Bradford Sue: Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Bradford Sue: Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1670] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 Although the Green Party will be supporting the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill through its first reading and going to a select committee it seems a little strange that the issues it covers have had to make it all the way to Parliament to be dealt with. The fact that the legislation that seems to be the source of the current problem—the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002—did not take into account the fact that some Franklin residents live in the Waikato region rather than the Auckland region is very odd. I was not one of the MPs who sat on the select committee dealing with the Local Government (Rating) Act at the time and I wonder whether there was any real reason why the matter was not sorted out then. 
It is a bit unfortunate that the Franklin District Council has had to go to all the trouble of getting a local bill into Parliament—and that Dr Paul Hutchison has had to go to all this trouble as well—in a bid to resolve an anomaly that should have been blindingly apparent back in 2002. It does appear odd that people living in the part of Franklin that is inside the Waikato Regional Council area should have to pay towards the cost of the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology especially when that was not the case prior to the 2002 law going through. 
There are a few counterarguments however and being a Green I feel obliged to make them. Firstly some people feel that the Auckland Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology are major facilities to which many people in Franklin and their visitors gravitate at times—as Nanaia Mahuta referred to before—just as people in Rodney Waitakere and the North Shore go to the Auckland Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology at times. Many ratepayers in Rodney Waitakere and the North Shore feel just as aggrieved about paying for the museums in the city as do the residents of the Waikato part of Franklin but it is our Green Party position that there are institutions that need to be supported on a region-wide basis. It is then of course a question of where we draw the lines. 
Secondly the Waikato Regional Council does not make any similar charge for its museums in the way Auckland does so this is not a situation in which residents in the Waikato part of Franklin have to pay twice—once for museums in Auckland and once for museums in Hamilton. 
Thirdly if this bill is passed it looks as though residents of Franklin who live within the Auckland Regional Council boundaries will have to pay more out of their rates than they do at present as will ratepayers throughout the Auckland Regional Council region to make up the difference. 
However looking at the overall picture the Green Party at this stage recognises that a fundamental inequity is involved. It is a question of where the line should be drawn for regional funding and there is no reason why the citizens of the Waikato Regional Council part of Franklin should have to pay Auckland Regional Council tithes when for example the citizens of those parts of the Coromandel district closest to Auckland do not have to pay tithes. Their access to Auckland’s facilities would probably be about the same. 
I also hope that once the royal commission on Auckland’s governance has reported back and we find out what it is proposing in detail there will be a way in the future to resolve these kinds of issues a lot more quickly simply and fairly than through the long-drawn-out clumsy expensive and time-consuming process of pursuing a local bill like this one through Parliament.