Adams AmyHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you for allowing me to take this call on Ian McKelvie's excellent amendment suggesting this new Part 3. As we've just canvassed on that point of order this is a very important aspect of ensuring that the families income package as the Government has introduced it in this legislation is reported on and tracked and the committee and therefore the public—and more importantly the public—are able to themselves see the impact on savings and the wealth of our people as they move towards retirement and whether the objectives of the bill as set out in the general policy statement have in fact been delivered. I would just quote for the committee again that the general policy statement tells us very clearly that the objective of this package is to provide targeted social assistance to improve incomes for low- and middle-income families with children and to reduce poverty.Now those are all laudable goals and I don't think there's a member in the committee who would disagree with the goals. We will all disagree—vehemently often—about how you best achieve them but if that is the stated purpose of this legislation and this package which it is then it is quite right that you would have an independent and well-respected body like the Retirement Commissioner issuing an annual report that tells the public in a very unbiased measurable objective way whether this package has reached those goals.We commented in the earlier stage of this debate—I certainly did—that one of the concerns that this side of the Chamber has had about this process is that Treasury in their regulatory impact and disclosure statements have made it clear that they haven't been able to assess whether this package will meet its intended outcomes. So without any sort of assurance at the front end of the process that this package will in fact raise incomes of those who need it most and alleviate child poverty it is vitally important that there is some measure of assurance for the public who pay for the funds to fund this package—and have lost income from their own pockets to pay for this package—that they can have some assurance and some way of checking and holding the Government to account as to whether in fact this package has done what the Government has been very proud to crow that it will do.They are laudable aims; no one is doubting that. What we have doubted and questioned from the moment this debate began is (a) is this the best use of the money involved and (b) is it the best way of meeting those purposes? Now the Government has shown no willingness to create their own targets and their own reporting mechanisms for this committee but we have a very very useful and appropriate mechanism in the retirement and savings commissioner who can assess absolutely whether the sorts of expenditure that this package involves—and we're talking billions and billions of dollars so it is a significant amount of public money. There is a genuine right and need to know whether that has improved the financial outcomes the incomes and therefore reduced poverty of those concerned. If the Government doesn't want to have their own measurable targets that they report on—and we know they don't because they voted against my colleague the Hon Louise Upston's excellent amendment that would have set that in the legislation—it makes entire sense to have a body that already exists like the Retirement Commissioner tasked with preparing that annual report.So I'm happy to give my full support to this review mechanism. I think it's important that the committee reflects on the fact that this won't be a lengthy or expensive process in and of itself. It's not a new agency it's not a new bureaucracy but this is the very raison d'être of the retirement and savings commissioner. Are New Zealanders in a position where they are better able to save for their retirement? Have the changes that have been made in this package—not generally that is the commissioner's general piece of work. This will ask the Retirement Commissioner to look specifically at the changes in this bill: the changes to the tax threshold so the fact that people have lost those tax benefits that they would have had putting more money in their pockets; the baby bonus that is in this legislation; the winter heating payment; the accommodation supplement changes; the Working for Families changes; the family tax credit changes through thresholds and rates.There are a wide number of different moving parts in this package but it only matters if those working parts are for the benefit of the low- and middle-income families that this bill in the face of it in the objectives tells us is its purpose. The whole reason for having this package is to lift the incomes of those families. Now if that is the case surely we would want to know as a country whether that has been effective. I think that a Retirement Commissioner annual report is an excellent way of achieving that.