Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise in support of this the Rates Rebate (Retirement Village Residents) Amendment Bill—Mark Patterson: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Could I just say that the member has—there was a similar offence on the other side of the House but it's been rectified. It has been settled to our satisfaction. Thank you.DEPUTY SPEAKER: That's an unnecessary interruption.BRETT HUDSON: Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I'll reiterate just in case people have forgotten. It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Rates Rebate (Retirement Village Residents) Amendment Bill in this its third reading. This we are very pleased to say is a very very different bill to that which was introduced to that which was allowed to exit the select committee and to that which did receive a second reading. Fortunately at the committee of the whole House it changed quite dramatically. But before I talk about that I think it is important just to recap of course why it was in fact that we originally did support the bill because we supported its intent.The idea is—and we acknowledge—that over time there are distortions in the ways people particularly elderly New Zealanders live and the nature of their terms and conditions of occupation of residences shifted quite dramatically from when the rates rebate was first implemented in New Zealand to one where now in retirement villages it is the common practice for those in self-contained units or those who are living independently to be in an apartment or a unit for which they don't hold title but instead have some sort of a licence to occupy. The reality is that because of the way the law had been written—and currently is—those occupiers would not be entitled to the rates rebate. I think it's fair to suggest that that was never envisaged at the time and probably for most of the intervening years at least hadn't really been anticipated.So we entered into this as this bill was introduced with the idea that the concept at least could help potentially to address that distortion and we were hopeful that in select committee the bill could be improved because it was a very short bill with just a simple amendment to what a ratepayer" was defined as. Unfortunately it was not permitted. There were two pieces of value in the select committee. First as the officials said it was unworkable and they felt actually not necessarily fixable and we weren't able to get a significant amendment to it.Fortunately despite us then removing our support in the committee of the whole House the member in charge of the bill the Hon Ruth Dyson did submit a Supplementary Order Paper that fundamentally addresses the biggest concerns we had at the end of that select committee process and introduces a means for the calculation application and refunding—or payment—of a rates rebate to work in an effective manner. We look at what has come through and we can see that while it may not address absolutely everything we could choose to talk about it actually addresses the lion's share of the concerns we had. So that's why I will stand—and I anticipate other members of this side will stand—and express support for this bill.There is a saying that "Success has many mothers and failure is an orphan". It was quite interesting to hear the member in charge of this bill talking about how the now Minister of Local Government had set officials on to create a means to address the concerns we and perhaps others had with the bill. It's quite astounding really. I was in a meeting recently—very recently; as recently as yesterday actually—with the immediate prior Minister of Local Government. She told me and others that in fact it was her that instructed officials—before the committee of the whole House stage before the lifting of the last Parliament—to work on the bill and to determine if they could come up with a mechanism and drafting that would resolve the concerns that we had expressed. And lo—they did.They did and the member in charge of this bill introduced it in the committee of the whole House stage. I do feel she could've taken the opportunity to have acknowledged the work of the immediate predecessor to the current Minister of Local Government. But none the less despite that we still are here in this the final stage of the bill with a bill that is finally in much better shape than it was when it was introduced into Parliament. It's in a shape that we can give it our support and I commend this bill to the House."