Ngaro AlfredHon ALFRED NGARO (National): Thank you Madam Chair. Minister Sepuloni made some interesting comments and I thank you Madam Chair for allowing us to speak to our amendments. I know that the Minister answered in her response to what she read in the amendments but it's great for those of us who have put through an amendment to be able to speak to them in the Chamber in this committee of the whole House stage as well.I want to speak in regard to the winter energy payment in particular because the Minister made the comment that you know it's quite simple—we've actually passed the legislation we're just getting on with it and doing it. But when you look at the bill itself I mean the whole of Subpart 9A—clauses 65A 65B 65C 65D 65E and 65F on the Minister's Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 25—it's quite a substantive part of the bill and again this is absolutely not policy-neutral. This is something that's come out of the current Government's perspective on the way that they want to provide this sort of support. So it sort of defies the sense of the words that the Minister has said—that they wanted to provide a policy-neutral platform for this bill.The other part in regard to my amendment to Part 2 Subpart 9A clause 65D on the Minister's SOP 25 is to replace clause 65D(3) with The election must be made and may be revoked in a form and manner approved by MSD once every calendar year." and that's the pragmatism of the amendment that I'm willing to put forward. What we often see is that there's just an open-ended response. Things need to be tidied up and I'd like to hear from the Minister in regard to this because her response to my amendment was "What if they get off the benefit?" Well from our side of here the way that things are structured it'll be very unlikely that any of them will get off the benefit because everything will be provided for them.Jan Logie: Ha ha!Hon ALFRED NGARO: And again as I said earlier on the welfare system was meant to be a safety net. That's right—members may shake their head on the other side there and Jan Logie can do that but if she reads it's consistent and if she didn't like it then why didn't she appeal? Why didn't she appeal the purpose and the principle of the Act which clearly states the greatest purpose is allow people to have work. That's the greatest thing for social and economic well-being. But the member doesn't like that. Instead she's picked on little bits and what we're trying to say is we want this to be pragmatic and practical so I think that my amendment is wanting to do that.I also want to support the amendment from my colleague Brett Hudson. Having been previously an electrician and worked in actually a number of State houses one of the issues that was constant in the work around repairs and maintenance was often around heating of homes and what we found was the inefficient use of a heater. And so while this winter heat payment is simply about paying the bill if we want to be wise if we want to be considered and if we want to truly help that family the best thing that we could do is to be able to help them to insulate the home. Now I think actually the amendment that's been submitted by my colleague Brett Hudson is a pragmatic and practical approach that would allow for those families to be able to have a subsidy that would allow them insulation at home. It has been proven that when a home is insulated when it becomes warmer and drier the savings are three times that of a normal power bill. So it reduces the power bill by at least three times what it would normally cost. So why isn't that considered? I think that actually that should be considered. It's practical it's pragmatic it's the ability to help people heat and warm up their homes as well and I think that's important.When we think about the winter energy payment I suppose one of the things—and again in clause 65A—is where the purpose of the winter energy payment is to provide a "targeted financial assistance". There's been so much debate in this committee and the reality is even from the Government side in the backbenches—Deborah Russell in her speech spoke about universalism. So then why are we not removing the words? If we want to be true to the truth about what this bill is trying to do it is not targeted. It is not means-tested. Actually it's an open universal aspect where even members in this House who are eligible to have SuperGold cards can receive the winter energy payment.So I'd like to ask of the Minister that she would ask of her officials why it is that they wouldn't remove those words. If it's not targeted then actually say so; just simply declare the fact that this is a universal approach which means that everyone and anyone who is eligible can apply for this. We know they've got a voluntary clause in there that allows other people to opt out. Well the reality is that many of them probably won't. We hope they would but many of them won't. So we hope that these amendments—and I want to thank you Madam Chair for allowing me to speak to my amendment in particular and I hope that that adds to the debate in the committee."