SpeechLAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): I rise to lead the National Party's contribution to this piece of legislation. We are opposing this bill not necessarily for the reason that the Minister Hon Jenny Salesa has just outlined in terms of some efficiencies but really for the opportunities that have been lost in this piece of legislation. Statutory declarations have been used as a requirement to ensure that the information given to the council and then given on to the Government for funding is accurate and real and that people are entitled to the rates rebate that has very generously been given by several Governments to people to help with their costs.Rates are a significant burden for our elder generations and many of them end up in many ways asset rich and cash poor. The Rates Rebate Scheme was brought in to try and deal with some of those anomalies and generally it's worked pretty well. In my previous role we were very active and sent officers out into the community to meet with people to get the forms filled out. We had open days and people came. I do want to just reinforce one of the benefits of doing that for the Minister because one of the greatest risks that a lot of older people face is social isolation. One of the things that I found in my previous role was actually when we went to people even if it was because we had to give a statutory declaration they often appreciated the visit the interaction and all the things that went on with that. Often council staff found other things that could be of assistance to that person in that home. So while I understand the reason to try and reduce compliance costs and to stop people seeing a barrier there are really other benefits that come from the system as it operates currently.If you look at some of the submissions that were given to the select committee particularly from the likes of the Productivity Commission who have a view that the Rates Rebate Scheme should be abolished fully and replaced by a rates deferment scheme—in other words the rates are sort of set in a buffer as a deferment. That is because they don't believe the Rates Rebate Scheme is necessarily fair in who it targets in what place and by what amount. But one of the important findings from the Productivity Commission was in their view the Rates Rebate Scheme wasn't advertised enough wasn't promoted enough and wasn't simply put out there. So the notion that somehow you can send some forms out or send an email to somebody and they're going to apply online is in my view slightly naive. A whole lot of people—my own mother included—would actually need help in getting the Rates Rebate Scheme. She doesn't qualify I don't think but she would need help—she couldn't do it herself. So there is a requirement for an agency to help people complete this and many councils do that. Most old people that I know in that space that require this appreciate that support.There is also a risk here—and I'm not saying it's a great risk but there is a risk that people don't necessarily tell the truth and that a statutory declaration generally makes people think before they go down that path. But in the departmental report—and the select committee looked at this—we did ask the question whether the IRD could share information with the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) to make sure that there was an electronic way for want of a better word of making sure that the income that was given was real based on the income tax provisions. Now what came back was that the definition of income in the Rates Rebate Act is different from that from the Income Tax Act and for a meaningful contribution the Rates Rebate Scheme would have to be taken from DIA and put into IRD. That's one of the opportunities in our view that has been lost. What we have now is no statutory declaration requirement online applications filling out a form that's sent to you and very little checks and balances in the mix.Now I accept that most people who are getting the rates rebate will be normal law-abiding good citizens and the risk of fraud is possibly lower than in other parts of society necessarily. But what we do need to make sure is—and we got no satisfaction to my view during the committee of the whole House stage that there was going to be any more monitoring or understanding. It was simply from the department: No we think everything's going to be all right. If we find something we'll do something about it."So our side of the House would probably be supporting this bill if it had gone the whole hog it had looked at data matching with Inland Revenue and it had changed the provisions to make Inland Revenue responsible for this because that would have been a very easy thing to do. In fact it almost could have been automated because if Inland Revenue knew all your financial details they could pretty much—like they do with tax—make that arrangement through that process and people could automatically get it rather than an opt-in provision.So as the Minister said over 100000 people are getting the rates rebate. A combination of more publicity a combination of people reaching out to people and a combination of making things easier will no doubt make a difference. But what we've simply done—and I regard it a little bit like the census. The census is "Let's go online. Let's be more hands off." but we're going out to a population that is not necessarily comfortable doing everything online. Often it needs family members to help fill out the forms. In my experience council officers even though it is a cost to them have brought real value to that community by providing advice and information. As I've said previously often they found other issues in that household.So we are worried on this side of the House for two reasons. First of all: without a statutory declaration and without a data-matching regime there is an increased risk of fraud for a small number of people in this scheme. Secondly the issues that the Productivity Commission raised when they said that this whole scheme should be abolished was not that this type of support is not warranted—it is and I support that—but it was "Is there a better way of doing it?" In our view rather than just tweaking and taking out statutory declarations if we actually transferred this over to IRD used the proper data-matching then it probably could have been done with minimal input from local authorities. If somebody was eligible they would receive it and it wouldn't be an opt-in provision. In our view that would have been a better solution. So in our view we are simply tweaking around the edges by taking away a statutory declaration which is a pretty important provision. For that reason we're opposing the bill. Thank you Mr Speaker."