Street Maryan: Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is subject to correctionStreet Maryan: Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 04 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15279. Text is subject to correction.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): The only thing that is good about passing this legislation the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill this evening is that it might bring at least part of this episode in the life of Kaipara District to some kind of closure.I want to refer in the first instance to the report of the Auditor-General Lyn Provost. I must say with the reports being tabled only yesterday I have not read the 450-page one but I have read the shorter version. I want to refer to it in some detail because it seems to me that in the course of traversing the history of what the Auditor-General herself has called a woeful saga—and that term is one that members have picked up on this evening—she has done a very good job in highlighting many of the shortcomings.Before I get on to quoting her summary report I must say that if ever there was an advertisement for amalgamating small local authorities then this is it. I look forward to Northland uniting its five local authorities and territorial authorities in due course in accordance with the recommendation of the Local Government Commission recently. There are questions of capability of competence and of capacity. Sometimes there were not enough people across this issue sometimes there were the wrong people across the issue and sometimes there were people across the issue who were not competent to deal with it. It is patently obvious from the observations of one who sat on the Local Government and Environment Committee and who listened to the submissions not just to the Auditor-General’s report that there are plenty of people to whom blame should be apportioned. We are not in want of those.But I just want to highlight some of the things from the Auditor-General’s overview report because I think they do go to the heart of the matter. She says that the Kaipara District Council had poor governance poor management and poor records. Her staff were not able to establish exactly what happened at certain points in the development of this waste-water scheme because the records were inadequate who made the decisions was not clearly spelt out and who was responsible for enacting decisions was not clearly spelt out either.She went on to say that the Kaipara District Council was “out of its depth”—to use her words—with thepublic-private partnership decision. She goes on to say that the district council followed all the right basic steps when it initially engaged with the scheme but as it became more complicated it became very clear that catering for risk and accounting for risk were not dealt with in a way that was either competent or careful.She also said that there were poor contracting practices that went on that the district council negotiated directly with one of the tenderers and that the approach to the funding of the project was inadequate. The contract was signed in 2005 without the scheme being completed by having an identified disposal site for the effluent. She said that all of this was “unwise”.She also said that although again there was consultation that went on in the early stages with the communities in the district council’s jurisdiction this fell to bits in the later stages of the scheme.But the thing I want to focus on most from the Auditor-General’s overview is the very robust way in which she dealt with the criticisms of staff in her own office. Right from the outset when we were hearing submissions on this bill we heard from people—and Mike Sabin mentioned this in his introductory speech on this bill—that there were inadequacies in the Audit Office’s work. She does not shy away from that.She made the point that although some people suggested that it was inappropriate for her to review the work of her own business unit she disagreed. It is absolutely appropriate for heads of organisations to do that critical analysis when it is necessary internally inside their organisation. She did commission an independent person to carry out the review and provide a report and the process surrounding her own examination of part of her business unit was totally transparent.She said that yes there were some problems with the way that some of the audit work of the Kaipara District Council was carried out. The audit quality varied over a long period of time she said although there was notable improvement in later years. The review done by the expert independent reviewer criticised the quality of documentation in some audit files particularly documentation that should explain why particular audit judgments were reached.She goes on to say that between 2006 and 2009 the auditor did not reassess the status of the waste-water project despite it changing quite substantially during that period of time. She admits being deeply disappointed by the findings of the reviewer. But at least she says the general systems and the methodology of the Auditor-General’s office were not in question. Although there was some question about the quality of work performed neither the methodology nor the process within the Auditor-General’s office was found to be at fault. This has got to be one of those moments when a chief executive says: “Well what can we do better? What do we need to do to ensure that the quality of work is up to standard?”.This bill will not please anybody. Any other outcome would not have pleased everybody either. Whichever way the select committee came down there would have been somebody in the Kaipara District who was not happy with the outcome.The chairperson of the select committee Nicky Wagner has done an extremely good thing not only in the way she ran the select committee but also in the fact that she made the committee become very activist in trying to arrive at a solution. I commend her for that. This bill is not the sort of thing that we like to see in this House but it has to pass.