Carter DavidRt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): Thank you Madam Chair Williams. I just want to offer a bouquet to Minister Stuart Nash who I think has been very helpful in this debate. We've asked questions and on two occasions he's risen to answer those questions. There are now quite a number more questions being asked. Can I just say to the committee of the whole House that if we get Ministers that engage constructively then we find that these sessions are of value for everybody listening to them so I certainly hope he will take a call.I want to take this opportunity to apologise to the Minister for embarrassing him when I asked him the mean monthly temperature through the winter in August in his own electorate and he had no idea. He suggested it was 15 degrees Celsius. I'm here to inform him that it does reach 15 degrees Celsius during April but of course the winter energy payment won't be available then.I want him to then consider the point I raised and the question that he hasn't answered which is very very important to me: how many superannuitants have they worked out will be ineligible for the winter energy payment and how many superannuitants are they budgeting will voluntarily opt out? I want those figures expressed to the committee because I don't think there will be many that will opt out. At the moment superannuitants could opt out of receiving superannuation and I'm sure the number involved in opting out to receive superannuation is very very small indeed if any because most superannuitants I know don't see it as a benefit despite the Minister and the Government describing it as a benefit. They actually see it as an entitlement after having worked for 40-plus years and paying due taxes through that time.So I certainly hope the Minister will take the opportunity of talking to his officials and finding out those figures which are important. How many superannuitants are eligible to receive the winter energy payment and how many have they budgeted will voluntarily opt out using new section 61FH which the Minister referred me to earlier.The second thing I want to tease out—and I hope the Minister will help us with this—is the information-sharing agreement which I understood he said was between the Customs Service and the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) but other speakers have referred to it being an information-sharing system between customs and IRD and maybe it's all three but I think that needs to be clarified.Then I want the Minister to prove to me that that system of information sharing is effective because I suspect that last year there were many superannuitants who left New Zealand for more than 28 days and were unsure of their obligations and returned none the wiser that they should have actually reported to MSD that they were away for greater than 28 days. But if the system's working as well as the Minister assures the committee that it is then he's going to be able to tell me exactly how many superannuitants they caught in the last year—in fact he can do his homework let's have it for the last three years—exactly the number of people they caught who left New Zealand stayed overseas for a winter holiday greater than 28 days and were caught within the system and had their superannuation correspondingly adjusted.If the Minister can't assure us that that occurs with superannuation then he is foolish to believe for one minute that they're going to use the same system to then catch superannuitants who then leave New Zealand during the winter for a well-deserved break in Denarau Island in Fiji enjoying themselves in the sun and dodging that winter of Christchurch which I know only too well. If they're not catching them now they won't catch those people who are then according to the legislation not entitled to the winter energy payment.Then the final question I have for the Minister is: if we take the situation of a superannuitant scientist still gainfully employed say by someone like the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research who goes to Antarctica to Scott Base throughout the winter—in other words will be away to winter over for well over 28 days—will that person be eligible for the winter energy payment? It's a simple question. They are out of New Zealand for a long period of time. They're going all the way down to Antarctica—Hon David Bennett: Representing the country.Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: —working for the country—will that person be eligible for the winter energy payment because by hell that person's going to need it.