SpeechHon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): This is a very important bill that we're debating in urgency this morning. We support the whole scheme about the rates rebate but we do have some issues with this bill that I want to talk about this morning. But I guess looking back because it's always good to look back while you look forward I had seven years on the Horowhenua District Council before I came into this place; so I understand grassroots and I understand how ratepayers rely—actually quite a few of them rely—on this important scheme. But what we are going to debate this morning and indeed we've had good contributions from this side of the House—probably found a little bit wanting on the other side. They don't seem to want to engage with us today on this particular bill. But there is an issue and that is about taking away the statutory declaration in this bill. It's written in the bill here that this can be difficult costly and time-consuming. I used to be the Associate Minister of Justice who used to oversee the justices of the peace and I got to know the JPs up and down the country very well. JPs do a fantastic job and they are accessible. If I look in my community my late father used to be a JP. He'd turn up every couple of weeks to the local library which is very much a community centre now and I know that happens in the Kāpiti Coast library as well. So JPs are very accessible to effectively sign off the paperwork to ensure this process is right. Our concern is if that process indeed is going to be removed it's going to be very easy—well too easy—for applicants to be able to effectively fiddle with the system not be accountable. In the end I have a fear that this bill could cost councils more than what it's trying to save by some of the detailed work that needs to go on with the statutory declaration. Brett Hudson: It's almost as easy to get wrong as accidentally getting your eligibility wrong on your superannuation application isn't it?Hon NATHAN GUY: I'm not going to go there today Mr Hudson but your point is an interesting one. When I look at the engagement on this because the whip for the Labour Party stood up and said that all these councils were in favour of it and I thought it would be interesting to note for the House today that they received 10 submissions—ha ha! It doesn't seem like a huge amount of support to me—and heard oral evidence of four submitters in Wellington. So it's interesting for the whip to stand up and say Oh there's widespread support on this." But right now when you think what ratepayers are thinking about it it's the cost of their rates and there are debates going on raging in communities right now because the annual plan process is upon councils councils are settling on their rates for the next 12 months—a massive debate in the Horowhenua District Council where the votes were almost split around the table about an increase. In the end they decided to not have such a substantial increase which I think the community by and large supports because we find ourselves in a very unusual situation with COVID-19 where a thousand people are still lining up at the dole queue at WINZ a day. That is massive isn't it? So when you think about the hardship of people that rely on the scheme we're going to have more ratepayers that are going to rely on this Rates Rebate Scheme because of the hardship that they find themselves in. The other thing about this bill that I found rather interesting was that it talks about councils being able to design their own application form and I thought: why on earth wouldn't you want to streamline this process? Because one council will potentially have a different form to another council. This is going to put a lot more accountability on council staff to effectively tick the boxes and try and understand if the applicant is actually being true to their word because there's no statutory declaration no JP oversight to look at the forms to look the individual in the eye to make sure that they are satisfied that everything is true and correct. So this bill could end up costing councils more because of fraudulent activity because someone—and I see there's an opportunity for applicants to go online as well as the tried and tested paper-based method. Now what we saw in COVID and the Zoom sessions—and I want to acknowledge Steven Joyce and the great work that he did rolling out ultra-fast broadband up and down New Zealand. We didn't completely cover the whole country—we've still got black spots—but we relied very heavily on internet access when we were all locked down in our own homes. I think the online ability is good through this bill but there's a caveat. It's a bit like online voting and that debate has been had and been booted around local authorities and even for our general election. Online voting is a concern to me because it's just too easy to have fraudulent activity and this is the concern that I have with this. Move away from a paper-based system make it easier to go online with transactions; people go "Yeah that's a great idea." But then once again you don't have the necessary oversight.The other aspect that I thought was interesting was the data matching with IRD. I would have thought—because there's been massive investment in the last Government and this Government in terms of IRD having to get their systems in place for a modern developing country like ours. Billions of dollars have been invested in IRD to make sure that their systems can actually be more accessible and work. So when I read that the Secretary for Local Government which is basically the person that runs Internal Affairs should consider applicants including their IRD number on the rates rebate application form—and "consider" means well what? Just have a fleeting glance at it? I'm not sure. I didn't sit on the select committee but could someone tell me if this issue was widely canvassed and debated?Agnes Loheni: We did talk about that.Hon NATHAN GUY: So it was considered. And why wasn't it—Agnes Loheni: There was no reassurance about how it was going to work.Hon NATHAN GUY: Yeah no reassurance from IRD or from DIA—from both? Yeah. So it's interesting. So I'm a little bit disappointed that when you think about the investment that's been made in IRD—billions and billions of dollars into their software systems—why on earth couldn't IRD provide a check with the IRD number being included? [Bell rung] Mr Speaker I'm just going to wrap up in a moment. So that's the bit where I have a concern because it just looks a bit easy that the committee has—we've heard that the committee discussed it but they've effectively passed the buck over to the Secretary for Local Government and that in my mind is disappointing.So in summary we can't support this bill because we haven't been given enough assurances through the select committee stage that there won't be fraudulent activity potentially as a result of making this application process easier. I've heard from our opponents over the other side. They say "Oh well you stand up in front of Grey Power and talk about this in the election campaign." Well we support the Rates Rebate Scheme—we do wholeheartedly. It's very important for those people that are struggling to make ends meet and we know there are going to be more people as a result of COVID-19 that are going to have to put their hand out and go through this very important scheme. What we don't support is the checks and balances that are effectively being taken away and we believe that this bill has the ability to even cost local authorities more in terms of potential fraudulent activity.So there was an opportunity to get this right with more checks and balances through the select committee process but unfortunately the Opposition couldn't get their voices heard enough and were blocked. We'll wait and see in due course whether our concerns about this bill come to pass. Thank you very much Mr Speaker."