Sio William: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSio William: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16092. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere):Malo lesoifua Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity to speak on the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. I note that following this bill there is a range of members’ bills including bills that have been put up by my colleagues. I would like for the House to be able to spend time on those particular bills ushering those through so my comments on this particular bill are not going to be very long.I note also the Local Government and Environment Committee’s report. I am a member of that committee. I regret however that as a new member I have not had the opportunity to sit through all of the discussion around this particular bill. I do note that the committee received 14 submissions from interested groups and individuals and it heard four. Like the previous speakers I too am somewhat reluctant. I am sort of dragging my feet on this bill. I know that my colleague Maryan Street aired it quite well when we were debating the Kaipara District Council situation. But as much as I am a strong supporter of local government as much as I value the role that local government plays in community development and in nation-building and as much as I strive and aspire to ensure that going forward there is a close working relationship between central government and local government I have to say that when these rates validatingbills are placed before the House it just makes it harder for those who do not believe in local government to come on board and support the kind of vision that the Labour Party has for local government.I note however that the Tasman District Council in presenting this bill and asking Parliament to consider it had this to say. It said that the “Tasman District Council failed to set its rates correctly across the District due to incorrect administrative procedures from 2003/2004 to 2008/2009 and we failed to include a map in our 2006/2007 Long Term Council Community Plan (LTCCP) to adequately describe the area covered by theLigar Bay and theTata Beach stormwater urban drainage area rates.” The council admits its “procedural mistakes and are now seeking to rectify the situation through this Bill. Council is very sorry and apologises to our community for our mistakes. We are very embarrassed for the mistakes—and rightly so. We also apologise for needing to take up Parliament’s and this Select Committee’s valuable time in order to correct our errors.”I do not doubt the sincerity of those words. However what my colleague Damien O’Connor emphasised earlier in the latter parts of his speech was a call for councillors to treat seriously the roles that they play as elected representatives. Sure we can call these procedural mistakes but the fact of the matter is that if we want the public to take an active and participatory role in our local decision-making then we need to treat our stewardship of local councils with a great deal of care and responsibility. By and large if most residents are given the opportunity to see the intimate goings-on of councils—as far as the public are concerned—they can rightly make all sorts of allegations when these mistakes are made.So I recognise that when we look at the 2011 local body elections we seem to be heading into a new era a crossroads in our local government system. On the one hand you have the school of thought promoted by others of wanting to take control of local government. On the other hand there is another school of thought arising from the strong desire of the public to participate more and the public demanding their right to have a say in those local government decisions. I saw in Auckland how for example the Pacific communities put up many representatives to run in the race for those local boards and I can say that for Auckland for the Labour Party at least out of the 18 candidates who ran 14 of them were elected on either the council or the local board. Out of those 14 eight of them were brand new candidates. I think that in many ways that reflects the strong desire that is held by many sectors in our communities to participate more in local decision-making.I note that the committee when deliberating on this particular bill had an issue about clause 9. I think that there was a call—perhaps an advancing by some—for clause 9 to not stay as it is and I understand that the advice received from the officials was that by removing that particular clause they would actually be dealing outside of the scope of this particular bill.It gives me no pleasure to support my colleague on this bill. I think as I emphasise again the councillors the mayors—you know from this House at least—must look to how they can avoid these kinds of bad decision-making. And I think that Local Government New Zealand and the Society of Local Government Managers have a role to play in providing training—absolute training. I was a member of the council and I think it is quite easy for new councillors to come on board whatever the local authority is and begin to feel that as new councillors they rely on the officials that they rely on the senior councillors. That might be OK for some but I think that when you put yourself up to run for these positions you have got to be prepared to hit the ground running. I think not only do the councillors have the responsibility to be well preparedfor these roles but also our officials on local councils have a role to play to ensure that their advice is of the highest standard. So those are my comments here.