Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you Madam Chair Williams. Firstly may I commend the member the Hon Ruth Dyson for this member's bill. It is really an outstanding piece of legislation aimed at equal treatment and that is really one of its great redeeming features.Might I also say that what this is doing is putting on an equal footing different housing arrangements and I think that is really important: that where there is a rates rebate we need to recognise that there are multiple ways of owning homes. As the member has noted whilst this deals with retirement villages there may be some other areas that warrant attention and I certainly would commend that to the House. Things like joint living arrangements where the home is owned through perhaps a charitable trust—whilst it might not be immediately apparent that it's owned by retirees and superannuitants that nevertheless is the case. However this is one important step in the right direction.It's also worth noting that you know retirement villages come in many different shapes and sizes and certainly in my own electorate we have some very very large retirement villages housing thousands of people many of whom are to be quite honest quite well off and probably don't qualify for this rebate but equally there are some others that are very modest small and family-owned businesses. I can think of one in Ōpawa straight away. Those villages cater to a very important sector—a needy sector—of the community.So in terms of providing housing I think sometimes we can focus too much on providing first homes. We've also got to be very focused on providing last homes because we know that some of our older people do not have vast incomes or vast capital and this is a very useful piece of legislation to make it a little bit more possible to still have a home you can call your own. As the member noted there is a capital interest in a retirement unit quite unlike a rest home or a hospital arrangement where you'll be paying a weekly amount but when you leave that there's no capital return. It doesn't go back on the market and be sold to another incoming resident by whatever arrangement. Rather it is simply an occupation alone and not any kind of tradable interest in land.Having said that the Retirement Villages Act itself recognises multiple ways of having that interest in land. It's worth noting and I think the member was asking perhaps a little pointedly towards me whether they are mutually exclusive or whether they can run together. So clearly a unit title is one form of owning an interest in land. A lease is another. A licence to occupy is another. But you can't do those things all at once. It's going to be one or the other. Of course one of the great things about the retirement villages legislation and the Retirement Villages Act 2003 is it recognises any number of legal vehicles for a retirement village. The favoured one appears to be the licence to occupy but a retirement village could be comprised of a number of unit titles or a body corporate or various long-term leases that are recognised as an interest in land. This is neutral as I understand it in that regard so any of those arrangements would qualify.If I may say it is worth looking more carefully at some of our retirement villages legislation as we do this. Certainly through the Christchurch earthquakes there was some grave injustices as a result of the way in which insurance proceeds were paid out to owners of retirement villages. So whilst this is a very commendable step that irons out one wrinkle in this piece of legislation in this framework I commend this House to look a bit more carefully at some other aspects of it. But in terms of simply equal treatment of ratepayers it's not much to ask and I'm exceedingly surprised that members on the other side of the House did not support this bill in its earlier stages. But certainly in terms of what we have here it's simply ironing out an anomaly. It's saying that if you pay rates one way or another you're entitled to this rebate. And on that basis alone it's a very good piece of legislation. Well done to the member. I commend it to the House.