Macindoe TimHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you Madam Chair I really appreciate that. Can I just pay a compliment to the former speaker Nicola Willis. What a great asset she is in the House and in particular the passion with which she articulated such an important approach to welfare. I get thoroughly sick and tired on this side of the House of being subjected to lectures about the fact that supposedly members of the National Party don't care. I want to tell you that I'm in this House because I care passionately about New Zealanders and I believe very very firmly in a generous compassionate welfare State that is able to assist the many New Zealanders who need our help. I will fight for that principle every moment that I am a serving member of this Parliament.But you can only do that if you are also determined to ensure that the system works appropriately and as Nicola Willis has just pointed out does not throw money around inappropriately in an untargeted unfocused fashion because every dollar that we spend as parliamentarians is coming out of the pockets of our fellow citizens. We have an absolute responsibility to them to spend that money wisely fairly and appropriately. So I really hope that in dealing with Part 2 of this bill members opposite will answer some of the questions that have been put to them.In particular I want to commend and strongly support the amendment put forward by Brett Hudson. The winter energy payment which is covered in Subpart 9A of Part 2 in Supplementary Order Paper 25 is a very important part of this legislation and I commend Brett Hudson for articulating the view that it should be available in a lump sum for those who would find that the best way of deriving the benefit. Because if their homes are poorly insulated—and I hadn't thought of this when I spoke earlier about my ideas of replacing antiquated fuel-inefficient and costly heating appliances—they too would benefit from lump-sum assistance to improve the insulation which would lower the fuel costs that they have to spend. Surely that is a sensible way of spending the winter energy payment if it works for them.So I say to the new Minister now—when I say new Minister" the Minister Carmel Sepuloni who has just taken over in the chair—I hope that she will answer the question about whether the Government will think again and give the people for whom this payment has been set up the opportunity to take it in the form that will work best for them. Because what works best for my elderly neighbour won't be the same for my great-aunt down the road or for somebody in a different part of the country where conditions might be colder wetter damper or whatever.We've heard tonight some extraordinary contributions from members of the Government and yet they seem to keep coming back to this idea that if they talk very quietly and say "Oh well of course this is a policy-neutral provision" all will be well. Well Mr O'Connor the MP for Ōhāriu—another man I respect—tried to argue that point of view but I have to say that was an extraordinary performance; a contortionist couldn't have done better. We were treated to some Uriah Heep - like thing and yet he kept on wanting to talk about how in some way it was Stalinist. I have to say he lost me but it was definitely more Dickensian than Solzhenitsyn the bit that I could follow. Then he gave us a little bit of time on his fluffy dice and by this point I was wondering what we were talking about. He was going on on the engine and clearly he was revisiting his misspent youth although I'm sure it was much closer to the misspent youth of the young Labour list MP who is sitting beside him at the moment because I know how he hoons around Hamilton with his fluffy dice.This is an important bill and as the Hon Alfred Ngaro lamented Government members who have spoken thus far in the debate seem not to have read the amendments that they are supporting. This is one of the reasons why we are so concerned and frankly horrified that the Government has just dumped this huge number of amendments on the committee without going back to the select committee when they themselves appear not to understand some of the practical consequences of the amendments that they are supporting.I hope that they're going to answer some of the questions that have been put to them. I hope that they are going to focus on some of the suggestions. I really hope that they're going to support some of the Supplementary Order Papers that my colleagues are putting forward because we want to improve this bill. We want to recover that degree of unanimity that previously existed so that we can all have a really substantial piece of legislation that we all support."