Hughes GarethGARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I've got three words for the National Party: pot kettle black. I can't believe the faux outrage we're hearing from that side of the House tonight when there are countless examples where they did just this—ram through legislation. What for—what for? To take away Kiwis' human rights when it comes to protest activity. What for? To take away Cantabrians' rights to vote. What is this Government doing it for? To heat Kiwis' houses. Here National—in none of their contributions have they actually talked about the substance. This is a Government that wants to heat Kiwis' houses that doesn't want to see Kiwis die every winter and what you've heard today is a bunch of National MPs who would rather die on a particular hill of parliamentary hypocrisy than actually heat Kiwis' houses.We are here today to fix a minor technical drafting error around Kiwis who travel overseas for 28 days or pay for part of their own residential care contributions and National is voting against those people getting the winter energy payment this year. That's the question in front of the House today. Should those people this winter get the winter energy payment? And no National spent all their time talking about parliamentary process and not talking about the people of New Zealand.Now we've seen this faux outrage around the fact it was passed in the 100-day plan of this Government. They say it wasn't a good enough process. Now they asked us: What was the rush? Why was the Government rushing?" It for me just shows how incredibly out of touch National is when it comes to the real-life on-the-ground situation of New Zealanders. What's the rush? How about the 1600 Kiwis that die every winter—which doesn't happen in the bulk of other developed world countries—because of housing and higher power prices? Sixteen hundred deaths a winter—that's the rush. What's the rush? Maybe it's the 41000 Kiwi kids that are hospitalised every year in this country because of the poor state of our housing and the growth of energy poverty. What's the rush? It's the 100000 Kiwi households which as we saw in the independent report are in energy poverty. These are households that are spending 10 percent of their weekly disposable income just to keep the lights on just to keep the heater going. It shows how out of touch it is because if you talk to regular people in this country they're actually facing the choice: this week do I heat or do I eat?Now when people are living in multiple houses across New Zealand they don't understand the real lived experiences of Kiwis. That was the rush. What this Government wanted to do was make a difference and $265 million a year helping people over winter to heat their house to avoid energy poverty to spend money on the important things like their kids—well that was the rush. Now we haven't heard any talk from National members about the actual impact of the winter energy payment scheme. Now I've been around to Kiwis' houses right? And I've seen the black mould on the roofs. I've seen the literal wood you can rip off the mouldering walls. I've seen families living in the only room they can heat the lounge—a whole family a huge number of people crammed in one room. This is the reality and this is why the Government was doing it and they were doing it in a rush because of the crisis facing this country.Now National is saying they're voting against it because it's retrospective. I called it "pot kettle black" because they did retrospective legislation a huge number of times but the difference is that this is about helping people this winter. It's autumn right? The leaves are coming off the trees. We're counting down to winter. We know that this winter if we don't act more people are going to die than in the rest of the year. So my message to National and anyone voting is: why on earth should we vote against helping Kiwis this winter just because National thinks retrospective legislation isn't right when someone else does it?There's the issue of urgency. Now this bill needs to be reported back by 1 April. It's no secret that the Green Party isn't a fan of urgency. In this case though there is an actual urgent rationale which is to give money to people who need it this winter. I urge National to go to residential care facilities around this country and tell them that they voted against those people getting the winter energy payment this winter. I challenge them: do it. Go to those residential care facilities and say why you voted so people would be poorer and colder this winter. I challenge them to actually get people to come to the select committee and make a submission and the Green Party made sure there was a select committee process—I challenge National: go find anyone in this country who's going to come to a select committee and submit that no one should get $265 million of winter energy payment support. I bet you they won't be able to get anyone to come because it's incredibly popular as we heard from the Minister. Kiwis need the help and they're getting the help from this Government.Ultimately that is the question for National as they consider their votes tonight. Are they really going to vote against Kiwis getting help this winter? Do they want them to stay cold? Do they want them to stay paying more than 10 percent of their income? That's the real choice. So let's actually talk about the people and the real lives not just this I think petty politics and partisanship we've seen from this side."