White Helen; Bayly AndrewHELEN WHITE (Labour): Thank you Madam Chair. This was one of the first pieces of legislation that I worked on in the Finance and Expenditure Committee and I was very impressed with the cooperative way that things were carried out. I was interested in really considering the universal nature of our superannuation and the fact that in fact this was very different from the safety net that many of our migrants will have if they need it. This is a scheme that has been very much thought about in terms of the contributions that people make to it and what they get out of it. Obviously it is taxpayers' money. It is actually the superannuitants' own money that's going into the scheme in principle so it's very important that we respect that and are careful with the way we use it. I was interested to see the difference in the bill. When the bill first started my understanding is—and I'd like your comment on this Mr Bayly—that it didn't really accommodate people like refugees who are not people who have had an opportunity to contribute to such a scheme and were welcomed into our country on quite a different basis. So I was interested to see that; I was interested to see the accommodation of the Realm countries in that process. So I'd really like to hear your comments on that development of the bill into something that was perhaps more able to get consensus across at least three parties in that process in terms of what the purpose of the bill was and what it is now. ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you Madam Chair and I thank the member for her question. I'm just looking at someone in the gallery who was involved in the original drafting of the bill. I just want to acknowledge the original sponsor of the bill Mr Mark Patterson who introduced the bill. The bill as it was originally introduced if I'm reasonably blunt about it was pretty simplistic in the sense that it made clear that we should move to a 20-year horizon but effectively it meant that would happen overnight—the day following the passing of the bill effectively or the signing of the Act. Obviously when I was asked to take over the bill—because of course Mr Patterson left in the last Parliament. He asked me particularly to take over the bill. I accepted that on the basis that obviously the bill needed a lot more work and I think Mr Patterson to his credit would acknowledge that. But he's put a bill in the House that has obviously got us to that point.I do want to acknowledge the work of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. We did all work hard together and also we had gratefully provided by the Minister officials to work on this. So as you're aware—more recently but certainly what happened in the previous Parliament—there's been a lot of work on the bill to get it to a stage where it provided for a more appropriate commencement date it provided for a more staged approach to entitlement it dealt with the issue of Realm countries which we have a significant interest in and responsibility to and it also dealt with the issue of refugees whom we wanted to make sure were protected because they're vulnerable people when they come to New Zealand—they don't have a choice. So those are sort of the four key aspects of this bill that through the committee we've worked through. Obviously the subsequent development is the discussions with the Minister around delaying the commencement date by two years. Personally I'm very happy to recommend that. So I think as a committee we worked very well on that and I think if we do get this through today this will be a wonderful example of making progress on something that is a very thorny issue—namely the cost and the issue of superannuation for New Zealanders going forward.