Salesa JennyRATES REBATE (STATUTORY DECLARATIONS) AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingHon JENNY SALESA (Minister for Building and Construction) on behalf of the Minister of Local Government: I move That the Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The bill makes a discrete and targeted change to the Rates Rebate Act to make it easier for eligible people to apply for a rates rebate. It removes the need for people to make an unnecessary statutory declaration as part of their application. Instead they will be able to verify the information on their application form without it being witnessed. The bill also reduces the costs to territorial authorities of administering the Rates Rebate Scheme. There will be less need for home visits to applicants saving staff time and councils can design application forms that better suit their internal processing. While the bill may be targeted and seem like a small change it offers important benefits to rates rebates applicants. This bill means that a known barrier in the Rates Rebate Scheme is removed. People will no longer need to travel great distances nor experience unnecessary physical discomfort just to apply for a rebate that they are entitled to. Instead of having to find and travel to an authorised person to witness a statutory declaration or spend time waiting in line at a council office applicants will be able to complete their application forms on their own. We know this will be an important and welcome change for those who do not have access to easy or affordable transport options and who live a long way from someone who can witness a statutory declaration. It will also be important for the many applicants who have declining mobility or a physical disability because travelling and waiting in line is difficult. It does not make sense to make them do this for an unnecessary requirement. To give you a sense of how many people will benefit from this by the end of the 2019 rating year there were 103000 people who had successfully applied for a rates rebate. We know that many applicants to the Rates Rebate Scheme have declining mobility or a physical disability. Research into the rates rebate application process suggests that the statutory declaration requirement is the biggest barrier for applicants with a physical disability. For example for some bedridden applicants council staff will come and visit the applicant in their bedroom to witness the statutory declaration. This can be uncomfortable for the applicant and may put some off applying entirely. The changes in this bill will remove this barrier. Some people may be concerned that this bill increases the risk of fraud in the Rates Rebate Scheme. It has been said that removing the statutory declaration requirement will make it easier for people to provide false information to gain access to the rates rebate. I want to assure the House that this will not be the case. Under this bill there is still a legal requirement for applicants to provide accurate information to the best of their knowledge and the same fraud prevention mechanisms are in place. Applicants that provide false or misleading information are and will continue to be committing an offence under the Rates Rebate Act. The bill is simply about removing the need for someone to be witnessed when they complete their application form. This bill will also benefit local councils and reduce the cost of administering the Rates Rebate Scheme. Many councils have been sending staff to applicants' homes to witness statutory declarations particularly for those applicants where travelling to complete the statutory declaration is too much to cope with physically. This is costly to councils and intrusive to applicants. As I've explained before some applicants must be visited in their bedrooms to complete their statutory declaration. This bill removes the unnecessary statutory declaration requirement and reduces those costs. As I mentioned before territorial authorities will also be able to design their own application forms if they want to. This will allow them to develop forms that suit their internal processes and allow for processing efficiencies. For those councils who do not wish to design their own forms the Department of Internal Affairs will continue to provide a standardised form. This bill also paves the way for an online application process to be established alongside the existing paper channel in the future. It has not been possible to implement an online application process because of the statutory declaration requirement. While there is further work required to create develop and implement an online application process this bill provides the legislative changes needed to bring that possibility one step closer to reality. It is clear that this bill was needed before COVID-19 struck Aotearoa New Zealand. However it is also clear that this bill will support this Government's response to COVID-19. The bill will also allow people to apply for a rates rebate remotely and it provides for a more flexible verification method that can be adjusted as needed during a similar time of crisis. This Government has made a temporary modification to allow people to complete statutory declarations remotely during COVID-19 restrictions and the bill will ensure that vulnerable applicants will continue to be supported long into the future. I'd like to thank the members of the Social Services and Community Committee for their scrutiny of the bill and their recommendation to change its commencement date. Of course the select committee's consideration of the bill is greatly supported by the public submissions and I'd also like to thank all of the submitters who took the time to submit on this bill and provide their thoughts to the select committee. I'd also like to thank the service innovation lab within the Department of Internal Affairs for their contribution to this work. The service innovation lab ran an online application trial with several local councils throughout 2018 and 2019. The analysis part of this trial identified the statutory declaration requirement as a barrier not just for the development of online applications but for existing paper applicants as well. I'd also like to extend my thanks to those councils who participated in and provided their time and expertise to this trial including the Tauranga City Council Auckland Council Wellington City Council Hutt City Council and Kāpiti Coast District Council. The work of the service innovation lab and these councils has been an important contribution to this bill. This bill represents another change this Government has made to improve the Rates Rebate Scheme. As well as removing the unnecessary barrier we've enabled retirement village residents to access the Rates Rebate Scheme like other households and ensured that winter energy payments are excluded as income for the purposes of the Rates Rebate Scheme. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you Mr Speaker.