Martin TraceyHon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Seniors): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. It's a real joy to rise and speak after the member who has resumed her seat Amy Adams. I can hear the questions from the National Party Opposition benches. They're all around the winter energy payment their extreme concern for seniors and some confusion that they have but I can tell you as the Minister for Seniors seniors do not.It is a great shame to me that this is a Government who knows more in 43 days about how seniors interact with Work and Income New Zealand than the people who were sitting on these benches for nine years. Now I don't know if the previous Minister for Seniors just didn't have a working relationship with everybody else in her Cabinet or whether those people just chose not to listen to the older people of our country. Considering that 1.2 million of our citizens are going to be our seniors in the not too distant future it is a great shame that that party has no concept of how seniors already interact with Work and Income New Zealand. If a senior citizen—Chris Bishop: Winston knows a bit about it.Hon TRACEY MARTIN: —listen up Mr Bishop because some senior citizen in your electorate might want to know—is already going overseas for more than 28 days they must notify Work and Income New Zealand. This has been the situation for a large number of years and especially for the last nine.Hon Nathan Guy: What happens if they don't?Hon TRACEY MARTIN: During that period of time—they can't contact Work and Income New Zealand Mr Guy but they're travelling to the south of France? Really? This is the question your side has asked? This is the question the Opposition has asked and I'm answering it for you Mr Guy.Already there is a method by which Work and Income New Zealand must be notified by seniors when they leave the country for more than 28 days. The winter energy payment will be attached to the existing mechanism—no more expense no more paperwork no more nothing for our current seniors. They can opt out in the same way that they can opt out now. The Opposition may not know but for some period of time seniors have been able to opt out of getting their super. They can opt out of getting the winter energy payment. But they can also opt back in under this piece of legislation should their circumstances change—and many a senior's circumstances had changed over the last nine years.It interests me the tone of the conversation coming from the National Party Opposition benches with regard to the rhetoric around our seniors. What the National Party does not seem to understand is that this bill positively affects babies—all New Zealanders who are under one year old. This bill positively affects children up to the age of three. This bill positively affects all families with an income from $79000 down. This bill positively affects every senior citizen in New Zealand. A previous piece of legislation which that Opposition could not bring themselves to do positively affects every single citizen in New Zealand—Chris Bishop: Why are you giving millionaires free money?Hon TRACEY MARTIN: —without ageism Mr Bishop. Those of our seniors that wish to retrain or re-educate under this Government actually have an opportunity to do so. But that Opposition stripped away any right from our seniors stripped away any right from our older citizens to be able to re-educate themselves to re-enter the workforce. Twenty-five percent of our seniors are still in the workforce Mr Bishop and this bill accepts that those seniors continue to contribute to our community. They may be asset-rich as Mr Bishop might call it because they might be sitting in a house that they've had for 50 years but they are cash-poor. We know that 9300-something seniors were hospitalised or diagnosed with pneumonia because they could not afford to pay their power bill. This side of the House finally for the senior citizens of New Zealand is actually listening.I have no idea what the previous Minister for Seniors was doing for the period of time she was sitting there but what I do know is that seniors—thousands upon thousands of seniors—are contacting us saying thank goodness that finally a Government has seen their need; that finally a Government acknowledges them as contributing members of our society and gives them an opportunity to have a standard of living. Because they're not so individualised but they understand the concept of community and it is our seniors that know the value of community in New Zealand.