Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Mr Assistant Speaker. We've heard some very passionate contributions from this side of the House and it's no surprise to me that people have got their dander up over here about the constant mess that this Government seems to find itself in when producing legislation and pushing it through this House.I'd like to start my contribution to the Social Security (Winter Energy Payment) Amendment Bill today in its second reading by saying that simply imposing this by way of a legislative override—effectively a whole lot of organisations: the Regulations Review Committee the Ombudsman and various others—and to ride roughshod over those organisations through a legislative process is not the right way to do it. It is manifestly unjust. It is simply not right. Retrospective legislation is not right."—that's a direct quote from Chris Hipkins on 2 July 2013.The irony of this bill is that it is being rushed through to legitimise unlawful payments made last year to 25000 people; that's $3.4 million worth of unauthorised payments. Rushing through this legislation process to fix mistakes made by rushing through legislation is a recipe for disaster and it's a recipe for even further errors. We've already heard that this process is still going to leave gaps in the legislation. I am of course referring to the 500-page Supplementary Order Paper that was dumped on the House only 24 hours out from the reading of the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. No scrutiny by the select committee no public process so no submissions and here were are; this is what happens when you bypass the system think you know best and make mistakes.We already know that we have got people now who are not captured by this quick fix and they are people in residential care who are now double-dipping on this winter energy payment. So how is the Government going to fix that? Or are you simply going to turn your back on the fact that 600 people are going to get this?I'm going to make mention of Peeni Henare's comments before when he defended this winter energy payment and asked the question of this side of the House: he wanted to know what was wrong with us over here. Well I want to say that he thought we should be happy that those who need it were getting the winter energy payment. Well the reason we're not happy is that the $450 that a single person is going to get from this payment or the $700 that couples with dependents are going to get from this payment still falls short of the $1000 tax relief that they would have got before they reversed the legislation that would have brought that in last year. That's why we're not happy; because actually the people of New Zealand are being short-changed.The one thing that they have forgotten too is that they have created this as a universal payment; there is no means testing. So it doesn't mean that the people who need it are necessarily getting it; everybody is getting it. And there comes my point and I'm sure Greg O'Connor would be disappointed if I didn't mention that it is called a "winter energy payment" when in fact it has nothing to do with energy; people can spend this money on anything they choose. This is a "winter payment". It short-changes the people of New Zealand because they don't get to keep more of the money that they earn and they don't have the choices they would have had had they had $1000 more in their pocket. We are not supporting this bill on this side of the House and I would urge the Government to take more respect when they are writing legislation and use the well-established process that we have through our select committees. I do not support this bill."