Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. I want to join with Dr Webb in adding my I think the word is congratulations"—it's the one that we bandy around a bit but actually it's kind of a congratulations for good luck or for having a colleague pass a bill on. But Mr Bayly has I think a reasonably rare distinction now assuming the bill is going to pass this afternoon as we all expect it to of passing two members' bills while in Opposition. And that is a very difficult thing to do. There is a number of cases where sometimes very well meaning and meritorious bills fall sometimes simply because of the people who are putting them up. I think that's a shame. But this is an important one.I thought Dr Webb's description of the manner in which the bill was brought before the House was clear—not discourteous but clear. You know it was a pretty brief bill—cross out "10" add "20"—and the intent of Mr Patterson was very clear and noble but the detail was a bit lacking. And I enjoyed the process that the Finance and Expenditure Committee went through to make three very important improvements to the bill as has been articulated by both previous speakers. That was the phasing in of the eligibility criteria so that no person already here would be negatively affected by those changes; the changes to exclude the Realm countries to the degree that they are; and also the changes for refugees.It does remain slightly irksome to me that the Supplementary Order Paper that was passed putting a two-year transitional period in place was felt necessary by the committee. Mr Bayly says he accepted the argument from the Minister and that it was a good argument. I'm not sure I agree with that. I asked about this at that time about the case for having this change and I agree with Dr Webb's description of that; I don't think we got a very good explanation. But Mr Bayly had pretty much Hobson's choice: if he was to get the bill through he needed to agree with an amendment being proposed effectively by the Minister for social development lest it not pass. And I think it was a case of sort of biting the bullet and not letting the perfect get in the way of the good. And so I held my nose and supported that amendment but I'm still not convinced it was necessary. I don't know how many people are going to benefit from it. I don't know what the costs on the Crown would be—marginally. It's probably not going to be that much because hardly anybody would benefit from it. But nevertheless it was necessary to get it over the line.Dr Webb talks about too a lot of work being done by the Minister. One could argue probably a little too much for a member's bill but I think that's a minor irritant I have. I think it's important to be able to rely on officials but this House does need to give members—the House—the freedom to consider good ideas from members and not just be a ministerial legislation factory. And while there is that minor irritant I think this is a very good example of where collegiality can occur. It certainly did in the Finance and Expenditure Committee and we got a better bill because of it.I think one thing that we need to be very clear about—and it was mentioned when it was introduced by the New Zealand First member; that this was kind of an anti-immigrant issue—is that actually this bill when enacted will not discriminate between a person born in New Zealand and a person who comes to New Zealand at any stage in their life. We talk about a team of 5 million; well we're actually a team of 5½ to 6 million because between probably half a million and a million New Zealanders—we don't know quite how many—live overseas and many of them do so for a very long period of time. So they are also affected by this. They don't have an automatic right to superannuation when they return to New Zealand; they have to go through the same stand down which was 10 and will transition to 20. So I think there was a mischaracterisation of what was going on here and it's important to stress that this is a piece of legislation that will apply to all eligible New Zealand residents whether they were born in New Zealand or born overseas.With that qualification I'm pleased to support the bill. I look forward to its passage and in a couple of years' time it'll start to become effective."