Mooney Joseph; Parker DavidJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you Madam Chair. Minister I just would like you to elucidate a little bit on why you set—or why the Minister established a cost of living payment totalling $350 being half the couple rate for the winter energy payment as the amount to pay under this scheme? Noting that New Zealand is facing a significant cost of living crisis with the inflationary impact in our economy.Noting that this is not something that's not unique to New Zealand but is something that we are uniquely experiencing in New Zealand. But if we look overseas for example the United Kingdom is facing its biggest drop in living standards since 1956 as wages fail to keep pace with rising prices. Living standards the disposable household incomes when adjusted for inflation are expected to drop by 2.2 percent this year the biggest fall in a financial year since records began in 1956. So this is a serious serious issue that New Zealand is facing.But my question is: why has Labour decided to give a one-off $350 payment and why is it set on that amount rather than looking at something like National's tax plan which is a permanent plan something that everyone would benefit for years to come? So it's a structural change to the system that would benefit people on an ongoing basis in an inflationary environment that looks like it's going to run for some time—for example under National's plan anyone on $50000 a year or more would get more from National's tax plan; if you're on $50000 you would get $362 instead of $350 from Labour; if you're on the median wage $57000 you get $800 a year rather than $350 from Labour; and if you're on the average wage $72000 you would get $875 nothing from Labour. I note that this would be an ongoing benefit that people would get under National's tax plan. This is going to be an ongoing issue with this inflation environment. It looks like it's going to continue for some time. So there's two questions there: why has the Minister not considered an ongoing adjustment to account for the ongoing issue with inflation? And why has the Minister set on a $350 cost of living payment on a one-off basis?Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Revenue): Just for the benefit of the committee of the whole House and in particular Mr Bishop I'm advised that that supplementary analysis report is now online as well as on the floor of the Chamber. I thank him for raising it to my attention.In respect of the reason that we chose that amount we thought that that was a worthy contribution to household living costs facing the cost of living pressures to which the member referred. It of course is in addition to the assistance that we've given through slashing excise duty road-user charges and halving public transport costs as well as various other supports that've been made to other subsets of the population who aren't getting this payment but have had other supports from the Government.I would note that the gap between wages and inflation this year in the forecast economic indicators on page 158 of the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update that has been tabled today shows that inflation is forecast to be 6.7 percent during the forecast 2022 year against wage growth of 4.6 percent. So we're trying to bridge part of that gap but we think that we've got the balance right.