McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Madam Chair Tolley. The arthritis has got pretty bad this morning getting up and down in this place and not getting a call so I'm very pleased you're giving me one. I did want to say a couple of things—[Interruption] I do need to qualify that comment with a couple of things. Hon Alfred Ngaro: This will not help you. This package is not for you.IAN McKELVIE: The first thing is—this package absolutely is for me and I've got to declare a conflict of interest. So I must declare a conflict of interest as we go into this discussion but that was not really where I wanted to get to. I do want to commend the objectives of a lot of the stuff in this bill. I also accept that a lot of those objectives have been borrowed from a previous Government and had their meaning changed but that's absolutely fine by me as long as it achieves what we want to achieve in the end.I think the challenge I've got with some of Minister Nash's comments a moment ago is that it isn't necessarily equitable. One of the things I want to raise that's particularly inequitable is that superannuitants in care and those in rest homes who are currently cared for in a different manner than those that are in other rest homes caring for themselves don't get the same benefits out of this. So I think that the point I'm making is that the power supplement I guess or the winter energy payment the WEP" as it's named—sounds like a power company to me—isn't necessarily equitable for everyone. I think the other thing that really challenges me about that—and it's particularly pertinent in the Rangitīkei at the moment when in the southern end of my electorate you've got to have the heat pumps on because it's so blimmin hot the grass hasn't grown for months and in the northern end of it we've still got snow coming—I think that that's the other inequitable thing about this: that it's useful for the cold parts of New Zealand but not necessarily so useful for the parts of New Zealand that aren't so cold. So it isn't altogether equitable.I wanted to pick up the point that the Hon Nick Smith raised because I think it's a very important point and that is that this proposal does effectively potentially take money away from superannuitants who otherwise may have got a benefit under the National Government's tax cuts. I think that was significant as well. I think the other point the Minister raised that I find a little confusing is that if we're going to apply this to power bills for example we should have specifically applied it to power bills. It would have been a much more suitable way of doing it I think because effectively it doesn't necessarily mean the power bill gets paid any better than it does now. I think that we heard earlier in the discussion that people are responsible for their own ends. They certainly are but I guess one of the challenges we have is that people don't necessarily use that responsibility in the manner they should. So I think that's a little bit of I guess a deficiency under this project and it probably needs a bit of attention. I think the point I wanted to make was that I don't think it is equitable. It certainly is taking income away from our beneficiaries. The other point I wanted to raise quite strongly was that I don't think that our superannuitants should be termed as beneficiaries either and that point was raised by the Hon Nick Smith as well. That's continued right through this bill. It talks about our superannuitants being beneficiaries. In fact it's an entitlement that you work for all your life and you get to my age or a little younger and you qualify for it. So just on to the—Hon Member: Yes it's great.IAN McKELVIE: It is too—ha ha! No but it is. I'll just very quickly get on to my amendment which Madam Chair Tolley you have informed me has been appended to Part 2 and become an amendment to Part 2. In fact I might just read it: "The purpose of this part is to tie the age of superannuation eligibility to the winter energy payment provisions of the Family Package … to ensure the affordability of the provisions of that policy by raising the superannuation eligibility age to 67 no later than twenty years after the enactment of the Families Package … Bill." That does two things. One is it effectively would raise the eligibility to 67 and the second one is it attaches the benefits of things like the electricity benefit to those changes. In other words it makes it continuous. That takes us back to the policy that the National Government implemented some time ago—Fletcher Tabuteau: So you're trying to be advocates for superannuitants and now you're going to raise the age.IAN McKELVIE: —and I think that despite New Zealand First's bleatings that is a point that I think is strongly accepted by the New Zealand community. I think also that for those of us of that age—[Time expired]"