Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): I love the butter wouldn't melt in her mouth" irony of the previous speaker Rachel Boyack who said this Government backs local government when they're passing legislation after legislation taking roles away from local government and centralising it against their will such as in the Water Services Act and under the Resource Management Act they'll be setting up these new agencies. Unfortunately words might be fine; it's what you do that actually matters. And this Government unfortunately has made a track record of great theatrics great talking great announcements great ambitions and extremely poor follow-through and confusion on what they're actually doing on the ground. Now we've heard from the Prime Minister that this is a Government that's going to focus on the bread and butter. We hear the "bread and butter" on many occasions. They're going to focus on bread and butter and drop distractions and get to priorities. And then lo and behold we get a chance to speak on the Local Government Electoral Legislation Bill second reading which is all about the real important issues of local government which is ensuring that people do not get a chance to have a referendum on whether they should introduce Māori wards into their electorate which is fundamentally what this is about. It strikes me as a strange priority and indicative of a Government that has got muddled and confused about what is important to New Zealanders. When they look at local government generally in New Zealand—and we all are under the bailiwick of some council somewhere—I think most New Zealanders look and see real pressure on local governments. They see pressure to deliver good quality services and to actually make sure—well I get emails from constituents today for people in the Epsom electorate complaining about the fact that nobody ever sweeps the leaves out of the gutters any more and that contributes to flooding. It is all the basic stuff about local government. There's a lot of pressure—a lot of pressure about getting the roads open and moving and not having cones everywhere. A lot of pressure around water services getting the sewerage stuff—all the basics of local government—and a huge amount of work that needs to be done. And what is this Government focused on? It's only ever focused on the electoral sort of stuff. So what did they do? I remember it was only a couple of years ago that they rammed through under urgency urgent legislation to change the way that local government operated in terms of Māori wards. And just a reprise on that because this legislation confirms all that and sets it in stone for the short time that this Government will remain in office at least—where in the past if a local council wanted to introduce Māori wards into the council they had to ask the people. When they did in most cases—overwhelmingly—when they asked that question people said "No we don't want it." Why don't they want it? Well there'd be a host of reasons why they didn't want it. But primarily I think most people just don't want to divide New Zealanders into different groups; we all regard ourselves as equal New Zealanders and we don't want to focus on difference so much as what unites us. There'll be a whole host of reasons why people opposed it. But when they did that wasn't good enough for this Government. So the people when they were asked said no and so the Government said "Well we're not going to ask you any more and we'll just get local councils to just introduce these wards and not ask the people." So that's what happened last year. Lo and behold a whole lot of councils did introduce these wards and we've just heard from the previous speaker saying that it's been a great outcome. I haven't seen great evidence of that. But you know time will tell. Time will tell whether as a country we're better off for it or not. But we think on this side of the House that people should have a say on these matters. And the logical thing if you're going to change the way that we organise our electoral arrangements is you should ask the people not just do it on the basis of a bare majority under a Government. Why do we worry about these things? We've got good reason to worry about it because this is also the Government that has fundamentally changed the way that local democracy works in New Zealand by passing the Canterbury regional council bill which moved away from two basic democratic principles: one equal voting rights for all New Zealanders—and I hear sort of moans and groans from the other side as if this doesn't matter. Equal voting rights for all New Zealanders—a pretty important basic constitutional principle that this Government moved away from in the Canterbury bill. Because what happens in Canterbury under that legislation is that everybody gets a vote—one person one vote—for 14 councillors and then after that everybody having had a vote including Māori Ngāi Tahu get to appoint two more. So it is unequal voting rights depending on ethnicity.But the second principle that it offended against was the idea that councillors should be accountable to the electorate. The one thing that keeps Kiri Allan on the straight and narrow as an MP is she knows that if she does a good job she will remain in office. If she does a bad job people will throw her out. That's the same principle that applies to all of us: we face the ballot box and if we're no good we get chucked out. Governments have come and gone over the years. But under the Canterbury legislation the Ngāi Tahu appointments can never be thrown out because they're appointments as of right. So two fundamental constitutional principles thrown out the door by this Government on a bare majority with no consultation with the people and with no consultation across the House. So we're pretty concerned about that.So when it comes to the approach that the Government has taken in terms of local government democracy we're not impressed one iota and we certainly won't be supporting this bill which is not as heinous as the Canterbury regional council bill but it is still one that offends that basic principle. When we're going to make changes at how we organise our electoral arrangements at local government we should ask the people through a referendum and this bill doesn't allow for that. In fact it moves away from that. It does a few other minor things which may be of interest to some people probably not to most people. But on that score I think it's more a missed opportunity bill than a constructive bill given all the challenges that we face at local government. This is a bill that we won't be supporting and we don't support and we don't hope that it passes. We call upon the Government to reconsider and maybe at the last moment change their mind and go back to a principle where if a local council decides it wants to change and set up Māori wards which they're perfectly entitled to do they should first ask the people and if the people want it then it will go ahead. If they don't want it then it won't go ahead. That's a fairly simple thing it's not hard to understand and it's where we were for most of our history and where we should return to. Thank you Madam Speaker."