Ngaro AlfredHon ALFRED NGARO (National): Thank you Mr Chair. I rise to take a call on this amendment which is a good one by the Hon Alfred Ngaro to clause 61FE—only because none of my colleagues have chosen to support the amendment but it's a great amendment.I want to acknowledge the Minister who is here and was taking questions. I felt that he had actually responded to a number of those questions. In fact if I could move a motion that he'd become the new Minister of Finance I would but I can't. He was very forthright in giving information to us. But in response to some of his comments in regard to the amendment I put forward—what I've put in the amendment was to give flexibility. But more importantly if you want to be practical and want to be smart then what you want to do is not just put resources and funding and payment to the power bill. You want to reduce the power bill and if you want to do that the best way to do that is to reduce the cost that's incurred.Now the Minister actually talked about hot-water cylinders. I've got some experience of that having installed a number of them. The average hot-water cylinder is 180 litres and inside of that the cost to the average household—in the average running costs and the energy costs—is approximately around about 40 percent of the cost. There is also the heating source which adds another 40 percent so 80 percent of the energy costs in any one household is both the heating source and the hot-water cylinder as well—hence the reason why I think that my amendments that I've included here are very pragmatic and practical.Let's just go round to some of those costs and what they could look like. The average cost in regard to the winter period and over that month—the average cost in the heating cost and the energy cost—is around about $200 a week. That's roughly around about the average. Now if we look at what the savings could be if you've got a hot-water cylinder that's approved—say like a Rheem 180 litre hot-water cylinder and it's energy-saving—we're talking about a saving over one year of $720. Think about the cost of that. If you receive the benefit of the amendment which means you get a bulk amount of payment you can actually have savings that will go on not just for that year but throughout the years following as well—those out-years—hence the reasons why I think that what I'm proposing here is very pragmatic and is very practical as well. So what I want to do is add something extra to that. It's pragmatic and it's practical as well in that regard.One of the other things we also have been talking about with this is around insulation. As you'll know there's been plenty of conversation around it in the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) and I want to reiterate the importance of ensuring that homes and houses are insulated. The savings that we're talking about are at least 35 to 40 percent for a home that is well insulated. In the House previously in the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill there was a huge amount of debate—it was about the importance of that. When we think about the technical aspect of insulation they call it the R rating—in other words that's the thermal rating of insulation. The 1978 regulations that were there were at 1.9—that's what the rating was then. In 2008 it's 2.9. But again I reiterate; here's where the saving is: 35 percent heating savings will be had by a home that's been insulated and I think that's incredibly important.But the reason why I started off by acknowledging the Minister the Hon Stuart Nash is the fact that in one of his responses he actually said that the new Budget that'd be coming up would be talking about the healthy homes package and in that package they would be talking potentially about a package of support that would go towards insulation. So I look forward to hearing more of that and it's great to hear the Minister sort of giving us a little bit of a sneak preview—just a little sneak preview—of what that Budget may look like.However here's the point of difference where I think that this amendment will be more pragmatic: if you think about when this will come into force and we think about when Budget 2018 will come into force we're talking about a space of at least a year. Now if you're saying you want to make a difference in your 100 days as a Government then I think that what I'm proposing is pragmatic. It means that over a long period of time we're going to reduce the costs in regard to energy savings that could be had.When we've looked through that and looked at what those who are currently the energy savers and energy-smart practitioners—if you have good insulation if you have a hot-water cylinder that's been able to ensure greater efficiency if you've got a heating source then you are looking at a 75 percent saving in your heating costs. Why would you not see this as pragmatic? Why would you not see this as practical? I think what I'm offering is new evidence to further prove the point that this amendment is a good amendment. I encourage the Government to take it on board.