Carter DavidRt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): How galling it is to be in the House tonight and receive a lecture from a New Zealand First member about how easy or hard it is to sign up to superannuation and engage with Work and Income. I've done it. It was easy to do. I went there as required with my spouse—or in my case my wife. I filled out my forms correctly and I've since received my due super. It is not difficult so why can't the Hon Tracey Martin tell Mr Peters how easy it is to do because it's not difficult. It's not difficult.Hon Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. That is an issue in the courts. That is an issue in the courts and members of the Government and their parliamentary servants are part of it.Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: You will resume your seat. I understand the point you were trying to make but I do not understand it is in front of the court and therefore I will take some advice. [Seeks advice] Your point of order is not correct; it is not before the courts. However I would refer to the Hon David Carter to be careful about the inferences that he's making about another member's character and to focus on the bill. [Interruption] Excuse me I ask that member just to calm down.Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: Madam Deputy Speaker the point I'm making is that the Hon Tracey Martin said it is not difficult for people to engage with Work and Income. I agree with that. All it takes is honesty integrity and a little bit of intelligence to fill out the forms properly and having engaged with Work and Income there is no difficulty—it's a good system. It's a good system but if you go in there forgetful of the information not mindful of the correct information or indeed in some cases deliberately giving misinformation I can understand why you could fall foul of the system.Being in the second reading I wanted to consider why it has been debated under urgency and why it has been done in the last few days of this Parliament when the Government's had 43 days to do this classic character legislation. I've figured out what the problem's been. There has been great difficulty getting the coalition to manage this because there has not been a meeting of the minds at all on this particular legislation. If you look at the Green Party policy particularly in regard to the winter energy payment their policy going into the election was that it should be an energy supplement to all our selves that earn less than $50000. Now there is some merit in that. It's about targeting those who might need it. But obviously the Greens—and it's not the first time in the last 43 days they've been rolled by this coalition Government—have had to back down on that position and they've had to accept that it's going to be universal and that winter energy payment is going to be available to somebody like myself.If you look at the New Zealand First election position around benefits they were requiring greater scrutiny of the benefit system adjustment to benefits and abatement level and better targeting. So New Zealand First have been rolled by the genius" Grant Robertson—and I use that word only because Grant Robertson himself interjected that he indeed was a genius. I think that will surprise many of the 119 fellow members of Parliament in this House. But New Zealand First clearly campaigned on better targeting of benefits so why have we ended up in this situation when there is effectively no targeting at all and the benefits that are being dished out by this package are super generous certainly to those that need them—and so they should be; no objection to that at all—but they're equally generous to a person like myself. Mr Robertson through question times argued that they were very keen to make sure the National tax cut package—$1060—did not proceed because it would be available to people like himself and me and yet as I outlined in my first reading contribution on this legislation I'm significantly better off—Angie Warren-Clark: Opt out.Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: The member yells out that I should opt out. Why should I be given the responsibility of opting out of a winter energy payment when the Government is prepared to give it? It's like asking me to opt out of superannuation payment. Why do it? It's the Government's job to target assistance. It's not the citizen's job to then go back and say "Well it's a bit of a foolhardy policy why don't I opt out." It's not the way it works I say to that member whose name I'm sorry I can't recall. That's not the way it works and I'll be interested as we get—Hon Clare Curran: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The member has just told us how easy it is to go to Work and Income so if he wants to opt out I'm sure it's very easy—Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: That's not a point of order. That is not the way that this House works—to interrupt a member's speech with what is not a point of order. That is a debating point.Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: No and I was desperately trying to explain to that member why people won't go and that's the question I'll be raising in the committee stage. Presumably some budgeting has been done on this. We know I hope how many people are eligible to pick up the winter energy payment and I hope equally the Government's done its research on how many people it thinks might opt out of the winter energy payment. So when we get to committee stage I give warning to the Minister in the chair that I'll be asking those questions. I hope we get the answer but I'm sure we'll get assistance from Madam or Mr Chairman at the time that if we're not getting the answers the debate will be allowed to go on for longer so we could be here for some time.The other issue I wanted to take up was the claim that's been made that people will be significantly better off with this package. I think the figure mentioned by the Minister Grant Robertson was 384000 people.Hon Grant Robertson: Families.Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: Families—384000 families so let's work on the average family size being 2.2 or 2.3; that's about 750000 people. Yet the National Government had passed tax cuts into legislation that affected 1.2 million people. How can the Government possibly argue more people are better off under this package that they're proposing than are better off under the previous National Party tax package passed—and voted for by the Green Party and voted for by the New Zealand First Party—at the time. So there's another question we will ask throughout the committee stage: how do they equate these numbers because to me they don't make sense.As I said in my first reading contribution there are a lot of people in hardship in this country—far too many people. Any package that addressed that hardship and was seriously targeted I think we'd have had a rational debate within the National caucus in an attempt to find common ground to support it. But when you come in with a package like this that spends billions of dollars and you spray it around with universal acceptance and eligibility that just does not make sense. I say to the Government it's had time to do this policy work; it's had 43 days. Labour would claim they campaigned on this through the election campaign. Why has it taken so long to bring the New Zealand First Party and the Green Party into agreement on this? Has it been part of that coalition deal that we haven't been able to see? Why have they then brought it to Parliament today and are attempting to pass it in urgency when there's no implementation date at all before 1 April or 1 July next year—and the Minister of Finance Grant Robertson nods his head at that. Surely Mr Robertson—Hon Grant Robertson: It takes a bit of time to prepare.Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: Oh! If it had gone to a select committee and we'd had a chance to help the Government with this package I think we'd have ended up with a far better piece of legislation than liberally spraying taxpayers' money around.Universality is the problem with this package. It is giving money to people that do not need it.Hon Tracey Martin: Ideology—ideology.Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: The Hon Tracey Martin who interjects yet again gave a passionate speech about the people who are cold through the winter and need assistance. National accepts that those people need assistance but I'm not sure that she can convince me at any stage that I need that assistance. But if she thinks I'm going to opt out I doubt it. Why should I? If the Government comes into the House tonight close to the Christmas break when the press gallery's party's on and they know they won't get scrutiny by the journalists—they come in here because they're ashamed of this package to get it passed. They don't get my support but rest assured the Hon Tracey Martin in three years' time this National Opposition will be back to tidy this mess up and we will do so very very quickly after the election of 2020.Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Jan Logie. [Interruption] I'm sorry can I just ask the Minister—it's a constant barrage. I don't know whether it's because of where you're sitting but it is a constant barrage and my right ear is really good."