Carter John: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — Second Reading Procedure In Committee 
Carter John: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — Second Reading Procedure In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6364] 
Hon JOHN CARTER (Associate Minister of Local Government) 
: 
 I take this call because there are three or four things that we need to clarify but first there is one point that I want to make about the whole system of how the Auckland Governance Legislation Committee worked. All the members who were involved will understand this and indeed most people in the Chamber will understand it but the public will not as much. I repeat what I said earlier in my speech in the second reading of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill when I thanked all the members of the select committee—and there were quite a number of them across the whole of the hearings. There really was a lot of cooperation and the bill I think has been the better for it because primarily the matter was not political at the select committee. It was about a whole bunch of politicians being really intent on trying to get the legislation as right as we could given that there were political views. I think it is important to say that. 
The point I want to make for a start-off is that when we are in a committee listening to submissions it is a judgment call at the end of the day as to exactly what the public have said. We can judge it by the numbers we can judge it by the strength of arguments or we can judge it by a whole lot of other factors but of course there will always be different views expressed on different issues. So for a start-off I say we can never please everybody. That is the first point. The second point is that finally it is a judgment call and funnily enough politicians and Governments get it right most of the time and sometimes they get it wrong. A question was asked earlier by Phil Twyford about what happened with regard to the Rodney boundary. I want to say as I said last night that I got it wrong. What I thought I heard the submissioners tell us in Rodney was— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: How many other mistakes are made? 
Hon JOHN CARTER 
: I am happy to concede that I got it wrong not the select committee. I guided the National side of the committee. 
I ask members to just let me make this point because it is an important point to make. I thought I heard the people of Helensville and Kaukapakapa and of the towns in what is called the western corridor absolutely say they wanted to be part of the Auckland unitary authority. I thought that was what I heard them say. They said they wanted to stay as a rural local board if they could but they certainly wanted to be part of it. We also heard from the submitters of Whangaparaoa and Orewa that they too wanted to be part of the Auckland unitary authority. But when it came to the northern part I thought I heard the people there say they wanted to stay out and indeed I guess I was guided a bit by the people from Wellsford which is at the very bottom part of the Northland electorate. So I recommended to the select committee and particularly to the members on the Government side of it that we should draw the boundary to the north of Orewa and Kaukapakapa. I got that wrong because of course when the story got out we received a volume of submissions from the north side saying they wanted to stay in. 
I am happy to concede that the Government then made a decision. I worked with Rodney Hide and took a recommendation to Cabinet and then to caucus to say the boundary should be moved. I am pleased that the Government listened and was prepared to make that change. I think we need to acknowledge that that is exactly what happened. To Mr Twyford who questioned why it went wrong I concede responsibility for that. 
But I make this next point because I need to put it on the table. I will move on to a point that actually matters. I will talk now about the local boards because I heard the Hon George Hawkins make comments about whether the boards will work. It has been the intention of the select committee to empower the boards. To anybody who stands up and says the committee did not get that right I tell that person to look at the committee’s voting record regarding the local boards. Every party that was part of the select committee voted for the local boards as they are. All parties voted for those powers: Labour did; the Greens did. Sue Bradford I have to say was probably the most strident member in asking the officials what the powers of the boards meant. She was constantly asking whether the provisions of the bill would give powers to the local boards. The officials kept saying yes they were based on the principle of subsidiarity etc. 
The boards will have tremendous power. They will be able to make their own decisions for their communities. The members of the Labour Party—George Hawkins Phil Twyford and Su’a William Sio; they were the people who were there mainly—and the others who were there all agreed that we had got the power right. When it came to the voting it was unanimous that on that particular matter we got it right. 
Let me explain in principle how the system works. When the new unitary authority is established one of the functions of the Auckland Transitional Agency will be to go and look at the local boards when it knows what the local boards are—the area of the local boards who they are how many there are what they will be and their names. It will take that information from the Local Government Commission and it will ask in the case of say Devonport for example or Waiheke Island which is definitely going to be a local board as is Great Barrier Island which of the activities that happen right now in Auckland City matter for the local board of Waiheke Island or for the local board of Great Barrier Island or as I say if there is a Devonport local board or a Papakura local board in George Hawkins’ area. The Auckland Transitional Agency will go to those boards and tell them which of the functions currently carried out by the respective councils are not regional functions but are local functions that matter to the people. The Auckland Transitional Agency will prescribe to the boards those functions. Alongside that it will advise them of the size of the budget the council is giving to allow those activities to be carried out. So the boards will be allocated that budget. 
That sets the benchmark. Those local boards then get the authority to carry out those functions and will receive the funding for them. Once that is in place the only way they can be removed is by negotiation. The unitary authority cannot come along and say it is too bad but even if the Auckland Transitional Authority gave a board responsibility for providing swimming pools for free or whatever the function might be the board cannot do that. The fact is that any change has to be done by negotiation and agreement. If there is disagreement then in the third bill we will establish an arbitrary committee that can make a decision as to who is right and who is wrong. So those authorities and those functions will be protected. If the unitary authority tries to remove them arbitrarily it will go against the principle of the bill. It will go against the principle. So the boards are empowered. 
I ask members to take the time—and I say this particularly to the Green members because Sue Bradford asked this constantly and I say this to the other Sue Sue Kedgley—to please study what is happening. All the members who were there at the committee agreed that we actually got it right on this matter. It was and is our intention to empower the local boards. Phil Twyford did not vote against it George Hawkins did not vote against it Su’a William Sio did not vote against it and Sue Bradford did not vote against it. They thought that the committee had got it right. It is important for people to understand that it is the intention and indeed it will be the outcome that the local boards will be able to do those local things. 
I will talk about one other thing in that regard. George Hawkins raised the issue of libraries. I suspect that in regard to libraries what may well happen is what a good number of submitters said: that the best library system we could have is one that is unified for service delivery across Auckland. That makes sense to me. But of course the local community will want to have an input into where its library might be located etc. and it will still be able to. The unitary authority will set an overarching policy in regard to library services because the best way to run them is on a regional basis but the local boards will still have an input into how that works. There will be cooperation and agreement on it. That is one example. 
Swimming pools are another example. Manukau for example already has and will be given by the Auckland Transitional Agency the responsibility for running its swimming pool. It will decide whether the pool is free; not the unitary authority. I say to Mr Hawkins that the local board will make that decision. The local board will be given the funding for that activity if that is what it wants to do. It can provide free access to swimming pools for its people because that is how the system works right now. But it will be the local community that will make that decision not the Auckland unitary authority. 
That is why we talk about empowering the local boards. That is the reason why we have written the legislation in the way that it is: because the community asked us to make sure that we give responsibility to it to make the decisions that matter to it—and we have done so. One of the things I would like to suggest is that some of the journalists also have a good study of this issue. I will talk more about it later because my time is running out and someone else will want to take a call.