Social Security (Winter Energy Payment) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Social Security (Winter Energy Payment) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I’m pleased to see that the majority of this House is committed to ensuring that those New Zealanders who are most in need are able to heat their homes over the coming months. The winter energy payment was a new payment introduced as part of the Families Package. This package has provided additional financial support for low and middle income families towards accommodation, heating, and the costs of raising children. As a form of financial assistance, the winter energy payment has the largest eligible population within the benefit system. It provides extra financial assistance in the winter months to everyone who is on a main benefit, superannuation, or veterans pension in recognition of the increasing cost of living that often leads to those on fixed and low incomes struggling to heat their homes in winter.

This bill is about ensuring that the winter energy payment continues to positively impact the lives of New Zealanders by helping eligible people and families heat their homes over the winter months. During 2018, 774,200 New Zealanders on average per month received the winter energy payment. After including those with their partners, close to one million people have benefited from the winter energy payment already.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all the members of the Social Services and Community Committee for their work and acknowledge all of the contributions of submitters. I also want to acknowledge the officials who have worked on the bill. The Social Security (Winter Energy Payment) Amendment Bill has gone through the full scrutiny of the House within a short time frame. This has provided the opportunity for feedback from relevant stakeholders and select committee consideration within the specific and narrow nature of the changes proposed by the bill.

The winter energy payment policies themselves have not been amended. The only change is ensuring that legislation gives effect to the policy intent that has already been agreed to by this House. The shortened time frame also reflects the importance of passing this legislation by 1 May 2019. Our priority is ensuring everyone who is entitled to the winter energy payment receives this payment so they can have extra support throughout winter with the costs of heating.

This bill amends the Social Security Act 2018 to align the winter energy payment legislation with the agreed policy intent. As I mentioned, no new policy is being introduced as a result of the proposed amendments. The technical amendments in the bill ensure that the people who were intended to be eligible for winter energy payments received these payments lawfully. The policy intent was that the following two groups of people should receive the winter energy payment: people receiving Government funding for their long-term residential care or residential care services but who are not eligible for residential care subsidy or residential support subsidy, and people who travel overseas for more than four weeks during the winter period who should receive the winter energy payment for the first four weeks of their absence.

The amendments in this bill will ensure that people in these two scenarios are legally eligible for the winter energy payment. The amendments under clause 4 to section 72(2) ensure that people receiving Government funding for long-term residential care or residential care services and not receiving a residential care subsidy or residential support subsidy are not excluded from receiving the winter energy payment. The reason why people receiving one of these two subsidies are not entitled to the winter energy payment is because the cost of their care, including heating costs, has already been met by the State.

During select committee, officials identified two further small groups where the winter energy payment is intended to be paid: people receiving residential care services with long-term chronic health conditions who do not contribute to the cost of their care—the funding that they receive is not considered a residential support subsidy because they do not contribute for their care—and people who are in residential care due to a disability or a long-term chronic health condition where the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) does not redirect their benefit to the provider, instead they have a private arrangement with their provider. This funding is also not considered a residential support subsidy because MSD does not redirect their benefit. The amendments proposed in clause 4 to section 72 of the Act have been updated to make it clear that these two groups would be eligible for the winter energy payment.

There is also a small group of people—around 460, according to MSD—who are in residential care and receive Government funding for this care; for example, if they have been the victims of crime or are also receiving a main benefit, superannuation, or veterans pension. MSD has no information about the funding they receive for their care as MSD is not involved in undertaking financial means assessments for this group, as it is not required, and it continues to pay these people the full rate of their benefit. In order for MSD to identify this small group and change their payments, new systems would be required to share information between the Ministry of Health and MSD. MSD is determined that the most cost-effective, lawful, and practical option is to continue to pay this group the winter energy payment.

The amendments in clause 5 to section 220(2) ensure that people who leave New Zealand for longer than four weeks are eligible to receive the winter energy payment for the first four weeks of their absence. This aligns with the treatment of other forms of supplementary benefits. The bill also retrospectively validates decisions made by MSD last year to pay the winter energy payment in the scenarios that I’ve outlined.

Eligibility for the winter energy payment has already been agreed by the Government and Cabinet and in the House through the debate on the Families Package legislation. The clients who were paid winter energy payment last winter were all entitled to it. The issue is that the legislation did not reflect this intent, which is why we are correcting it. Most importantly, there have been no negative impacts on clients as a result of the legislative error. This bill will simply align legislation with policy intent and operations. Following on from this drafting error, MSD has documented lessons learnt from the winter energy payment process and will ensure that these are applied next time a new payment like this is set up.

We know that our officials are working hard to support this Government as we continue to make positive change for the well-being of New Zealanders. In this House, this topic, this issue has come up for debate and certain points were raised during other parts of the debate in this House. One in particular was the fact that it’s taken us 16 months to identify and then rectify the situation. It’s never ideal when mistakes are made in legislation and corrections need to be made to the legislation, but this is not the first time that a drafting error has occurred with legislation.

