Pugh Maureen; Rurawhe AdrianMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I too rise in opposition speaking to the Local Government (Rating of Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill today. I wonder why it actually even has that title. I suggest it could be called the Local Government (Un-rating of Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill" because that in effect is what this bill is setting out to do: to un-rate Māori land.Now the Minister stated in her opening address to the House on this bill that rates are an impediment to developing Māori land. That's probably quite true but the reality for every other property owner in this country is that rates are an impediment to having property. Some people would argue and certainly do that rates are an impediment but actually rates are what fund the local authorities.It's been my experience over quite a few years that the engagement that happens between local constituents and their local councils has more to do with the outcomes of those discussions and the progress that is made on various parcels of land especially our Māori land than legislating and having a top-down approach.The Minister used the example of the Far North District Council where they reached a negotiation and were able to bring the rates down from $18000 a year to $8000 a year. That's really commendable. I think that's a classic example of the partnership and the collaboration that councils individually can come to with their various landowners. But as my colleague Denise Lee pointed out earlier that shortfall is picked up by somebody else.So just to explain the rating system is just one big pie and it's established by working out what the work programme is and the costs are for a local council over the course of the next financial year. So that figure is agreed to by the councillors: the work programme all the projects all of the maintenance all of the capital investment that it's going to have all the debt servicing that a council has and the rates are struck for the following year. So it doesn't matter where that money comes from. The portion that each person pays is attributed to the parcel of land that they own. The rates are derived from your uniform annual general charges your levies or things like your funding assistance rate subsidies that are provided and the rates that are struck by the council on residential properties.So when one group has a rate discount of $10000 that money and that cost shifts to all of the other ratepayers. So in effect you have one group that will be subsidising another. Now we already know that this is going on in the country and we've had a couple of great examples today but one of the things that did concern me when I was reading this paperwork was the lack of consultation. It was even brought up in the documentation when this bill was being prepared and it says "The RIA acknowledges time constraints around effective consultation" and "limited recent consultation with local authorities on proposals has led to some assumptions" and I would argue that it's led to some huge assumptions.One of the things that I have most concern about in this bill is that what we're going to do is segregate our communities because it is going to cause disruption and it is going to cause resentment if ratepayers in a certain district are being asked to subsidise other ratepayers simply because they don't pay their rates.But I'd also like to just explain too how the rate arrears work. We've heard a lot about the rate arrears and why that is a barrier to some people coming forward and negotiating with their councils but I would strongly argue that if a party was to come to their local council and make some arrangement for how those rate arrears could be forgiven or waived and then how they could move forward I doubt there would be a council in this country that would not agree to some arrangement. But the reality is with rate arrears that they only accrue for seven years anyway and then they are written off at the other end. Councils do this every year as we've heard today from my colleagues. The rate arrears are forgiven after seven years so the accumulation of rates is only for a window of seven years and I say that most of those councils would definitely welcome an opportunity to come to some arrangement.The Hon Shane Jones mentioned the select committee process and having great faith in that process and I know that very few landowners would come to a select committee and argue against this bill when it so dramatically supports them. But I would also suggest that local government and individual ratepayers would certainly want to defend and oppose this bill and they are the ones that I speak for.The previous speaker Marama Davidson mentioned that this bill ensures that unused land is unrateable and I'd just like to tell the story of Colin—a ratepayer and a constituent on the coast. Colin has a large parcel of land that he bought many years ago. It's unused and in his eyes it's now unusable because that land has now had a significant natural area designation put on it. Unfortunately for Colin he still has to pay the rates. So if we are going to allow some concessions for unusable land and have them unrateable then I think we've just lifted the lid off a very wriggly can of worms and I think there's a really valid argument for those people who feel they are going to be disadvantaged by having one portion of our community that is offered some benefit in terms of rates relief for unusable land. I think that's a very dangerous place for this Parliament to be going. If I recall some of the arguments that have come from that quarter from the New Zealand First members they have been strongly opposed to different sets of rules for Māori in this country.When you've got an area of land as we do on the West Coast—I'll talk to Westland: it is 87 percent unrateable anyway because it is mostly Department of Conservation estate or stewardship land or Government land. So when you say 87 percent is already unrateable and you're going to now introduce a bill that could make even more of it unrateable you simply put the squeeze on a small community and make life even harder for them to upkeep the infrastructure that they need.The whole of the West Coast taken as a whole is 85 percent unrateable because of its land status and if we think about the use of that 15 percent that West Coasters scratch a living off they still have to pay for the roads that people drive on they have to pay for the footpaths and they pay for their water supplies their water disposal their stormwater and their waste collection and the cost of compliance and regulation. So all of those costs are going to fall on a smaller and smaller group of people and when you're already 87 percent unrateable that's a very big ask. I suggest that this bill does nothing to support those people that are already doing it tough and I think we are going to buy a fight with everyday ratepayers who bite the bullet and understand that they have to pay for the things that they enjoy in their community. They need to know that they can afford to pay to turn the lights on to have the water run and the toilet flush and to have all those practical things but there comes a point when the cost on a small group becomes just too unbearable and we have to give a great deal of consideration to things like this bill that are going to make it almost impossible. Thank you very much. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call. I call Jo Luxton—five minutes."