Sepuloni CarmelHon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): I've got a number of amendments in front of me with respect to the winter energy payment. Some have been touched on by the Opposition tonight and some haven't but I thought I'd speak to all of them.I'm really concerned though that the quality of some of them and what is being proposed really does indicate that there's a little bit of trifling going on with the committee. This is a good example of why: we've got an amendment from Andrew Bayly who wants to move that we amend the winter energy payment to put it into line with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) definition of winter. He says NIWA defines winter as the months of June July and August which is 92 days. The advice I've got is that the NIWA definition would change the period every year so it would mean that people would not know how much they were going to receive or when they would get it and that would cause chaos not only for the people receiving the payment but also for the system that's set up to deliver the payment. So actually no; we want to be able to provide some certainty to New Zealanders that are eligible for the winter energy payment and what we've proposed in terms of the set period of time makes absolute sense so we will not be supporting Andrew Bayly's amendment. There's another amendment that is from the honourable member Alfred Ngaro wanting us to restrict the election and revocation of receiving a winter energy payment to once every year saying that it would reduce compliance and unnecessary burden. Actually if people had to nominate every year that they did not want to receive it then that would actually increase compliance. In fact when they opt out they can at any time opt back in and so that makes much more sense than asking them to opt out on an annual basis. So we will not be supporting that one. Maureen Pugh has one amendment the purpose being that this amendment is to allow the winter energy payment to be taken in monthly instalments rather than either fortnightly or weekly saying that that aligns with someone's monthly power bill payments. For those that have been in Government before—and I know there are members on the other side of the Chamber that have been members before—the administration and compliance issues that come with trying to have differential payments like that are huge. And actually I don't think there's going to be any major complaints from people if they are receiving it fortnightly as opposed to monthly considering it could cost millions of dollars to tinker with the system to enable us to do that. So we won't be doing that. We've got one amendment from Brett Hudson—Chris Bishop: That's a good one. That's a keeper.Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: It's the same quality as the others and is asking that the winter energy payment be paid as a one-off lump sum. You know maybe there's some good intention there; he's saying that's so it could support insulation or new heating sources. The issue with that is you don't know how long someone is going to be eligible for the winter energy payment because if they go off the benefit or they go overseas for a period of time then during that time they would no longer be eligible. Therefore if you gave them the lump sum at the beginning of winter you would potentially be creating an overpayment which is not good for the client and is not good for the State. So we will not be supporting that one. I think that's all the winter energy payment - related amendments and I hopefully have explained really clearly why they would not work and why what we've currently proposed in our bill is actually the more sensible and practical way to go.