Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand—[Interruption]—to support—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Look can we just calm down? Just calm down. It's only Tuesday night. Give the speaker an opportunity. CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Absolutely Madam Speaker and I am sure things will get more robust as we progress into members' day tomorrow. But I am proud to stand tonight on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand as our sole speaker on this piece of legislation supporting the Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill progressed in the name of the Hon Nanaia Mahuta the Minister of Local Government. This is as many members of the National Party the Opposition have mentioned a relatively small bill in size but the impact that it will have particularly on those of lower incomes particularly superannuitants who I would note are often invoked by the National Party as those who they would like to be supporting—it will have a massive impact. That is because of section 13 being changed that being the form of verification required when one is seeking a rates rebate. It removes the requirement for a statutory declaration and enables a far more accessible and cost-effective process which actually may be far more aligned with internal local government or council processes. To quote from this bill itself it states—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry to interrupt the member. We've got two whips over here standing up having conversations. Now if you want to have a conversation you either go out in the lobby or you sit down next to someone and have that conversation.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Thank you Madam Speaker. I hope that the whips are paying attention to this incredible piece of legislation and the speech that I'm giving on behalf of it. So returning to new section 13 that being Form of verification". It states here that "An application that is required to be verified in writing for the purposes of this Act must be verified in a manner and form approved by the Secretary for Local Government." For those who are listening at home what this essentially means is that no longer are those who are seeking rates rebates going to be shackled with a process which can be somewhat prohibitive whether it is in costs or in complexity. Instead we through this process of removing a barrier for eligible applicants to apply for a rates rebate will be allowing local authorities to provide an online application process alongside a paper-based process. Importantly—actually as members of the Opposition have raised in their contributions so far—this did come out of the Service Innovation Lab which is a small group of dedicated innovative individuals within the Department of Internal Affairs ably captained by the Hon Tracey Martin. They recommended that this was one of the things that we could do. It's certainly not everything; it's not the panacea. It's not going to fix things like this Government is focused on such as inequality overnight but it is going to make life easier for some New Zealanders particularly those retirees and superannuitants. Importantly for members of the Opposition who may not yet be accustomed to the process that those who currently seek these rates rebates have to go through particularly if they have disability or mobility issues it may be the case that staff from local councils have to make home visits which surely members of the National Party would understand incurs costs on local governments on councils. What we're proposing here is for that online application process which reduces those costs for local governments—Mr Ian McKelvie I'm sure that we'll see you standing shortly and making an impassioned speech in favour of this wonderful piece of legislation. But I would state with regard to this being an identified barrier inside the Service Innovation Lab report—as well as the difficulty for those with mobility issues or disabilities in accessing rates rebates as they currently are required to through the statutory declaration process—it's also the case that it can be somewhat embarrassing to come forward in front of a local council or to speak to employees of local council and to make yourself known as somebody who is in need of a rates rebate. You literally at present have to go before those people and ask for that handout and you need to prove it and you need to go through a process—that process being all the more embarrassing and compounded if for example you do have the likes of those mobility issues which currently arguably are people who are discriminated against under the status quo which does not allow for that ease of access to those rates rebates. Surely we want a more accessible society for all.The other important fact is that this bill makes a minor wording change—that being in new section 13 which I quoted from earlier—to allow those application forms to be approved by the Secretary for Local Government. This essentially allows for local councils to design to create—potentially to co-create with their local communities—the kinds of forms that those who are going through the rates rebate process would like to use. Ultimately that means that it can be easier for citizens in those local communities to access those forms regardless of whatever their needs may be but also it enables local councils to align these forms and these processes with their local internal unique processes which in turn has a knock-on effect with regard to potentially enabling further cost savings and further cost reduction which I'd state is something that was raised by my colleague Jamie Strange from the Tron which I visited recently. That's one of the many places where you have local government candidates who are promising some really out-the-gate off-the-wall kinds of proposals around cutting rates and somehow meaning to also increase services. I'll leave it to those candidates before local communities—such as those that the people who are hopefully listening to and enjoying this debate tonight get to press those candidates on.What we'll see with this legislation passing through the House tonight—because it absolutely does have the support of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand—is that this bill will go before the Social Services and Community Committee. There we will have one of the fundamental premises of the National Party Opposition's opposition to this bill tested—that being that local governments don't want it to happen. So to any who are engaged in their local government processes who may be listening to this debate tonight I would suggest that you go out there and you turn to Parliament's website and you make a submission. It's absolutely your prerogative in which way you'd like to make that submission but based on the rationale that's being progressed by this side of the House and the absolute lack thereof by the Opposition I would hope to see that you would be in support of something that increases ease of access and reduces cost on your local community. Further in my final minute and a half I would like to acknowledge as others have before me the incredible work of the Hon Ruth Dyson and the amendment that she brought not too long ago to this Rates Rebates Act to seek to again reduce costs and increase access to the Rates Rebate Scheme. As members of the Opposition and indeed members of the Government will see here what we have is a situation where we are chipping away at a flawed status quo. Absolutely as I have said in my introduction this is not the panacea this is not the Holy Grail and this will not fix inequality or poverty overnight but what it will do is make life slightly easier for those everyday New Zealanders that the Hon Simon Bridges finds himself banging on about so frequently. I'd just like in my final 30 seconds to address the point made by Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi with regards to the Productivity Commission—its draft report being released in July and the final report coming out in November. That report concerns in particular some of the more innovative ways that we could look at raising revenue for local councils and I'll take from his contribution that the National Party is interested in how we can increase resources for local government in this country. I'm looking forward to their support there as well."