SpeechAGNES LOHENI (National): Thank you very much. Good morning Madam Speaker. I acknowledge the Minister who's just taken her seat Nanaia Mahuta whose name this bill is under. Pleased to make a contribution on this Rates Rebate (Statutory Declaration) Amendment Bill. I'm pleased to also be a member of the Social Services and Community Committee which oversaw the proceedings of this bill and I also acknowledge my fellow committee members as well.We in the National Party do not support this statutory declarations amendment bill and we have noted in the report a minority view on the bill. Before I go there this bill is set to amend the Rates Rebate Act of 1973 which effectively sets out the Government-funded rebate scheme to low-income ratepayers which we in the National Party support. Of course we support this rates rebate for those on low incomes.The intent of this bill is to make it easier for those applying for this rates rebate by removing the requirement to do a statutory declaration to verify the application. And therein lies the biggest hurdle for us as the National Party in terms of this amendment and we cannot support this. Currently those applicants who apply for this are required to physically present themselves either to a council office or to an authorised person such as a justice of the peace or go in to see their local member of Parliament to complete an application. We don't believe that this bill has been well thought through. It is piecemeal. In fact we know that we are here to actually fill up time of what is a deficient legislative programme.I just want to acknowledge the comments made by the Minister Nanaia Mahuta and also there were comments in her first reading speech in terms of the intent to reduce the burden to make it easier for those to access this rates rebate. I note her comments around the physical presence of having to come in and do a statutory declaration sometimes in small communities—it may be embarrassing. Actually I acknowledge the intent for the Minister to want to take the burden out of that for people in our community and you know I acknowledge it. But at the same time I don't believe that we should remove what is a very important process in terms of robustness and scrutiny on that rebate. Ultimately at the end of the day we are accountable for every single dollar of taxpayer money and I think there is an expectation on taxpayers including older people in our community who are still contributing that we do provide some very good and clear oversight and robustness in processes like this. So I acknowledge the intent—we should always try and make systems processes easier—but at the same time it should not be at the cost of oversight.I don't believe that the process of a statutory declaration is overly cumbersome. There are a number of people in our communities—our JPs in our libraries MPs council staff—who will make themselves available to assist those to get those statutory declarations. I don't agree that it is such an impediment that we should remove this measure of accountability. Further I don't believe that there has been any data to support the case for this particular amendment. Where is the evidence for that? And I don't believe that embarrassment should be a reason to remove an important oversight as I see it. We have to be accountable for every single dollar taken up by the scheme.I just want to touch on the submissions and I do want to acknowledge and thank all those that came and made submissions to the committee on this bill. Just an overview the committee received 10 written submissions on this bill. Of those 10 submissions four were from territorial authorities. One submission was by a local government organisation two submissions were from other organisations and three of those 10 submissions were made by individuals. So I think it's important to note that 70 percent of the submissions were from either a territorial authority or a local government organisation.I just want to also touch on the fact that part of this amendment—in terms of why I say it's piecemeal why did the Minister not take into account the New Zealand Productivity Commission inquiry which was just in November last year and their final report? They actually made some recommendations around a wider overhaul of the system. So if it is about ensuring a better process and that it is easier for those particularly many of the superannuitants that apply for this there was actually a recommendation to abolish the scheme and replace it with a national rates postponement scheme. So I see this amendment as more just tinkering at the edges. But perhaps the best path forward would have been to take into account those recommendations and have a look at a wider change to the system which would actually be far more effective for more people in terms of wanting to address some of those challenges for those in the community. And I think this is what I talk about when I say it's been piecemeal—this has just been tagged on; that wider report is not taken into consideration. At the same time it's a bill which I repeat could effectively expose this current scheme to abuse.So you know in effect this bill should have perhaps waited and we could have had a look at that Productivity Commission report and look at a wider overhaul of the system because we're probably going to be back here having a look at it anyway. I think there are some good recommendations in that report that the Minister and the Government members could take into account.Just talking about the actual parts of the bill the main substantive amendments are in Part 1 of the bill which is the part that provides for the removal of the statutory declaration. And then Part 2 the related amendments provides that the verification is replaced by a form approved by the Secretary for Local Government—that is in Part 2 of the bill. I also note and it is in the report that the date that the Act comes into force changes to 1 July 2020.So I repeat the concerns that we have in the National Party which have been outlined in our minority view in that we should not remove the very important oversight and access to the Rates Rebate Scheme. It is now effectively an honesty system which we believe is open to abuse. It has no oversight. We don't believe that the council members will have the opportunity or the resources to go and check through all these applications. At the end of the day this is still taxpayer-funded money to support the scheme and we should still hold that line in terms of some oversight for those applying for this. We do not support this bill.