As the Minister, I acknowledge again that it’s not ideal, but I will say that one of the examples that I was able to find that was recent was an example whereby in 1998, a change to stand-down periods in the Social Security Act was made, and it went unnoticed and was not picked up until 2015, at which point the Government of the day were then able to make the necessary changes. There were financial ramifications in that instance, whereby many people over that period of time had lost a day of pay because the legislation was not befitting of what the intention of the policy was.

Yes—disappointed it’s taken 16 months for us to discover it and then change this. However, 16 months, as I said before in this House, is much better than, in that particular instance, 17 years. So we are here to make the change tonight. It is the final reading. This bill has gone through a fast but thorough parliamentary process to ensure that people who were intended to be eligible for the winter energy payment receive it now in a lawful way. This Government is committed to supporting those New Zealanders who are most in need to heat their homes this winter. I commend this bill to the House.

A noble defence—a noble attempt by the Minister Carmel Sepuloni to explain what happened. She was, of course, quite accurate in describing what the bill does. I would suggest she’s accurate in that it is fairly minor, but that’s where it ends. This was not simply an oversight. It’s appropriate, if I can, that the Minister tries to look at analogies from the past, but this was not an oversight by officials, per se. This was, arguably, not even an oversight by the Minister. This was an oversight caused by Ministers directing officials to work far too fast—far too fast.

We on this side of the House, obviously, are opposed, and I will elaborate further on that as to why, but the primary reason is that this process has been shoddy—absolutely shoddy—and I’ve said it many times in this House, and it’s unfortunate that yet again I have to say it. This is something we on the social development side of the House—those like myself, Louise Upston, Alfred Ngaro, and others who are working in this space—are seeing time and time again around social development legislation. It is rushed, it is not well-thought-out, and it constantly has to come back to the House to be rectified. As the National Party has put in its minority view, we expect that we’ll be returning to this House again, probably in this particular Parliament, to fix more mistakes.

The Minister talked about a process that was thorough—very nice, positive way to introduce the sentence—but, of course, the subclause to follow: “But it was pushed through quickly”. It was rushed; this was a rushed process. Those people that the winter energy payment is directed to were not given the usual full time that a Parliament should provide for them to speak. So those who are choosing to go overseas for four weeks, those who are in residential care—they were not given a chance to speak. In fact, the officials, I would argue—who did a good job in and of the time they were given—have not been given the right amount of time to think this through. In particular, we have a piece of legislation in front of us here at third reading which is retrospective. All members of this House understand that retrospective legislation should be done infrequently, and here is a situation where, personally, I don’t think it was the right thing to do. Personally, I think we should’ve taken more time to consider this, because, amongst other things, what this is is an attempt to rectify a mistake that was introduced because of mistakes made in an earlier rushed process.

There was a social policy, or a social welfare rewrite bill, before this Parliament. A Supplementary Order Paper was dumped at the last moment into this House—literally the last moments—it had no select committee oversight, it had no scrutiny other than what the capabilities of—

💬 Hon Member: Surely not.

No, sadly, that is true. We warned them at the time that mistakes would happen, not just around the rewrite itself, but around this winter energy payment, and lo and behold, here we are having to do an amendment, as predicted. So that is primarily why we are opposing this bill.

The Controller and Auditor-General themselves identified, around about April this year—which is, obviously, of course, not that long ago—that payments had been made illegally by the Ministry of Social Development. Moneys were being paid not only against policy but against the appropriations of this Parliament. I think that needs to sink in for a moment, that payments were being made illegally. Someone on the other side sighs, which may be because it’s been a long night; maybe they don’t like what’s being said, but they were illegal payments.

Probably, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not an enormous amount of money, but, again, it’s a very clear indication that when you have a Government which is not following good parliamentary processes, which tries to rush things through, there are consequences. The consequences are not just long committee stages or, perhaps, MPs in the Opposition droning on and on; the consequences are that taxpayers’ money—hard-working mums and dads, who spent their extra hours working in the fields or on the roads or in the lawyer’s office—has been wasted or paid—paid, if you will—in a way that was not intended.

So what this bill attempts to do is fix two areas. They’re described as minor and technical, but I actually don’t think they are. I don’t think they’re major, but I wouldn’t describe them as minor and technical. One is that, effectively, the winter energy payment, if you will, was not designed to be paid to those who are already receiving the full support of the Crown, particularly those in the likes of residential care. But it was; that’s one of the illegal elements. It was paid out, and so this bill’s going to tidy all that up. In some ways, it’s all nice and tidy—neat little package, little bow all tied up, very nice—except for the fact that now we’re, effectively, paying people twice. They’re going to get the full cost for their living in residential care—heaters, electricity, whatever—and on top of that, they’re going to get a winter energy payment. It’s paying twice.

Officials were not able to tell us actually how many people are affected by this, which, of course, doesn’t give myself or, I’m sure, this side of the House much confidence. But they’re being paid twice—paid twice. What’s the point of that? I mean a lot of us—

💬 Hon Member: Poor taxpayer.

