Dean JacquiHon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Mr Chairperson Rurawhe thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity to have another contribution on this part. I'm particularly concerned with the winter energy payment and how it is going to play out in real time for those of whom it is intended. There are a couple of points that I wanted to raise in the committee that have not been canvassed before I believe. I've been here for most of the debate. The first one is around the sheer management of the payment. The payment when it is fully rolled out is going to be for the winter months only for 22 weeks and it's going to be paid out over those 22 weeks. That's fair enough except that the billing period for those winter months comes a month after the electricity is actually used. That brings up budgeting issues for people on fixed incomes. I do know that in many parts of New Zealand whilst winter is severe and a lot of electricity is used it is also the case that in some parts of New Zealand such as my part of New Zealand in the South and even further South where it gets even colder a lot of energy is used in that time. But we also experience periods of great heat during the summer. I have brought an amendment to the committee with regard to that thought. My proposition in my amendment is to have the allowance for regional variation. I've made those points and I'm not going to be repetitious. The point I want to make around that is that in terms of budgeting for those payments would it not be of benefit to people to be able to spread those payments more evenly across the year to take account of the high energy use at say Christmas when the family comes? The nephews all want to have five showers a day and have the TV going all night and the fan going all night. Electricity for people on benefits and on national super isn't always concentrated over the winter months. It can be spread over the year in different circumstances. I would like to think that this Government would consider putting a little more flexibility into the system and the payment of that. It's $20 a week for 22 weeks for single people living alone without children and about $31 I believe for people with children or for couples. So how much more easy would it be for people to budget if the payment of that benefit could be more flexibly applied so that people could budget better?The other aspect of that is also around budgeting and the reason I'm delving into the minutiae of this payment is because of my experience as a constituency MP and people coming into my office with problems and issues around budgeting when they are on fixed incomes and just how very tight their budgets can be. So many people on fixed incomes will make a payment to their electricity company that is equalised across the whole year. So they will pay something like $35 a month or whatever their payment is and that takes account of the highs and lows. Now that works for a lot of people because it provides for predictability. They know what they're going to face with their fixed costs. They don't get any nasty shocks potentially over the year and then perhaps at the end of the year they might even enjoy a month where they don't have a power bill because they've overpaid throughout the course of that year. That is going to be thrown into some disarray when this benefit is rolled out. Now I just wonder whether the Government in their policy work has considered the real impact of this benefit to those people for whom it is intended. And I'd like to know from the Minister of Finance in the development on new Part 1KA whether or not any policy work or how much policy work was done and whether or not the application of this grant—and I accept I will probably lose the battle about having the regional variations. So let's just turn to making the payment of it better suited for those it's intended for.So I would welcome the Minister of Finance to get up and address that question and perhaps point the committee and my constituents who are listening and who are affected by this—give them some comfort that this policy will be more finely tuned.