Sage EugenieEUGENIE SAGE (Green): E Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā koe. Tuarua e ngā mema o tō tātou Whare tēnā koutou katoa. I am pleased to speak on the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2). The level of spin from this Government has reached a whole new level when we have the Minister of Local Government talking about the empowering" nature of this bill. That is alternative facts and I think it might be a reflection of the fact that we have had a revolving door in the National Government in terms of Ministers of Local Government. Have we had six—or is it seven—Ministers of Local Government in the last 6 years. We have had the Hon Nick Smith Sam Lotu-Iiga Paula Bennett and now the Hon Anne Tolley. Is it because we have got this revolving door that they totally fail to understand the local government sector and seek to dictate to that sector or is it a combination of that revolving door plus their ideology? I think it is a bit of both because the sector made it very clear in its submissions that this bill had been developed without any effective liaison with local government. It was drafted in a very hasty way it had a number of inconsistencies and it was poorly thought-out. I think Local Government New Zealand called it "under done". When you have poor process and a fundamental lack of consultation with local government then you get very bad law.But it goes deeper than that because as Local Government New Zealand said in its submission—a submission the Minister and others in the National Government do not appear to have read—on this bill central government "appears to be saying that it does not trust the elected members of local communities to make the right decisions for their communities." and that there is a deep deep deep misunderstanding of the role of local government. It is not the administrative arm of the central government as this National Government thinks it is with the way in which this bill—and in other legislation like its changes to the Resource Management Act—seeks to dictate to councils what they can do and seeks to undermine local democracy. This bill as introduced was and remains extraordinarily heavy-handed. There has been a huge increase in the Minister's powers and that undermines local councils. It diminishes their ability to consult with their communities and to make decisions together with their communities. It increases the power of the Local Government Commission which as others have noted is not elected. It is appointed by Ministers and yes we are going to go up to five members but they are all appointed members.So the heart of this bill is actually the Government's plan B. The reorganisation proposals in Northland Hawke's Bay and Wellington did not work. They were roundly rejected by citizens in local referenda and so what the Government has done with this bill is significantly increase the power of the Local Government Commission to go ahead with reorganisations to force councils initially to establish council-controlled organisations to take over the assets that communities have built and paid for in waste water transport and the like and put those in the hands of council-controlled organisations which are much less accountable. We in the Green Party think that that is a first step towards privatisation.As one submitter said the bill as introduced had all the hallmarks of Thatcherism. It represented a giant step towards the death of democracy dressed up in the fiction that it was about promoting efficiency. Local government is not just about efficiency; it is about representation and accountability and in the Committee stage we will consider and go through how the bill as amended keeps undermining those basic concepts.The commentary on the bill has 24 pages about the changes that the Local Government and Environment Committee made. Those changes were forced on the Government because of the huge strength of opposition. But in terms of the powers that it gives to the Minister to direct the Local Government Commission the Local Government Commission's powers and the preference for council-controlled organisations rather than councils to manage council services and assets it is still going way too far and it is undermining local democracy. That is why the Green Party opposes it. We want to revitalise local democracy. We trust local councils; the Government does not."