Yeah, poor taxpayer, as one colleague said. Others would wish to be paid twice, too. But the other point I’d point out—if that’s not a very oddly constructed sentence—is that that’s, effectively, a discrimination. I expect this to be challenged in some way by a whole lot of other people who say, “You know what, actually? I know that the Crown already pays some contributions to me, but I just want a little bit more, if you don’t mind. You know, I wouldn’t mind being paid twice as well”. We’ll see how those who are all into, you know, discrimination—it’s sort of one of the buzzwords—handle that one in the future.

The other is around those who are overseas who are being paid after the 28 days, or because they were away for 28 days. Again, a good tidy up there, but the fundamental point is that this should not have happened, and I’d like to suggest, once again to the House, that this would not have happened if we, first and foremost, had a proper amount of time to have considered the genesis of the amendment bill that we have today. I want to once again put on record, particularly in the social development space, that we are seeing a habit, a trend, a vice, if you will, of rushing legislation through the Parliament, which in itself is disrespectful and fundamentally disrespectful to the people of New Zealand.

The other part that I’d add—and this may reflect more my views than this side, but we’ll soon pick up on it. The winter energy payment I’ve described before as simply bribing people with their own money. What I mean by that is some people will be very grateful that they’re receiving this money. It’s delightfully packaged, it has a nice three-word name. Anyone who’s studied rhetoric will understand three words is better than four, and, certainly, better than two—it just sounds good. But where did that money come from? It didn’t come out of magic. In fact, today’s National Unicorn Day—how I know that, I’m actually now a little bit concerned—but, anyway, it’s National Unicorn Day. The money just didn’t pop out of magic. It popped out of the taxpayers’ money. In fact, those hard-working New Zealanders—

Facing extinction, like your party.

No, they’re actually already extinct—it’s a big distinction. We’re still alive and kicking, and we’ve got more than one horn.

In fact, the thing is here, the hard-working people who are receiving the winter energy payment are the ones who have already paid their taxes for that payment. This is yet another example of how the hard-working New Zealander contributes money into a governmental or a tax system and then, bizarrely, is told to be grateful that they receive only part of it back in this smart little package. It’s why I call it bribing people with their own money. It’s a very strange dynamic, and I think it behoves this side of the House—myself and others—to get that clear into Kiwis’ minds, that what this Government offers is nothing more than a little bit of the money that you’ve already given.

So I oppose this bill. I oppose it in principle. I oppose it also because of the way that it’s been pushed through this Parliament. It was not a thorough process. It was ill considered, it was ill put through this Parliament, and, fundamentally, it arises out of an earlier mistake, which in itself was fixing a mistake after that. In fact, you don’t, Mr Speaker—oh, sorry, not you; this House does itself no justice by continuing to replicate the problems which bring about the problems in the first place, and that’s what this bill is about tonight. It’s about fixing a mistake that was already indicated was going to happen.

So we on this side have no confidence, not only in the Government that is putting these sorts of things forward but we have no confidence that this will be the last amendment bill around social security. So as I end my speech, I for one, and those on this side, brace ourselves for the next time we have to take a call on a rushed parliamentary process around social welfare.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a reasonably short call at the third reading of the Social Security (Winter Energy Payment) Amendment Bill. I thought I would address a number of points that the member who just resumed his seat, Simon O’Connor, made, but that would probably take up my entire allocated time because there was so much that was just misleading, really.

Anyway, so the reason that we’re here today is because the winter energy payment legislation that passed in 2017 didn’t fully cover all those who received it last winter. That’s pretty much it. That’s the crux of this bill that we’re debating for the third time today in this House. The reason that happened was because of an issue with the technical drafting of the legislation which meant that it differed slightly from the policy intent. Everyone—and I want to make this very clear in light of some of the comments by previous members—who should’ve been paid that winter energy payment last winter was. About 3.3 percent of people who received it weren’t fully covered by the legislation in the way that it was drafted. However, they were covered by the policy intent of the legislation that passed. This bill fixes it so that everyone who’s covered by the policy intent of that bill is also covered so that they can be paid lawfully this winter. So it’s incredibly disappointing that members opposite won’t support this bill, because, in essence, what they’re not supporting is for people in two specific categories to be paid the winter energy payment this winter, hence the intent on this side, I guess, or the focus on this side of the House, to pass this legislation quickly so that people can be paid this winter.

We’re not here to discuss the eligibility of the winter energy payment; we did that. We did that when this House debated the Families Package that was passed in the first 100 days of the coalition Government. We discussed all the ins and outs of the policy detail. This bill is just a technical amendment, and it’s policy-neutral as a result of that.

So the two categories that this bill amends, in a sense—well, it amends the Social Security Act 2018 to ensure that people who fall into two specific scenarios get the payment, and these are the two scenarios: the first, of course, is when people travel from New Zealand and they’re absent from New Zealand for more than four weeks. The technical tweak to the bill will ensure that they are paid for the first four weeks, and that means it aligns this payment with other such payments as well. The second category is those who receive Government funding for long-term residential care or residential care services but aren’t eligible for the two subsidies—the residential care subsidy and the residential support subsidy. So these are the two categories. People who fell into these categories—that’s about 3.3 percent of those who received the winter energy payment—received it because they were intended to, fully, but the drafting of the legislation didn’t actually cover them. So when this bill, the Social Security (Winter Energy Payment) Amendment Bill, is passed, they will be covered and they will get the payment this winter, as they so deserve.

