Nash StuartHon STUART NASH (Minister of Revenue): Ex - Deputy Mayor of Napier—ha ha! There are a number of questions here that I would like to answer. First of all to the Hon Paul Goldsmith: it is not a one-off payment. OK. The former Minister said it was a one-off payment; it is an equal payment over six months. OK so it is not a one-off payment. When that member mentioned that in fact it was going to some of the wealthiest is he suggesting that this should be means tested? If that member is suggesting that the Opposition wants to start means testing pensions then we completely and utterly refute that.Now the Rt Hon David Carter—there is one point that he made that I would like to utterly refute and that is that the winter temperature in Napier is only 10 degrees. It's at least 15 degrees. It's a lot warmer than that. I don't know where you got your figures from.Rt Hon David Carter: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I seek leave of the committee to table some parliamentary information prepared for me by the Parliamentary Library which will confirm that the Napier August mean monthly temperature is 10.3 degrees.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): That is not a point of order. The member is interrupting the Minister to seek leave so just—Rt Hon David Carter: I said point of order and then I sought leave to table the document.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I will put the leave. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.Kiritapu Allan: Objection.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): There is objection? Well I did look over and I did ask; it's a bit late. It may be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Hon STUART NASH: The Rt Hon David Carter also talked about the fact that he is getting the winter energy payment and how can that be fair. Well I would like to inform the right honourable member that under clause 61FH it is called the Winter energy payment: election not to receive". So if the member would not like to receive the payment then he is more than able to opt out and I suggest he probably does as will the Dr Nick Smith because I'm sure he's 65 as well.I want to address a couple of points that the Hon Shane Reti made as well and also Ian McKelvie made the same point. It's been made a number of times so let's address this now and that is the definition of winter. Are we actually suggesting—are the members actually suggesting—that in fact people do not turn on heat pumps or electric blankets or heaters before June or after August? Of course they do—of course they do. This is a practical response to when the seasons turn cold.We all know that and this is what this is addressing. If we just said "OK there is very pure evidence that no one touches a switch to turn on a heater before June or after September or whatever the honourable member's definition was then maybe." But we know that that is absolutely not the case. What we do know as an absolute fact is that power bills increase over winter. Now the Rt Hon David Carter mentioned "Well how do we know this money's going to be spent on power bills?" Well what we do know is that as power bills heat up over winter you pay more for the power bill. This money is to go towards paying that power bill. So what we are doing is we are making a practical solution to what we know is a good issue.Now I'm not too sure who made the point—I think it might have been the Rt Hon David Carter. He talked about "How will Customs Service know when someone is out of the country for longer than 28 days?" I made a mistake earlier. It's not a memorandum of understanding; it's actually an information-sharing agreement between customs. What happens is that it picks it up automatically when someone is out of the country for longer than 28 days. So the payment will stop automatically. So it is auto-enrol—we've made that clear. When they're out of the country for longer than 28 days it will un-enrol. You don't have to do anything else. However my understanding is that if someone re-enters the country then they will have to sign up once they return after they've been away for longer than 28 days.I think that's all the points—yes I think that's all the points I'd like to make at this stage. But I would just like to reiterate the point that this is a practical solution to an issue that we have identified and that is that well over 60 percent of those receiving the pension rely on the pension as their sole source of income."