McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Just as well I got up quickly wasn't it. We heard earlier on tonight from Stuart Nash that if you've been involved in a business you're an expert on all things. Well I can assure you that I was involved in this funny business of local government for nine years and I don't know anything about it at all! But one thing I do know is that local government has to set rates. They have to charge rates and you get a rates bill in the mail. The thing about this business in here is we set the taxes. You never get a tax bill. You just get it nicked off you before you get to see it so you don't understand you're paying the tax bill. That's the difference between the flak that we get for setting tax rates and collecting cash to run the country and the challenge that local government's got setting a rates bill and then having to send the bill out to collect the cash to run local government. The Rates Rebate Scheme is one of those tools that this Parliament has given to local government to ease the burden for some people who struggle to pay rates. The challenge of course is that in this country we don't have enough income as individuals to pay the bills that we need to pay to survive. And we see that with things like rates rebate provisions with things like Working for Families—all sorts of tools that the Parliament has instituted to enable people to pay their bills equitably. The accommodation allowance is another one of those. It would be much more preferable if we earned enough money not to have to make these kind of distributions—I suppose for want one of a better word—from Parliament.The Rates Rebate Scheme doesn't account for the people that are most in need with respect to rates. The accommodation allowance does some of that but that also doesn't account for it entirely. And one of the challenges that we get in the rental situation particularly with some of the legislation that's been introduced in recent years which has effectively forced the cost of rentals up is that the rates bill and the rental situation is quite a significant contributor to the cost but the person who's paying the rent has no ability to get that rates rebate back. So it's not an equitable scheme. It certainly does play a part for those people who have a small freehold house in suburban New Zealand primarily and don't have sufficient income to get past the cap. So that's the issue with the rates rebate. I don't think it's sufficient or adequate. It's very difficult however as it has proved over the years with numerous reviews of rates schemes and how we might charge people and how local government might raise income—it's very challenging to find a better solution and we always talk about the better solution but it's not always evident. In the course of the discussion on this of course the New Zealand Productivity Commission talked about the ability to have a national rates postponement scheme which I frankly think is verging on evil. Because what effectively happens in that situation is you eat up your income or you eat up your equity and the problem we've got—and I don't know the exact figure but I know when I was 30 my life expectancy wouldn't have been much greater than what I am now. But I sure know now that I hope I get a few more years. The problem with the rates postponement - type schemes in this situation is that they eat up equity and you could well outlive your equity. That's the reason I don't like them. I think they creep up on you from behind. So I certainly don't like the alternatives in that respect. I do think it's a shame that this bill's come to the House and deals with a very very small segment of what is quite a large challenge. Were it to be given more thought and more time we could have introduced a rates rebate amendment bill which would have come up with a much better proposal than this one has. The other thing is I'd just make the point very quickly that most people—well not many people nowadays come into the council office and pay cash. But I certainly remember not that many years ago sitting in the foyer of a council building—because it's not a bad thing for a mayor to do to go and sit in the foyer of a council building when people are paying their rates because if you want to get a complaint you sure get them there—and watching the number of people that paid their rates in cash. It was pretty significant. But back to the point I was going to make and that is the fact—Andrew Bayly: That's why we shouldn't get rid of cheques.IAN McKELVIE: That's right Bayly. That's quite right. Well cheques of course are very valuable for— Andrew Bayly: Yes particularly for older people! IAN McKELVIE: —those who can still write them. I don't even have a chequebook—ha ha! But back to the point there's often nowadays—in fact in all of the six councils in my part of New Zealand in the Rangitīkei electorate or that verge into the Rangitīkei electorate they all provide JP services in the council building on at least one or two days a week and some of them more than that. So a lot of the issues that this bill tries to address are actually overcome by councils anyway. The other thing that happens to people that are looking to claim rates rebates is a lot of them are older and they love to have a chat with someone. And if they can go down to the council and have a chat with that JP that's helping them to do stuff or doing whatever they do that makes a much better day for them. It brightens their day gives them something to do. I did listen to the point that was made on the other side of the House earlier about the people that can't leave the house easily to do this sort of thing. That is a bit of a challenge and this bill does help to address that. But we don't support it for all the reasons that particularly Lawrence Yule outlined earlier in his speech. I think it's a shame this bill wasn't given a much better airing and given a lot more thought before it was introduced to the House. Thank you Mr Speaker.