This bill was part of the Families Package, as I mentioned before, which is a targeted package of assistance to those who really need the support, although members opposite would have people believe that those who get the winter energy payment—I think in previous debates we’ve heard it referred to as those who wanted to stock their wine cellar, but that’s actually not the case. This is a payment that goes to those who get either a superannuation, a veterans pension, or a main benefit—people I have sat with who wear layer upon layer of clothing because they were struggling to heat their homes and people were dying as a result of cold, damp homes. These are the people who get a little bit of allowance to get them through the winter months in a way that is warm and in a way that’s healthy.

About one million people received the winter energy payment last winter, and we have had on this side of the House a wide range of correspondence from different people, people in different conditions, I guess, or circumstances, who have benefited from the winter energy payment. I am incredibly proud that we are moving quickly on this side of the House to ensure that everyone who should be getting this payment will get it this winter, and I’m glad we’ve moved swiftly on that, even if members opposite are churlish enough not to support. I commend this bill to the House.

It’s my pleasure to take this call on the third reading of the Social Security (Winter Energy Payment) Amendment Bill. I think of my parents, who are both superannuitants, and I am sympathetic to the intent of the bill, which is to address and to recognise the costs of heating homes during winter, but, actually, they are also facing rising costs of living under this Government during the course of a full year.

There are a number of concerns which have been highlighted by members on this side of the house during the passage of this bill. The previous speaker, Priyanca Radhakrishnan, and also the Minister for Social Development, just earlier tonight, talked about this bill targeting those that are most in need. I’m pretty sure the Rt Hon David Carter is really in need of this winter energy payment, which he is receiving. This bill actually does not consider need; it merely gives a blanket subsidy to everybody who is eligible. It is an opt-out, not an opt-in, payment, thus giving additional moneys to many who have stated categorically that they don’t need it.

The bill’s fast progress—expressly fast progress—has not allowed a fair process for scrutiny. We are here debating this winter energy amendment because of the lack of scrutiny on this bill due to the rushed process which resulted in the ministry paying out $3.45 million of unappropriated and unlawful expenditure, moneys that cannot be recouped.

I think of my parents—and I mentioned this before—who are both superannuitants who will receive this winter energy payment, but I also think that under National’s proposed tax cuts, they would’ve received the extra money spread across the year rather than an injection across several months which forces them to adjust their budgets accordingly. Further, the winter energy payment will erode over time in real terms with no indexation factored in.

We on this side of the House have reiterated our concerns that legislative changes are being made in a rush due to mistakes having been made when the original legislative changes were rushed through Parliament without proper scrutiny. Let us be reminded that this is a result of the Minister dropping a 500-page Supplementary Order Paper in May last year, 24 hours out from the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill, which failed to get the details right around this winter energy payment. The amendment in this bill purports to correct a mistake related to those in funded residential care, but we are of the view that this is still not being corrected, and further mistakes will be made.

Ministry officials were unable to advise us of the precise number of people who will be fully funded by the Government for their full-time residential care and who will still receive the winter energy payment. As noted in one of the very few submissions—very few, because there was only a short amount of time—one of the submitters wrote, “One of the things I care deeply about is people trusting decision making institutions and feeling like they can be genuinely heard—this undermines that work.”

There was no genuine attempt by the Government to allow fair scrutiny of this bill or to allow more voices to be heard. On that note, I do not support this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise and take a call on the Social Security (Winter Energy Payment) Amendment Bill. I’ll begin my contribution by just acknowledging the member from Tāmaki, who spoke—after spending some time today with pink, fluffy unicorns—to suggest that perhaps he has never been on Struggle Street. Perhaps he has never had a cold home. So when you are in a cold home, you get sick, your children get sick, your old people—your seniors—get sick.

There are two words I’d like to reflect on today. Makariri—that side of the House, makariri. This side of the House, mahana—mahana. Cold, warm—those are the two words that this bill encapsulates. For me, it is making sure that our people who need it and those members of society who are vulnerable have this winter energy payment to keep their homes warm during winter.

This is a slight, technical fix-up. There was a drafting error, and no more than that. Perhaps the members on the makariri side of the House would like to stop seeing pink, fluffy unicorns and get back down to earth. Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā, e huri noa i Te Whare nei, e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. Well, I’m someone, actually, that is mahana, because that previous speaker, Jenny Marcroft—kia ora to that speaker. But, you know, I can remember when we—our nine kids—were in our State house. I also know what it’s like. We used to toss up for Dad’s army coat, actually, to put on our beds to keep warm, so we’ve been there and done that. All we’re doing is our job—this is our job on this side of the House. Our job is to actually hold the Government to account, and what we are doing here—you know, we are sympathetic to the intent of this bill, but it’s really just the process.

