SpeechHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well Dr Russell certainly hasn't given me a lot to reply to; so the one point she's made is the one I'll start with. Yes the National Party does trust our fellow New Zealanders but not all people sadly are trustworthy. I invite Dr Russell to indicate whether every person she has ever dealt with ever encountered in her life has been trustworthy particularly when given the opportunity to avoid paying a bill or to get something for a bargain or in another way to put one across the system. She's looking down studiously but having made that allegation before I think she should answer the question. No clearly she doesn't want to.So I say again: the vast majority of New Zealanders are honest and I think everybody in the National Party recognises that. It's probably why we represent most of the electorates in this country because we make the connection with our constituents and they expect us to be responsible particularly with the way we collect their money—not us personally through the rate system but by association as members of this Parliament through our tax system. They don't want us to collect one more dollar than is justified and they expect us to spend every dollar that we could collect as responsibly as appropriately as we can and in ways that do make a real difference. What we are seeing at the moment from this particular Government is fiscal recklessness that borders on total irresponsibility. Their current approach to handling public accounts and revenue is absolutely alarming.Now I appreciate the fact that the Minister of Finance had an incredibly difficult job in May this year. Whatever Budget he had put together by say the end of February when most of the decisions would have been made would have had to go out the window. We all know that and we recognise the challenge that he faced. But the Budget we saw on—was it 19 May?—whatever date it was in May—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): 15.Hon TIM MACINDOE: Sorry?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): 15 May.Hon TIM MACINDOE: 15 May. Thank you Madam Speaker—wasn't really a Budget at all. It was to be fair more just of a fiscal update. And it's relevant to this bill because we've also seen a Government that is at the moment telling us We don't even know how we're going to spend all the money but there's somehow this $20 billion nobody knows where it's coming from out there that we'll spend"—Hon Nanaia Mahuta: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. As interesting as his points may be to himself this issue before us is about the Rates Rebate Scheme which benefits superannuitants. It's not about a general Budget debate.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I was just going to raise that very point myself. The general debate starts after question time on Wednesday—so second reading Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill.Hon TIM MACINDOE: Thank you Madam Speaker and I appreciate that. I was simply wishing to make the point—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Mr Macindoe please don't offer any challenge to my suggestion to you.Hon TIM MACINDOE: I wasn't Madam Speaker I promise you I wasn't looking to challenge you.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): This is twice. Second reading.Hon TIM MACINDOE: Great OK. I didn't have the opportunity to hear the submissions on this bill. This is the second successive bill which has come through the House in this urgency period which emerged from the work done by the Social Services and Community Committee. I've only recently joined that committee; so I am at a disadvantage because I wasn't present for the committee's hearings. Reading the report which is quite short I'm not even sure how many submissions were received and how many were heard.Gareth Hughes: It's pretty easy to find out. It's only 10.Hon TIM MACINDOE: I was about to pay the chair a compliment to say that in the short time I've been on the committee—and I mentioned this last night when he wasn't here; I'll mention it again now—I've been very impressed by the way that he chairs the committee. I believe he does so in a very professional and collegial way as a result of which there's a good sense of purpose in that committee. So Gareth Hughes deserves our support. I'm just acknowledging the fact that he is going to have the advantage that I don't have this morning of being able to talk about the submissions in greater depth.Dr Deborah Russell: They're on the system; you can find them.Hon TIM MACINDOE: Ah not being able to hear submitters in the committee does put somebody at a disadvantage because quite often you then have the opportunity to pick up the flavour what has motivated them that goes well beyond the written submissions. Of course I've looked at what has been put forward but I didn't have the advantage of hearing from those people. It is as I say a very short report.I do want to acknowledge the work that local government does and it's nice to be able to speak on a bill introduced by my fellow Waikato MP the Hon Nanaia Mahuta for whom I have great respect and with whom I think I've always enjoyed a very good relationship. I acknowledge the work that she does but I can't agree with her on this bill largely for the reasons that my very good colleague and friend Agnes Loheni has already mentioned.In particular it's because we have to be responsible and that was the point I was trying to make in referring to Budget matters. We are in unprecedented times. I know that's become a cliché but at the moment more than ever before it is really important that we are accountable for every dollar of taxpayer and ratepayer money that we take and how we spend it. Unfortunately I think that this bill is a case of robbing Peter—in this case the taxpayer—to pay Paul—in this case the ratepayer.Michael Wood: That's how the Rates Rebate Scheme works. That's what it does.Hon TIM MACINDOE: Well Mr Wood seems to think that that's an admirable objective. I would challenge him to take a call and tell us whether a bill of this nature should be being debated here on a Friday under urgency.Michael Wood: Generally speaking this is the place we change laws.Hon TIM MACINDOE: Oh well he's being very very cynical and sarcastic now. So I look forward—Tim van de Molen: It's more than he's said in any contribution over the last 48 hours.Hon TIM MACINDOE: That's right. It's longer and actually more comprehensible than any of his contributions in the last 24 hours.I want to apologise to our constituents for the meetings we have cancelled with them today; for the appointments therefore that we cannot keep; for the functions and events that we cannot attend in our electorates when we should be there. We'd made commitments to them and we've inconvenienced them in order to be here today to debate fairly minor matters. I suggest to you that this is a total abuse of our urgency system. Urgency should be—Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Our job is to put through legislation. Hon TIM MACINDOE: Yes absolutely. I'm so pleased the Hon Carmel Sepuloni has said that. So why did her party and the parties who support them—Hon Carmel Sepuloni: It's part of our job.Hon TIM MACINDOE: Oh she can continue to shout. Why did her party and those who support them in Government waste 2½ years doing nothing filibustering over and over again on bills that everybody supported? That's on the record; people don't have to take my word for it. That's a matter of public record that they wasted 2½ years and now suddenly they're saying "We had to adjourn Parliament during the COVID period and we've now got a heck of a lot to do." Well why didn't they get on with it in the first 2½ years that they were in office rather than abusing the urgency system and by association abusing our constituents in this way? Absolutely outrageous—indefensible. I wasn't cross at the start but after listening to the inane interjections that have come from the other side of the House I'm getting pretty worked up now. I actually didn't think I'd be taking a full call but you bet I'm going to be taking a full call now.Their key point on this particular minor matter revolves around the way in which people declare their circumstances in order to qualify for a rates rebate. Now I have huge sympathy for those who are both elected or work within local government because they're under a constant tension between ratepayers who on the one hand want them to keep rates as low as possible and are always alarmed when there's a threat of significant rates increases—and we've heard so much of that in recent times in this post-COVID environment when people's livelihoods are at risk and their incomes have taken such a hit—but on the other hand of course we all want our councils to be able to deliver all the basic services that are expected of local government and we also like it when there are a few extras that enhance the social and cultural appeal of our cities or our towns. Unfortunately there's often the tension there between those who say "Oh you can't afford anything else don't fix the swimming pool don't bring that show to town."—or whatever it might be—and others who say "But that's what gives us quality of life."Ultimately it comes down to the people who are affected by this bill because I do have huge sympathy for the elderly for all who are on fixed incomes for those who are on low incomes who really do struggle. We all acknowledge that. But there are other ways of being able to assist them. Having a system that is open to abuse—and that's the problem with this bill—simply lends itself to ensuring that the decent honest people are punished again penalised by having to pay that little bit extra. And those who can get away with being dishonest will. That is why we are saying: do not have a system that is so lax that enables people to go through the cracks far too easily and dump on the decent hardworking taxpayers and ratepayers of this country."