Luxton JoJO LUXTON (Labour): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. This is my first opportunity to speak in the House since I made my maiden speech and so I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your new role Madam Assistant Speaker and your fellow presiding officers. It is with great pleasure that I rise to take a call on the Rates Rebate (Retirement Village Residents) Amendment Bill. Can I start by thanking the Hon Ruth Dyson for her many years of hard work advocating for elderly people. Her tenure here and her experience shouldn't be underestimated. Thank you also for bringing this great bill to the House and can I also thank those who took time to make submissions. It is great to see people getting involved in our democracy. This evening I want to focus on three key points with the first being the role the late Rt Hon Norman Kirk a former Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand played in establishing the rates rebate scheme. Secondly I want to make some observations about retirement villages their impacts on ordinary Kiwis and the difference that this bill will make to their lives. Finally I want to talk about fairness—a core value of mine and of the Labour Party and the single biggest reason this bill should be progressed in the House today. So thank you very much for bringing this bill to the House. As Mr Ross said in his contribution earlier it is a one-clause amendment bill. This is not a complex or difficult bill; it is simply a bill that is ultimately about fairness and equity for people living in retirement villages with occupation right agreements. This bill is simply to update legislation that was created under Norman Kirk in 1973 before retirement villages were around on the scale that we see they are today. The late Norman Kirk was a fair man—a big man with a big heart—and if it wasn't for Norm those people on low incomes who owned a home would never have got any relief from their local authority when they needed it to get ahead. A hand up I call it; not a handout as the Opposition likes to call it but let's look at the original legislation and its intent. Norman Kirk believed that people who were on low incomes such as benefits and superannuation needed some financial relief due to the fact that meeting rates payment obligations proved to be a financial hardship for many. The way in which to do this was to introduce a rates rebate scheme. Now that was well and good for that day and age. I never met Big Norm but as a South Islander his legacy lives on. One of the people I met when I was out doorknocking in my electorate—a lovely woman called June—had met Norman Kirk and was the beneficiary of the rates rebate scheme. That was his vision for those who didn't earn much but who wanted their own home and wanted to get ahead and that's where I first learnt about this bill. Her friends who had recently moved into a retirement village had found themselves without this option. Why should they miss out? They had been taxpayers all their lives. Why was it so unfair? Why were some eligible and some weren't solely because of a living situation that wasn't an option in 1973? It's not what Big Norm would have wanted and it is not what he would have envisaged. Retirement villages were not around on the scale that we see them today. We're told that there are 360-plus retirement villages in New Zealand and I have to say that when I look around the Rangitata electorate this is certainly a growing industry there. That means 34000 Kiwis are living in retirement villages right now with many more joining all the time. Of that though a staggering 80 percent don't qualify. That's over 27000 decent people who are potentially missing out. That's unacceptable that's unfair and it's even more unfair when the rates rebate scheme is underspent by up to $5 million. Add this to the statistic that 50 percent of residents in retirement villages are reliant entirely on superannuation yet they would be entitled to apply if they simply lived around the corner from the village and it beggars belief that it has taken 44 years to get this on the table. One of my favourite meetings was with Grey Power. I spoke with a resident who was somewhat excited to meet me. Not only did he want to tell me that he'd been married for 50 years; he also said he'd done the figures he and his wife would be on the receiving end of a rates rebate and given that superannuation was their sole source of income this would be a very welcome addition. So he was really hopeful that this bill would progress. I was disappointed to read that my Labour Green and New Zealand First colleagues had to prepare a minority view for something so straightforward and that the Opposition members on the Local Government and Environment Committee completely ignored the submissions that were supportive leading them to vote against this bill. What completely surprises me though is that the former Minister of Local Government the Hon Sam Lotu-Iiga acknowledged that not only did retirement villages need to be looked at but in fact regardless of their living situation residents—and I quote—do in fact end up paying rates." Currently retirement villages are required to pay fees which cover the costs of running the village and this includes rates which are then on-paid in bulk directly to a local authority. Therefore quite clearly they pay rates. It puzzles me why the Opposition members on the select committee couldn't get their heads around this. It is heartening to see some councils front-footing this issue and they have adopted practices to allow residents with occupation right agreements to apply for a rates rebate. A report of the Local Government Rates Inquiry has also noted that the current rates rebate scheme certainly excluded and made people ineligible and therefore this needed to be reviewed to enable people to have the ability to apply for a rates rebate scheme. In order for this to happen the current Rates Rebate Act would need to be amended. Now if some councils can make this work surely it can't be that hard. As I said before this is not a complex issue. It is not a complex amendment but it simply sets out a change in the definition of "ratepayer" to include those who are residents of retirement villages who pay rates through their fees with an occupation right agreement to the operator of the retirement village. So in conclusion the rates rebate scheme started with a vision from Norman Kirk to help alleviate the financial pressures that people on low incomes were burdened with and it was fit for purpose at the time. But times have changed and so has the way we choose to live. Now—44 years later—we are here with this bill before the House to decide whether people who live in retirement villages should be treated fairly and equitably compared with those who live in their own homes. We are an ageing population and as such more and more people are moving into retirement villages as a preferred choice in accommodation. It is not fair that in a way these people are penalised for choosing to live in retirement homes. With elderly people more often than not relying on superannuation as their sole source of income—like the gentleman I spoke with at that Grey Power meeting—it is only fair and it is only right that we look to adopt the Rates Rebate (Retirement Village Residents) Amendment Bill in the name of the Hon Ruth Dyson. So it is with pleasure that I commend this bill to the House."