Just for the record, what I want to do, just for the sake of the Hansard, is to cover the National Party minority view which came out in the Social Services and Community Committee report: “National reiterates concerns that legislative changes are being made in a rush due to mistakes having been made when the original legislative changes were rushed through Parliament without proper scrutiny. National members are concerned that a bill that purports to correct a mistake related to those in funded residential care is still not being corrected. There will be a number (officials were unable to advise the precise number of people) who will be fully funded by the Government for their full-time residential care and will still receive [the winter energy payment].” Also: “This does not make sense [at all] because their energy costs will be funded twice by taxpayers. This perpetuates an inequity and there is a risk of legal challenge for those who will be excluded from receiving the [winter energy payment].”

So, looking at those different clauses of the minority view is very much about holding the Government to being responsible in actually putting together legislation through this winter energy payment bill. That is why, I think, we have heard from this side of the House all of the different sorts of reasons why we need to oppose this bill, and we do. But I want to make the point that, particularly when you talk about us being cold on this side of the House and you being warm—I mean, our whole whakaaro here is to hold you to account, particularly on what’s been highlighted throughout this whole process of this bill.

E Te Mana Whakawā, tēnā koe. So that was my short call, just to reiterate why this side of the House cannot support the bill. Nō reira, e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. Kia ora.

Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s with pleasure I rise to support this minor, technical piece of legislation that will help ensure that people that got money to keep their houses warm over last winter are able to keep that money that they used and ensure that people this winter who are—from the intent of the legislation—entitled to be able to turn on their heaters will be able to do so.

That feels like a nice thing to support, I think, particularly now as it’s starting to get cold outside. I had the fire on last weekend. I was thinking about this legislation and thinking about the Opposition’s position in relation to it. Actually, I went through two bags of firewood in one day, which I think was about 40 bucks’ worth of firewood—in one day. I was just thinking about all the people struggling to keep themselves and their kids warm.

💬 Hon Aupito William Sio: They don’t care.

As my colleague points out, it doesn’t seem as if the Opposition cares about those people, but on this side of the House, I’m pleased to say that we do.

There are a few points that have been raised by the Opposition in particular that I do just want to quickly address. I don’t expect my speech is going to take the full time because, actually, this is quite a simple correction to make sure that the intent of the legislation is able to be enacted. But people have been raising that the Government’s being lax and that they shouldn’t make mistakes, and members of the Opposition have been quite exercised about that. But I’ve been here a few years now, and the number of times I’ve been in Opposition speaking to legislation from the previous Government and correcting drafting errors—I don’t know how many times, but there were quite a few. I would predict that in the future, I will stand on this side correcting drafting errors from the previous Government’s legislation. I see that coming.

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: Oh, they stuffed up a hell of a lot.

They did stuff up a lot, and part of it is just that drafting is difficult and technical errors happen. So it’s not something to take the moral high ground over, because we’ve all been there, and we will all be there at some stage.

Also, the point has been made challenging the retrospectivity of this, and the Greens often raised concerns about retrospective legislation. As a general rule, legislation should not be retrospective when you’re holding people to a standard of law at a time when that was not law. That’s unreasonable to do. However, when the intent of the legislation was not realised by the drafting of the bill, I don’t think the conceptual framework of the opposition to retrospectivity applies, because, actually, it’s just that the legislation didn’t reflect the intent. We’re not taking anything away from people or judging people on an unfair standard; we’re just giving them what we wanted them to have.

So I’m all good with giving people what we wanted them to have, and particularly when it comes to being able to keep themselves warm. That seems OK to me, particularly when we know that there are, I think, 1,600 excess deaths from the cold and damp houses in this country every year. That’s appalling, and in this debate I think we need to remember that.

Another point that’s been made from the Opposition is where they’ve raised the idea that there’s potentially a group of up to 400 people who will get this winter energy payment who may already be having their costs covered in other ways. So there’s a suggestion that this is double-dipping. But I haven’t heard anybody speak about who those people actually are, and my understanding is they are people who are likely to be in rest homes who are moving into or out of the hospital section of that rest home. This is the group of people that the National Party wants us to be going through and cutting entitlements to make sure that they don’t get a cent extra to be able to keep their heating on when they get out of the hospital.

💬 Hon Member: Makariri.

Makariri. It’s just a meanness and a meanness that they haven’t been upfront about in this debate—

💬 Gareth Hughes: And uneconomic.

And uneconomic, as my colleague points out, because, actually, the cost of being that mean would be more expensive than the money being paid out. So it’s not that this side of the House is being loose with the money; it’s actually that we want people to be warm. We are being compassionate for people going in and out of hospitals and we’re being efficient with the money. It doesn’t seem, kind of, very good grounds to be opposing those principles.

I do just want to point out that the member of the Opposition also brought unicorns into the debate, rather confusingly. I did struggle, and there was a suggestion that maybe they were unicorns and going extinct. The member mentioned that, actually, no, they’re not unicorns, because they have more than one horn. So now I’m a little confused and going, “Are they bulls, are they goats, are they stags, or are they naming themselves as devils?”, because, really, I just think they shouldn’t be quite that harsh on themselves. I may have trouble with their contributions in this debate and their policies, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call them devils. But if they’re going to call themselves that, then far be it from me.

