Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Mr Chair. I rise to take a first call—my first of maybe several on this part of the bill—and I'd like to focus on schedule 1. I think there is something here that the Government has overlooked that will disadvantage some members of New Zealand society.Schedule 1 inserts new schedule 18A and it sets the rates of payment but in doing so it classifies or categorises what sorts of living arrangements will qualify for what payment. I link that also back to the eligibility requirements under new section 61FG inserted by clause 61. What it states there is if you're single and living alone with no dependants you get one rate; if you're single and have dependants—one or more—you get another rate; and if you're in one of many types of relationships that we'll broadly describe just for the general public as something akin to marriage—so a relationship of closeness.What it doesn't seem to cover are those situations that we know all too well from student days—which of course are not part of the eligibility. But in these times when we've heard members opposite when they were in Opposition scream loudly and long about house prices and housing crises it is not just conceivable but should be expected that even today in New Zealand we will have individuals on benefits who will be sharing accommodation in the manner of a flat—a flatting arrangement. There's nothing intimate there's nothing akin to marriage; they are simply sharing the same accommodation sharing expenses because it makes it more affordable—a little like the student flatting arrangement but these people are perhaps on a main benefit. It is equally possible that it could apply to people aged 65 and older for the same reason. Because they're on fixed incomes they can share accommodation—at least two maybe more—and that would help to keep the cost down per individual.So my question to Minister Robertson in the chair of course is how could they have possibly overlooked these people? Is it the case that they both get the same payment because they're both single? It doesn't seem to actually preclude that because the eligibility only talks about one person where there's a spousal or partner relationship with the other so the bill on that is actually quite silent. It's possible that they could both get the full single amount. Or it could be possible that only one of them gets it in which case the question to the Minister is: how is it determined who gets the payment? Hopefully it's not pistols at 20 paces; hopefully there would be some reasonable fair and equitable measure. I could suggest to the Minister that it might actually be to share the payment between each of them because it would also be wrong from the taxpayer's perspective for each of them to get the full single rate. Obviously that would be paying much more than we would reasonably anticipate the winter energy payments to be.That I think is a very relevant thing to concern ourselves with. We certainly don't want them in their housing arrangement to miss out if this bill passes. We want to make sure that the housing arrangement still gets the value of the energy payment but the question is—the bill as it's written doesn't seem to foresee such a situation so it doesn't actually seem to have provisions that are specifically tailored to addressing that. Actually I want the Minister to perhaps admit that perhaps it's something they overlooked and if they didn't overlook it why didn't they make it clearer?They are expecting Parliament under urgency to consider this without the sort of detailed scrutiny that you would get through a select committee process with all of the opportunities to have people come in and give evidence—all the opportunities for members of Parliament not just the Government to question officials; all of those opportunities that allow the teasing out of the finer points of detail—which generally leads to better legislation even if it's legislation that's not universally supported across the House.So I really hope the Minister will rise and respond to that point. There is a hole here. We might call it a glaring hole but it is obviously not clear enough and he could elucidate and help us all to understand.