Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Mr Chairperson Rurawhe. I've been yo-yoing up and down for some time. I had a Big Mac for lunch and I'm beginning to regret that. I'd like to start by thanking the previous Minister in the chair Mr Nash who was very helpful with some of his answers. In fact part of one of his answers answered something I was going to ask but it didn't quite go far enough so I've got some very specific questions. The reason I have these questions is I have worked in an electorate office for a number of years and one of the things we find is that a lot of the elderly people that come in are coming in because they don't understand their entitlements and they often get their benefit cut when they've been overseas for a certain amount of time and they didn't understand. So I need to get this clear in my mind to make sure that we haven't missed anything in here that perhaps needs to be tidied up.One of the questions I've got is that I understand that if you are a single person receiving this winter energy payment you get $450; if you're a couple you get $700. My question is: the eligibility for this is that if you are a couple only one of you receives that payment but if that person then goes overseas can they transfer it to their partner? Do they need to transfer it to their partner? If they go overseas—what I understand from Mr Nash is that if they're overseas for a long period of time their entitlement will be cut but if they've left their partner at home and he's not the person under whose name that entitlement is will the entitlement be then cut because he will still obviously have a power bill?My second question is: if one of those people—for example a grandmother—goes overseas to visit her grandchildren for a couple of months in the UK and she leaves behind her husband who doesn't like travelling for example would the couple rate that they would have been paid of $700 now be reduced to the $450 rate? Because obviously there's one person living in a house for that amount of time and they won't be using as much power. It would make sense that it would be cut down but I'd just like to get that clarified by the Minister.My next question is around if that person doesn't go overseas but they go into hospital. Now we've already heard that that person wouldn't be eligible if they're in hospital but again what if they leave behind a partner who's living in the house? Do they receive the same entitlement as a couple or does that get reduced?One of the things that I am very concerned about however—as I say a lot of the older people that come into my office are upset because their entitlement had been cut off and they didn't realise they had to let the Ministry of Social Development know they were going overseas—is that if the person that leaves the country has the entitlement tagged to them will their benefit or their entitlement be stopped even though they've left someone behind? Those are the questions that I have for the Minister. The second part of my call I want to dedicate to supporting the amendment raised by Tim Macindoe. We did have some answers from the Minister around whether or not this could be paid as a lump sum but I don't think it went far enough. I think that one of the things that needs to be considered here is that older people especially are relying on heating equipment that isn't up to standard and they're wasting a lot of money on oil fin heaters for example that aren't energy efficient and are not good for the environment. I would think that the Green Party of anyone would actually be saying Well hang on a minute don't we want to be paying people a lump sum to upgrade their heaters so that we're not wasting energy?" It doesn't even have to be a heater. Has the Minister considered paying a lump sum so that people could in fact put in curtains to stop heat loss double glazing to stop heat loss—in fact upgrading their insulation to stop heat loss? All of these things go to saving energy.So there are some very specific things in here that I'd like the Minister to answer. The last thing that I want to say is: has the Minister considered the temperatures in Auckland? Because from my experience in May it's not a month when you turn up the heater. In fact this year for example—as it was in 2011—we have a La Nina weather pattern where in fact we have an Indian summer. So throughout May—and I went back on Facebook and looked at pictures of myself in 2011 and found that actually we were still paddling in the water; we were still wearing light jackets in the evening. We weren't cranking up our heaters. Has the Minister considered La Nina weather patterns when he's looking at these—[Time expired]"