But, really, this is a very simple piece of legislation to ensure that everyone who is meant to be able to get the money to be able to ensure they can keep their heater on and pay for their firewood this winter, if they have a fire like me, are able to do so, and we are proud to support that.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Well, here we are, here again, cleaning up a mess that should not have been and it’s become something of a regular occurrence under this Minister—where a bill is drafted and then we revisit it with a Supplementary Order Paper or a revised amendment bill to clear up her mistakes.

The previous speaker, Jan Logie, who I really thoroughly enjoyed listening to, mentioned the intent was not realised in the initial drafting of the bill. But that is the point: when you’ve got good process, you get the laws right the first time and that is, in essence, the reason why we don’t support the winter energy payment amendment bill; not because we don’t support the universal nature of the winter energy payment, but that this bill did not go through a proper process, and we’re here revisiting it and wasting valuable time when we could be talking about more important things.

So this bill has been rushed through Parliament in a very ill-informed manner. It doesn’t have the proper scrutiny, and the mistakes that we’ve been correcting may, in fact, not be corrected at all in terms of the advice that we’ve had—

💬 Stuart Smith: They didn’t do the mahi.

—and so, if you don’t do the mahi, you don’t get it right the first time. So we definitely oppose this bill. Again, the intent of the bill we can understand, and I refute the previous speaker who says that we don’t care about how people heat their homes. We do, but we care, we believe that—we’ve got to ask ourselves what the right mechanism is for that to occur and in a scenario where you’ve got rising costs of living—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. Could Mr Penk please refrain from those interjections. They’re very disconcerting and disorderly.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

When we’ve got rising costs of living across the board, whether it be petrol prices, increased taxes, increased rents, increased food prices, Consumers Price Index about 2 percent, you’ve got to ask yourself, “Is there a better way to help these people heat their homes?” We just think that this is an ill-informed policy. It’s a policy that we think should be better targeted and managed. So with my closing remarks tonight—

💬 Brett Hudson: No, keep going, Dan. You’re doing a good job.

Ha, ha! And thank you to my colleagues, because this has been a rushed process and that is what it’s about. It’s about getting the right process and the right process at the right time. Sixteen months after this bill was considered, we are back here cleaning up the Minister’s mess. You know, Einstein said if you do the same thing over and over again, expect the same results. I mean, that’s the definition of insanity. And if this Minister doesn’t change her approach, we’re going to see this not just with this bill once again but with other bills that she puts before the House. So we oppose this bill. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

I understand this is a split call. Anahila Kanongata’a Suisuiki—you have five minutes.

Te Mana Whakawā, it is an absolute privilege to contribute to the third reading of the Social Security (Winter Energy Payment) Amendment Bill. And it would be remiss of me not to respond to “unicorn land”, to the Rt Hon David Carter’s payment, or to anything that was contributed from the other side.

We’ve heard “makariri” and we’ve heard “mahana”. I think those words are words tossed around in this House. It is time that we hear from the people who receive this benefit. So can I read this, Madam Assistant Speaker, if you can allow me to say this. One woman wrote, and I quote: “Thank you very much for the winter energy payment. My son has autism and lives at home and gets supported living payment. I really appreciate that the Government cares about the least privileged members of our community. Families affected by autism are often struggling so an extra help is great.” Another voice from the street—as I was on the streets of Māngere in Tāmaki-makau-rau, one person came up to me and said, “Anahila, tell the Prime Minister my dad says we can turn the heater on.” That was last year.

What, basically, that means is that—as the member Jan Logie spoke about, as she puts firewood into her fireplace, as the Rt Hon David Carter, as mentioned by the member across the House, turns on his heater—we don’t even think twice. We don’t think twice. I go back to my apartment tonight; I turn the heater on—I don’t even think twice. But to people like this—like people who have just spoken like this mum, or the daughter that told me that her dad is so thankful that they can turn the heater on—it has a rippling effect of warmth in the community, in the household that these New Zealanders live in, these taxpayers. These people are also taxpayers. They’ve worked hard. If you are receiving superannuation, you’ve worked all your life.

This is about listening with the heart. “I can’t turn the heater on because I can’t afford it.” Well, this coalition Government said last year, “Yes, you can.” This year, we are correcting a drafting error—only one or two. No new policy coming through; we’re just correcting it. I say let’s finish the talk now. Spark it up. I commend this bill to the House. Malo.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m very happy to make just a quick contribution on this debate—a debate that has been rightly described previously as an amendment to an amendment, a fix up to a fix up. We’re here to fix a situation where there were some drafting errors in the legislation that led to 25,000 people receiving unlawful, illegal payments that were not authorised by this Parliament. The intent was that they should have received these payments, but the legislation didn’t match the intent. It’s been really fun tonight to watch the Minister Carmel Sepuloni and her backbenchers get up and squirm and try and tell us that “Oh, look, it was just a mistake. It was a drafting error. These things happen. It happens all the time. Don’t worry about it.”

I tell you what—it’s not normally nice to put the boot in when these things happen, when mistakes happen, because we all know that these things happen. From time to time, they happen—

💬 Hon Members: Ask Simon.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. If you’re interjecting, I think you still need to use the member’s correct title.

