Yule LawrenceLAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): It's my pleasure to rise and speak to this bill. National will be opposing this bill—I say that from the beginning and I'm going to outline some reasons why. In the specific instance of the rating of Māori land some of this bill has some merit but the risk it causes is that you set a policy that will then not be consistent with a whole lot of other Government policies that are being rolled out right now.Minister I understand the rating of Māori land; I've been a mayor where I've remitted those rates so I know it can be done. I've been a mayor when we have put the uniform charges together on several properties so the rates per property have been reduced. It can be done. It can be done with elected officials who understand the need and the value and the good. Now I accept that not every electorate official thinks the same but that is the core of New Zealand's democracy. Here we have a process where the Government rides in and says It's available to everybody." It's important I say that because—I'll come back to this later—I'm struggling to understand what is so broken that needs to be fixed without the precedent understanding of Ministers on your side of the House. What the Minister Nanaia Mahuta is really asking in this bill is that there is a provision to write off rates on Māori land and the penalties that go with that for whatever reason because it's unproductive land or can't be used.The Government currently has a significant number of policy initiatives under way many of which we have concerns about. One of them relates to the freshwater package that is being looked at at the moment which asks people—or tells people really; compels people—to fence waterways. Fence them off; they can't be used. They then become unproductive—unproductive land all around New Zealand. Five metres I think Mr Parker is the minimum. Five metres I think you're talking about either side of the water—or is it going to be 10?Hon David Parker: It's being consulted.LAWRENCE YULE: Yes it might be consulted on but that's what's being considered. A massive sway of farmland is becoming unproductive because we're trying to support the waterways.Then we have the new policy that's just been announced about indigenous species how we manage biodiversity—a case where a lot of New Zealand land farmland included may not be used for a productive purpose. Are they all going to get rates relief? Are they all going to get remissions? That hasn't even been thought about.So the fundamental premise from this side is that unless you do this holistically you are setting up one part of New Zealand to have a remissions policy and a way it operates without thinking about the precedent that goes on in other parts. I come back to my own experience in this place. I have seen the inability of in many cases multiply owned unproductive Māori land that is in some cases landlocked having rates build up over years and having to be remitted.I remind members of this House that rates—some countries call them "taxes"—are really the way in which we fund the local authority to operate and all the things that it operates for. Everybody that owns a property has a requirement to pay their share of those costs and that is set on basically land or capital value generally. If the land is unproductive for whatever reason you can mount an argument to say that there is no loss to the community for that land because it's not being used. You can also mount the case on Department of Conservation (DOC) land. DOC land is not being used apart from the keeping of the New Zealand estate. It may be used for tourism purposes but in many parts of New Zealand it's not rated for. The net result of all of that is that the people who have the productive land or the use they fund—whether it's houses businesses commercial operations or industrial operations—the cost for that community.Now we have in this case a bill that says basically a chief executive can write off historic rates and arrears for Māori land—whether its multiply owned or not—that has been unproductive to set the record straight. I can think of at least three times in my mayoral career where we had reports to us that looked at the value of the rates and the arrears. I agree with the Minister that in many cases it's the value of the arrears that are the issue. I think in all those three years we wrote those off. But the net result of that is probably that we should never have charged them in the first place because we end up putting them in a mix of the budget and then writing them off at the end. The net result of that is you push the price up for everybody else that is paying if you're going to deliver the same level of service. So our view is that we think the Government should first settle the Māori land tenure issues through Te Ture Whenua Maori Act before addressing this issue.We also think that the Government has not thought through the ramifications of some other policies that out of fairness and equity should apply for the same remission—that is that if you set land aside for an environmental value on waterways and it's unproductive why cannot any New Zealander get a rates remission of that? If you set land aside for biodiversity why can any New Zealander not get a rates remission for that? The net result of doing all of those things including the Māori land rates remission is that you narrow the pool of people who are paying the costs of providing the services for that community.Many farmers in New Zealand—as an example—plant large areas of land for conservation purposes. They can get a remission if it's a QEII but if it's not then there is no remission available. So on one hand we accept that there's an issue with Māori land and historic debts and the penalties but the way in which this goes about addressing it disadvantages all other ratepayers. If the Government wanted to fix this and if the Government is consistent in its approach then the Government should fund the rates of this land. The Government should fund the rates on the land that is going to be required to be fenced off and unproductive for water quality. The Government should fund the rates for the biodiversity value that New Zealand is going to get if that biodiversity strategy happens. Ultimately what you're doing is removing the productive base from New Zealand and you're putting extra costs on that very same productive base.If you'd asked me to talk on this or if the party had asked me to talk on this probably two years ago without those new provisions I'm talking about I would have had a little bit of sympathy. But I really worry about the precedent that is being set and I really worry that in this wish to sort of put a line in the sand and allow development you're setting a whole precedent of issues that haven't been thought through.Minister you said that in the Far North they've done all sorts of things to deal with how they reorganise land. Those things are already available in the current law. I have done them myself under the current Act. So I'm struggling to understand what is so revolutionary about this bill what it's expecting to fix and on the other side of that the dangerous precedent it's setting for all the other land that is about to become unproductive by various other Government policies and who's going to pay the rates on that. Ultimately a local authority has a budget and it does things: it builds roads sewerage water. All those things it does it needs to fund those and there is a certain community that has to fund them. If you remove the rating base and you take areas out of the rating base what you largely do is put more and more costs on what's left particularly urban ratepayers.So in our view while the issue is there the approach to resolve it is not the answer. It creates a can of worms and will set a precedent for many other types of Government policies that haven't been thought about. So we strongly oppose this bill."