of time then go on to work overseas and then because of that when they've tried to come back and tried to work out their entitlements they've often had to return back to those countries to try and do that. And we hope that they won't be penalised because of that and that they'll have the opportunity to be able to do that.So I put forward this amendment. I hope the Minister will take a call when she does to respond to that. And again as I said before this is not a change in the direction of the policy; this is an addition to it to meet the concerns about this that have genuinely been raised with constituents in our community and so I hope that the Minister will take a call on this at some stage respond to this amendment and more than just saying that it's not in line with the policy I'd like to hear as to what in particular the Minister sees—advice from her officials—that means that this is not in line with a policy-neutral approach."