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Ask Simon Bridges.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you. Please carry on.

From time to time, we need to pass legislation—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Just make them witty, please, will you?

I don’t know if that member’s capable of wit, but we’ll see, eh?

Look, on occasion we have to pass some fix-up legislation. Despite the fullness of process and the closeness of scrutiny, things slip by—these things happen. But this is not one of those times. This is not simply, as the Minister puts it, a small technical drafting error that slipped by—giving an example of how it happened previously once in 1998 as if to exonerate her ineptitude. This bill is borne out of, firstly, arrogance—the arrogance of the Minister, who politicised a rewrite bill that did not need politicising, then dropped a 500-page Supplementary Order Paper on the Table at the last minute.

This bill is borne out of a lack of process. Those 500-page amendments were delivered so late that we didn’t have time to scrutinise them and New Zealanders didn’t have the time to have a proper process—there was no select committee. Perhaps if there was, some of those seniors heading overseas could have pointed out the 28-day anomaly. Perhaps it would have been pointed out that there were some issues around the residential care problem. This bill is borne out of an unwillingness to listen, because at the committee stage, for hours—and I’m sure Mr Dan Bidois, sitting beside me, got up in the committee stage and pointed some of these issues out. We did so for hours, but we were ignored.

This bill is not fixing up an unintended consequence or mistake that was just simply overlooked. We are here today with this bill because this was always going to happen. It’s what happens when they rush; it’s what happens when they don’t follow proper process.

For Jenny Marcroft to come up here tonight with her very theatrical “Oh, they’re so cold and we’re so warm.” How about: “You’re so inept and we’re so capable.”? I don’t know the Te Reo words. Maybe Nuk Korako could come up here and tell me what they are. But I tell you what: [Gestures to Government benches] inept; [Gestures to Opposition benches] capable. I can’t do it as theatrically as Ms Marcroft, and I am not concerned about putting the boot in.

From here, the question has to be: “Will they learn their lesson?” This bill tells us they’re not going to learn their lesson, because here we are again, doing exactly the same thing—they’re rushing legislation again and they’re not listening. Here we are, rushing through this bill at breakneck speed, even though they knew in June last year that they had this mistake. The Office of the Auditor-General told them in October last year—plenty of time to bring the bill to the House in a timely manner, yet here we are racing it through again.

Furthermore, here we are in Opposition, once again warning the Minister of problems that are still not sorted by this bill. It’s been traversed earlier and in previous speeches that there will be seniors who are living in residential care who are fully funded by the Government, and yet here they will still be receiving the winter energy payment—the poor taxpayer, effectively, paying twice, even though the intent of this bill is for those receiving residential support subsidies to be ineligible for the winter energy payment for this very reason: the taxpayer shouldn’t pay twice. But this Minister is not listening to us and is, once again, making excuses tonight: “Oh, it’s all a bit difficult.”

I just can’t understand that. This is from an extraordinary Minister with such great successes as putting water in Work and Income New Zealand! How could she not come up with a solution to this? So here we are fixing up a totally avoidable error, had we followed correct process and had they listened to us. And here we are again, with retrospective legislation that, when they were in Opposition, they rallied against. How things have changed. We oppose this amendment bill, and we oppose this amendment to the amendment. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

My goodness, what an act to follow! It’s an absolute pleasure to speak on this bill, because I know how important the winter energy payment is to so many New Zealanders. In my previous job, it used to be my job to count how many children were coming into hospital with infectious and respiratory diseases, and so many of these are associated with cold, damp houses.

Where I live down south, it gets really cold in winter, as you can imagine, and our houses really aren’t equipped, in many cases, for winter. So coming into Government, what I was hearing from a lot of pensioners was they were having to go to bed when the sun went down with a hot water bottle and a beanie, because it was just too difficult to turn the heater on. So the winter energy payment has transformed that for a lot of New Zealanders, and it’s one area where we get positive, thankyou correspondence from a lot of people saying “Thank you. I can now afford to turn the heater on.”

What this bill does, though, is just make a couple of minor amendments to realign the current practice with the legislation because, when the legislation went through in 2017, there were just a couple of small groups that weren’t covered in detail with that legislation. As we’ve heard tonight, those were people receiving Government funding, who were in long-term residential care or residential care services, but they weren’t eligible for a residential care subsidy or residential support subsidy, or otherwise people going overseas for more than four weeks, and the expectation was that they would receive the winter energy payment for those first for weeks.

All this bill does is just minor technical fixes to ensure that what was intended in the policy intent of that legislation is actually carried out. It only relates to about 3.3 percent of those receiving the winter energy payment—so a small number of New Zealanders, but it’s critically important that they can continue to receive that payment legally from further on, and also that, retrospectively, it’s tidied up in terms of the payments that were made last year.

