Williams Andrew: Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williams Andrew: Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 07 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6421. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill. This is a very interesting bill because the public libraries of this country are institutions in their own right. We all know of some of the great public libraries located around New Zealand and we have grown up with those public libraries in our towns in our villages in our cities and in our districts. They very much are the centre of many communities. As the explanatory note of this bill does say at the beginning: “Public libraries play an important role in our communities by helping New Zealanders to achieve access to information and entertainment. They also provide important community hubs.” That is very much the case. At this point in time New Zealand First will be supporting this bill because we feel that it does require scrutiny and it does need to go through to the Local Government and Environment Committee. 
We are very concerned about what is happening in local government in terms of the four social well-beings being taken away by this Government—in terms of the social cultural economic and environmental well-beings. Therefore if this Government is going to focus local authorities simply on rates rubbish and sewerage and take away many of the social and cultural responsibilities then perhaps our libraries could be threatened in the future. That is not to say that they would be immediately but they could be threatened in the future. That would be a sad day for many communities in New Zealand. 
I can recall an instance that we had on the North Shore where our Birkenhead Library unfortunately got demolished before there was a building and resource consent to replace it due to some error in the bureaucratic system. Unfortunately the lovely old library which had outlived its usefulness and was leaking like a sieve—the roof was leaking like a sieve— 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: This is a terrible story. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: It is a good story Simon if you listen to it. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! The member will use another member’s full name. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: The Hon Simon Bridges. When that building was demolished and was out of use for nearly 3 years the library had to use some temporary premises and it actually did affect the whole community in that the community lost its heart and soul. It lost its library it lost its meeting point and it lost the place where so many people came together. It did illustrate the fact that although many people who are perhaps not used to using libraries see them as a cost or a burden on ratepayers to a large percentage of the population they are actually an important community venue. They are somewhere they go to genuinely get enjoyment from reading but also to get important information for their own educational purposes. When that building was replaced in Birkenhead after about 3 or 4 years it absolutely rejuvenated that community by having that heart and soul back in the community. So it is important that those libraries are freely accessible are free to those communities and are able to be accessed without charges. 
We do have some reservations about this bill in terms of we do understand that councils have difficulties in necessarily providing DVDs and CDs and all that sort of thing because they can be expensive and they can be costly to stock maintain and replace. Therefore if this goes through to the select committee we certainly would be looking for more information on that because perhaps there is an appropriate nominal cost to try to cover those sorts of electronic fees for the likes of DVDs and CDs. Also in terms of the internet again we would not want to see libraries putting out of business local businesses that provide paid internet services. So there has to be a little bit of a compromise there a little bit of give and take. Sure you want your citizens to have access to the internet but the library certainly should not be in competition with local businesses. 
We certainly would like the Government to support this bill. Give it an opportunity to go through let it be thrashed out and let the people of New Zealand have their say on how they feel public libraries should be treated in this country in the future. Thank you.