O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): A noble defence—a noble attempt by the Minister Carmel Sepuloni to explain what happened. She was of course quite accurate in describing what the bill does. I would suggest she's accurate in that it is fairly minor but that's where it ends. This was not simply an oversight. It's appropriate if I can that the Minister tries to look at analogies from the past but this was not an oversight by officials per se. This was arguably not even an oversight by the Minister. This was an oversight caused by Ministers directing officials to work far too fast—far too fast.We on this side of the House obviously are opposed and I will elaborate further on that as to why but the primary reason is that this process has been shoddy—absolutely shoddy—and I've said it many times in this House and it's unfortunate that yet again I have to say it. This is something we on the social development side of the House—those like myself Louise Upston Alfred Ngaro and others who are working in this space—are seeing time and time again around social development legislation. It is rushed it is not well-thought-out and it constantly has to come back to the House to be rectified. As the National Party has put in its minority view we expect that we'll be returning to this House again probably in this particular Parliament to fix more mistakes.The Minister talked about a process that was thorough—very nice positive way to introduce the sentence—but of course the subclause to follow: But it was pushed through quickly". It was rushed; this was a rushed process. Those people that the winter energy payment is directed to were not given the usual full time that a Parliament should provide for them to speak. So those who are choosing to go overseas for four weeks those who are in residential care—they were not given a chance to speak. In fact the officials I would argue—who did a good job in and of the time they were given—have not been given the right amount of time to think this through. In particular we have a piece of legislation in front of us here at third reading which is retrospective. All members of this House understand that retrospective legislation should be done infrequently and here is a situation where personally I don't think it was the right thing to do. Personally I think we should've taken more time to consider this because amongst other things what this is is an attempt to rectify a mistake that was introduced because of mistakes made in an earlier rushed process.There was a social policy or a social welfare rewrite bill before this Parliament. A Supplementary Order Paper was dumped at the last moment into this House—literally the last moments—it had no select committee oversight it had no scrutiny other than what the capabilities of—Hon Member: Surely not.SIMON O'CONNOR: No sadly that is true. We warned them at the time that mistakes would happen not just around the rewrite itself but around this winter energy payment and lo and behold here we are having to do an amendment as predicted. So that is primarily why we are opposing this bill.The Controller and Auditor-General themselves identified around about April this year—which is obviously of course not that long ago—that payments had been made illegally by the Ministry of Social Development. Moneys were being paid not only against policy but against the appropriations of this Parliament. I think that needs to sink in for a moment that payments were being made illegally. Someone on the other side sighs which may be because it's been a long night; maybe they don't like what's being said but they were illegal payments.Probably in the grand scheme of things it's not an enormous amount of money but again it's a very clear indication that when you have a Government which is not following good parliamentary processes which tries to rush things through there are consequences. The consequences are not just long committee stages or perhaps MPs in the Opposition droning on and on; the consequences are that taxpayers' money—hard-working mums and dads who spent their extra hours working in the fields or on the roads or in the lawyer's office—has been wasted or paid—paid if you will—in a way that was not intended.So what this bill attempts to do is fix two areas. They're described as minor and technical but I actually don't think they are. I don't think they're major but I wouldn't describe them as minor and technical. One is that effectively the winter energy payment if you will was not designed to be paid to those who are already receiving the full support of the Crown particularly those in the likes of residential care. But it was; that's one of the illegal elements. It was paid out and so this bill's going to tidy all that up. In some ways it's all nice and tidy—neat little package little bow all tied up very nice—except for the fact that now we're effectively paying people twice. They're going to get the full cost for their living in residential care—heaters electricity whatever—and on top of that they're going to get a winter energy payment. It's paying twice.Officials were not able to tell us actually how many people are affected by this which of course doesn't give myself or I'm sure this side of the House much confidence. But they're being paid twice—paid twice. What's the point of that? I mean a lot of us—Hon Member: Poor taxpayer.SIMON O'CONNOR: Yeah poor taxpayer as one colleague said. Others would wish to be paid twice too. But the other point I'd point out—if that's not a very oddly constructed sentence—is that that's effectively a discrimination. I expect this to be challenged in some way by a whole lot of other people who say "You know what actually? I know that the Crown already pays some contributions to me but I just want a little bit more if you don't mind. You know I wouldn't mind being paid twice as well". We'll see how those who are all into you know discrimination—it's sort of one of the buzzwords—handle that one in the future.The other is around those who are overseas who are being paid after the 28 days or because they were away for 28 days. Again a good tidy up there but the fundamental point is that this should not have happened and I'd like to suggest once again to the House that this would not have happened if we first and foremost had a proper amount of time to have considered the genesis of the amendment bill that we have today. I want to once again put on record particularly in the social development space that we are seeing a habit a trend a vice if you will of rushing legislation through the Parliament which in itself is disrespectful and fundamentally disrespectful to the people of New Zealand.The other part that I'd add—and this may reflect more my views than this side but we'll soon pick up on it. The winter energy payment I've described before as simply bribing people with their own money. What I mean by that is some people will be very grateful that they're receiving this money. It's delightfully packaged it has a nice three-word name. Anyone who's studied rhetoric will understand three words is better than four and certainly better than two—it just sounds good. But where did that money come from? It didn't come out of magic. In fact today's National Unicorn Day—how I know that I'm actually now a little bit concerned—but anyway it's National Unicorn Day. The money just didn't pop out of magic. It popped out of the taxpayers' money. In fact those hard-working New Zealanders—Greg O'Connor: Facing extinction like your party.SIMON O'CONNOR: No they're actually already extinct—it's a big distinction. We're still alive and kicking and we've got more than one horn.In fact the thing is here the hard-working people who are receiving the winter energy payment are the ones who have already paid their taxes for that payment. This is yet another example of how the hard-working New Zealander contributes money into a governmental or a tax system and then bizarrely is told to be grateful that they receive only part of it back in this smart little package. It's why I call it bribing people with their own money. It's a very strange dynamic and I think it behoves this side of the House—myself and others—to get that clear into Kiwis' minds that what this Government offers is nothing more than a little bit of the money that you've already given.So I oppose this bill. I oppose it in principle. I oppose it also because of the way that it's been pushed through this Parliament. It was not a thorough process. It was ill considered it was ill put through this Parliament and fundamentally it arises out of an earlier mistake which in itself was fixing a mistake after that. In fact you don't Mr Speaker—oh sorry not you; this House does itself no justice by continuing to replicate the problems which bring about the problems in the first place and that's what this bill is about tonight. It's about fixing a mistake that was already indicated was going to happen.So we on this side have no confidence not only in the Government that is putting these sorts of things forward but we have no confidence that this will be the last amendment bill around social security. So as I end my speech I for one and those on this side brace ourselves for the next time we have to take a call on a rushed parliamentary process around social welfare."