Dean JacquiLOCAL GOVERNMENT (CUSTOMER FOCUS) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingHon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I move That the Local Government (Customer Focus) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill.The Local Government (Customer Focus) Amendment Bill comes as a result of some work I undertook for the then Minister of Local Government Paula Bennett commencing in 2014 and the brief to myself was very clear. She wished me to focus and consult widely on the incidence of what she called loopy" rules and I think that's a very apt description of a number of the rules that beset local government and literally get in the way of local government providing top quality service to those people it serves in its regulatory functions and other functions that it undertakes.I assembled a panel of people from throughout New Zealand from a range of skills and experiences including the private sector property development chamber of commerce local government mayors and a few other experts. We literally consulted in most parts of New Zealand from Northland down to Southland. We went to Invercargill; we went to the West Coast. We took our time. We not only listened to local government on their views around the rules and the constraints under which they operate; we also heard from the general public. A number of property developers and those who wish to make a contribution to their communities by way of development building property building subdivisions for housing building commercial properties had a very singular and strong message to us at that time. That was that their reflection was that not only was the Building Act and not only were the Resource Management Act (RMA) and a number of other Acts providing sometimes troublesome impediments to them getting on and doing what they wished to do by way of application—the focus wasn't on that and that is not the focus of this bill either.The focus that came through to us very strongly apart from those reflections around legislation such as the Building Act and the RMA was on customer service. I will go into that obviously a little further but just one reflection I will make on the RMA: I want to congratulate the Labour Government and the local government Minister Nanaia Mahuta for their focus on ensuring that local government itself is given the tools to improve its performance across all its regulatory functions. I believe and I do hope that this customer service - focused bill finds favour across the House as a simple measure to concentrate the attention of those in local government at performing their regulatory functions properly so that we can truly provide good service to those who approach local government for their regulatory functions.The customer focus doesn't mean providing a welcome mat in the front office of a council. What it means and what my intent is with this bill is just as the Public Service are now required to do local government receive and process applications to them for whatever function most particularly in terms of resource consents and in the Building Act but not exclusively and that a system is worked out within local government—and far be it from me and far be it from this Parliament in my view to prescribe what that should look like because I respect the autonomy of local government. But what I would like to see through this bill is the chief executive of the local authority to turn their attention to "How do we respond to this—very simple in this case—resource consent or building consent application? What is the best most timely most cost-effective way that we can process and see the passage of this application through our council and to provide a decision? It may not be what the applicant hopes for or wants and may have conditions but how do we provide an answer for the applicant so that the property developer who wishes to build social housing for example has certainty and has a decision which is cost-effective and timely coming through that local authority?"By way of perhaps example throughout the work of the Rules Reduction Taskforce we had many many meetings with property developers. They are the ones who wish to build houses. They're the ones who wish to build warm dry homes whether it's social housing right through the range. One developer said to me—and we were in the southern part of New Zealand—"Tell me which council you believe we get better service from when we are fronting up to the front desk with an application for a subdivision say." This developer gave us two examples. One was in a very busy very fast-growing local authority area and the other was in a slightly bigger more urban but more stable area without that much growth. So I went "Of course one is going to get better service from a fast-growing local authority who's geared up for that." and the answer was "No. Actually we got excellent service from that local authority which was just in steady mode and the reason we got that good service from them and timely cost-effective decisions was because they literally rolled out the red carpet because they welcomed us into town." Any developer who wished to build homes was welcome in that town and they got what the developers regarded was good service from local authority. That's what I'm hoping to achieve through this bill.I did say towards the beginning of this reading that it wasn't just about customer focused—no it's not. It's about good process and good service but actually customer service goes an awfully long way. If I think about one council I have visited a couple of times over there—and that would be Rotorua—it strikes me: you walk into the building and it is warm and friendly and welcoming but most of all it's got bicycles and the bicycles are there for council staff to jump on instead of using the council fleet of cars and I thought that is good innovation and that is good thinking on behalf of councils. Councils are innovative. Councils do care mayors do care planners care about the applications that come across their desk. But what I would like to see here is a focus on who they should be focusing on and that is the people they serve the people who come into the council with an application. It might be a licence it might be a hairdressing licence or it might be liquor licensing. I've mentioned a number of applications it might be.So just finally just so I can put it on the record the main provision of this bill is that section 14 of the Local Government Act is amended which is around the principles relating to local authorities and it inserts "[promoting] a customer focus and delivery of public services and regulatory functions". If this small simple—very simple—bill can move councils along just a little bit together with all the other initiatives that the current Government and previous Governments and future Governments will be bringing in to support local councils and their very important economic development functions—and I have talked about housing. I do believe the provision of housing and the provision of economic activity is critical now in this post-COVID world. Well if we can get this through then I do hope it finds the favour of the House. Thank you."