So we’re not introducing any new policy, because the eligibility was already agreed, in that policy sense, when the legislation went through in 2017. But what we’re aiming to do is make sure that the benefits of the winter energy payment can be received by all of those who were originally entitled to that, and that’s where the policy intent was. So I therefore commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker. I stand to take a short call on the Social Security (Winter Energy Payment) Amendment Bill in its third reading. Before I start, I just want to make a comment about mahana and makariri. On this side of the House, we are tino wera: we are hot, and they should know that, because that’s what we are on this side of the House. Ha, ha! Anyway, I digress—I digress.

I just need to make a couple of comments about this bill. I think it’s a waste of the House’s time. I think that it is an example of an inexperienced Minister who does not know the outcome of putting a 500-page Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) on the Table that hasn’t had external scrutiny. I also think that from this bill, there has been a lot of hurt. We’ve had a number of payments that have already been made illegally with this legislation, and we’ve had some people that will receive the winter energy payment twice. There’s lots and lots of hurt because there are going to be a lot of people out there that won’t actually qualify to get this winter energy payment. We think the process of getting us to this place has just wasted a whole lot of House time, whereas the Minister could have actually taken time out to review her SOP and to give it the proper scrutiny.

I think that really my contribution, essentially, ends there. My colleagues have traversed the area very well. I just want to say to the Minister: please, please do your work properly—do it properly. Look over the bills; listen to the officials. They may have something worthy of saying, and listen to this side of the House, because we scrutinise the Government bills very clearly. What we say, when we actually put our contributions in the House during the committee of the whole House, is we need the Government to actually listen to what this side of the House is saying, because—I will end—this side of the House, Jenny Marcroft, is tino wera.

Members opposite are not a bad bunch of blokes and women. I get on pretty well with most of them, but they do exist in an irony-free and a luxury zone—irony free.

Tonight, before this bill, we passed some very significant legislation. Its significance, its magnificence, was in the fact that it went through this House with the compliance—with the agreement—of virtually the whole House. I think most of us will look back on that as one of the most significant pieces of legislation we were fortunate enough to be involved in. Yet here we are, not 15 minutes later, being harangued for bringing some legislation to this House which actually, to those who it is going to affect, is equally important.

Who is it going to affect? It is going to affect some of the 1,600 people who will die this year in all of our electorates—that comes down to 22.5 people per electorate—as a result of the cold—the cold.

As I say, as well as being an irony-free zone over there, they’re also a luxury zone, because imagine having to debate—having to oppose—this. OK, their KPIs across the way are around opposing. They have to make the speeches. They’re measured on how many negative texts and how many negative Facebook and other social media posts they put out. But imagine the bad luck to have to do that at this time of the year. Imagine the bad luck of having to do this just as daylight saving finishes—that harbinger of winter; just as the godwits start heading towards Siberia on that long migration that we know not how; just as our children head out to do their winter sports and we get ready with our big coats to stand there; just as some people start to get the ski equipment out; while, at the same time, others sit there pondering as to how they are going to get through this winter. Are they going to be one of those 1,600 people?

It’s very real. I refer to a work there according to Philippa Howden-Chapman. She’s a professor of public health at the University of Otago. “We know that being cold has an impact on older people’s circulation in particular, because the blood gets more”—is it viscous?—“viscous and is more likely to form plaques, and people are more likely to have atrial fibrillation, or stroke and malfunctioning of their heart.” That’s what we’re actually talking about. That’s what happens when you do get cold.

There was another article, actually, a Listener article—Arthur Grimes, a senior fellow at Motu economics and former chairman of the Reserve Bank—talking about the risk of circulatory problems. For warming houses, this is where you get the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to insulation. They might not have heart disease now, but they may get it later. I would say that as a group they should be targeted. So these are the people that are going to be affected. This is how real it is.

So, again, I go back to the Opposition. Talking about unicorns—how ironic. I mean, if you’re going to bring something up, you really should just do something as simple as googling, just to find out what unicorns were renowned for. What they did was they had the power to render poisoned water potable. Well, that’s pretty much what we’re doing here. We’re making sure that our people—it’s very metaphorical, but that potability is actually people’s ability to get through the winter. But it doesn’t end there. This unicorn, which was hailed by members of the Opposition, it heals sickness and has magical powers, and so does legislation for some of our older citizens, some of those people who are wondering how they are going to get through this winter. The unicorn might be not a bad sort of analogy, because this will help to heal their sickness and have some magical powers to get them through the winter.

As the last speaker on this bill, I just go back to some of the comments. This is not “a terrible mistake”. I heard one of the—I can’t remember who it was; there were so many negative comments made across the House. This is not a terrible mistake, to pass this legislation. This is something that is actually a very, very good thing to do and—for those individuals who will be affected—as good as the previous legislation we passed tonight.

More impact—the other comment that was made: “Good processes don’t keep people warm.” Well, no they don’t. Good processes aren’t what keep people warm. It’s actually good heating—good heating that you can afford.

I’d just like, in commending this bill to this House, to say that not only was the original intent of the legislation to give our older and more vulnerable people the opportunity to survive and not become one of those 1,600 this winter a very, very good thing to do, but passing this legislation, which came from necessity, came from a drafting error, to do that at this time, at the start of winter, is actually a very, very good thing to do. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.