Foster Andy; Brownlee GerryANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Thank you Mr Speaker. Good local government is a beautiful thing. I know that because I've been there and done it and sometimes it's been beautiful and sometimes a little bit less so. Good local councillors—and I look at Cameron Brewer there—should be deeply connected to their communities really know their issues and their people listen to their people's diverse viewpoints and be responsive show wisdom show that sort of calm measured decision-making and be balanced and thoughtful. Now of course this is not about being a councillor; this is about being a list MP and we're talking about constituencies and our constituency as list MPs starts somewhere up around North Cape and ends somewhere down Stewart Island way—and that is all of our constituency. And let's not forget the Chatham Islands and the offshore islands as well.Look that doesn't stop me from being interested in local issues. I have to say that every day I get people from the local community around Wellington asking me about various different local issues and about making observations about the local council. But I'm not going to talk about Wellington because what I did recently as a list MP to visit the beautiful top of the South Island talking to councils businesses educators infrastructure providers developers tourism organisations and so on. I just want to make a few observations about that visit because I think there's some useful things to mention there.First of all there were many different Provincial Growth Fund projects that I heard about. So Blenheim's beautiful new library—a fantastic facility two thirds of which was funded by the Provincial Growth Fund one third by the local council. And I might make a point that Wellington often feels left out by some of these things: it's neither a Provincial Growth Fund; never got any money from start-up projects either"—and so that was a little bit of a sore point there. So I've got to bring Wellington in. But Blenheim's new library is beautiful; Wellington's got a $250-odd million-dollar library and it would be nice to have a little bit of support for that—anyway!Also it was great to visit water treatment plants in Motueka water storage reservoirs for the Māpua-Moutere area and stopbank refurbishments. Together those projects are less than $15 million; huge value for those local communities. They look like outstanding projects. I also heard about the Waimea Dam which has probably now been commissioned—it was about to be commissioned when I was there—and the benefits that that will bring both to the urban community and resilience of water supply but also to the rural community in terms of productivity and the ability to grow all sorts of products that of course we need.I really wanted to say that there are huge opportunities. These things illustrate huge opportunities to partner between local government local communities and central government. For example all three of the councils that I talked to across the top of the South mentioned a report called Before the Deluge which has been put together by all the regional councils and the unitary councils of the country. They've identified the areas where we could get the best bang for bucks by putting stopbanks there to protect our property to protect businesses. I would encourage the Parliament to have a look at that report and to consider whether there is a co-investment opportunity there because clearly that is what they are looking for.We hear a lot about an infrastructure deficit and when chairing the Transport and Infrastructure Committee we began our annual reviews hearing from the Infrastructure Commission. I have to say they are a breath of fresh air thinking about the really big picture. The key point that they made is that we're actually investing enough in infrastructure; what we're not doing is investing in the right way. We're investing in dumb things sometimes and our processes are really expensive and slow and we need to do something about that. That would probably save us at least 4 percent on GDP just like that if we were to do that.Hon Mark Patterson: Fast trackast track. ANDY FOSTER: Fast tracking is part of that. When we visited one of the examples was the example of marine farms. The cost of being able to re-consent what is already there is really really expensive and that's not just marine farms it's dams it's sewage treatment plants and so on. When they need to be re-consented it is really expensive and two of the councils also raised those issues as well.They also raised issues around the consenting of tiny houses which of course this Government is moving on—or small houses I should say. Because what's happening in those jurisdictions is that instead of going for small houses they're actually going for tiny houses because you don't have to go through the consent process—and of course they don't pay rates either. So there are ways in which we can make the boat go faster in those areas.It was also really really great to visit some community facilities and operations as well particularly the Kaipūpū Sanctuary in Picton and to hear about the support that they've had from the Jobs for Nature programme. I would say that that I think has given us some real value and I think we should think very very carefully about its future and be able to share the experience—Chlöe Swarbrick: Yeah don't cut it!ANDY FOSTER: I'm making these points because it's worth making these points Chlöeand I have the opportunity to do soand share the opportunity or the experience that I've had from Zealandia which of course is the mothership of all of these sorts of facilities. So all I would say is that there are a lot of great things that you can learn from visiting communities from listening to communities and if we work together—Government local government and communities—we can make our boat go faster.SPEAKER: That would have made a great general debate speech but it's a local issues debate and I'd ask members to stick that."