Wall Louisa: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill(No 2) — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWall Louisa: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill(No 2) — Third Reading[Sitting date: 15 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:13902. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute to this Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2). I am not a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee but I am a proud and staunch member of the Manurewa community. Obviously I want to take the opportunity to congratulate all those who have been elected on to various boards whether it be the local board the district health board the Wiri Licensing Trust or the other governance boards that empower people to represent their communities.Essentially we are here because there is a transitional piece of legislation that enables local boards to delegate responsibilities to certain members. Without this piece of legislation going through the irony is—well I do not know whether it is an irony but the reality is that those people who currently have delegations will keep them. It means that local boards cannot do the work they need to do. In some instances those people are no longer on local boards. The person whom I have been working with in my area whom I want to highlight has been local board member Colleen Brown who did not stand at the last election for the local board. I want to congratulate particularly Simeon Brown who as a previous member of our Manurewa Youth Council has made the transition as a young person representing the youth specifically to now being a member of the Manurewa Local Board. But the irony of that is that Colleen has had delegations around developing the local alcohol policies for Manurewa. She is no longer on the board so it makes it very difficult I guess for the board to delegate to somebody else—maybe.What I do know is that local boards are actually performing a very important role in our communities. So I am really standing here in this third reading to support this piece of legislation because from my perspective local democracy is really important. When I look at my local board and the connection and relationship it has to the people of Manurewa it is really important that it has all the tools it needs in order to do the best job on behalf of the people in each of our respective communities. For it to be able to have those tools means that it does not have to have full board meetings which essentially would have to take place if this piece of legislation did not go through the House tonight. It is timely given that we had the elections on Saturday for us to have prioritised this piece of legislation. Obviously for me it is really important that we conclude this debate tonight and that we support this piece of legislation.What I really wanted to highlight in my contribution tonight is a concern I have about voter turnout. It has been very interesting I guess to look at some of the different local body turnouts. I know that in Manurewa it is probably going to be as low as 25 percent. I think that is really concerning. But it is interesting to look at research from an associate professor who works at Massey University ChristineCheyne who has basically said that New Zealanders are able to identify with the district council or the mayor but beyond that there are really real gaps in people’s understanding about the people who represent them on either local boards or other such constituent groups. There is a poor overall understanding of the role and nature of local government. If people do not understand the significance to their lives then they are not going to vote. So I think we have a particular challenge in some communities.The other challenge I want to highlight is the complexity for some communities in the voting process. You have two types of processes that you use currently in local body elections. Obviously for the local board you just tick however many members of the local board are in your area. In our area we had to pick eight people so you tick eight boxes. But for the district health board selections if we want to use that as a comparison it is a preferential voting system and you have to rank members. I think for some of our communities it is really confusing. I think we have to rethink how wepresent these democratic opportunities to our communities. Maybe for the boards where we want to tick the number of people we want on there whether it be the local board or the licensing trust they should be on a separate form. And possibly the district health board form should be—Hon Anne Tolley: Could you talk to the bill.LOUISA WALL: I am talking to the bill. Maybe the district health board form should be on its own and we should enable our communities to have different mediums to be able to engage in the process.Obviously we support the bill. It is a piece of legislation that has unanimous support across the House. We realise that it is a piece of legislation that needs to go through so that our local boards can do the job they are empowered to do. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.