Martin Tracey: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Martin Tracey: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 27 November 2012. Volume:686;Page:6789. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Chair. I rise to speak against the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill. I am one of only two members of this House who have worked inside an amalgamated city and I am the only member of this House who still works inside an amalgamated city. I find fascinating the statements from that side of the Chamber and I am going to address Nicky Wagner’s statements around the ability of 10 percent of ratepayers to make a decision as to whether they want to have an amalgamated council or not. I am asking on behalf of the people of Rodney. Does it go both ways? The people of Rodney never had an opportunity to express their opinion before being absorbed into the amalgamated city of Auckland. The people of Rodney asked their elected central government representative at the time Dr Lockwood Smith at a meeting at Ascension Wine Estate to just take a show of hands as to whether they wanted their rural communities to be dragged inside a massive urban environment and he said no. 
This is an extension of that sort of consultation from this Government. This is an extension and the Wairarapa should be aware. The Wairarapa should watch out. They need to come and talk to me and talk to the people of Rodney. Forty-six percent of the land mass of Auckland is in the Rodney Local Board area and only 5 percent of the population. Our service levels are dropping. Our rates are rising. Our mooring fees have doubled. Our horses on the beaches are under threat because they are now urban beaches. Our people cannot get their voices heard in the ivory towers of Auckland because of an amalgamation. So I find it very interesting that Ms Wagner suggests that this bill with further amalgamation suggested actually will bring more democracy. That is not the experience of my community. That is not the experience of local boards in Auckland City. There is a major difference between the role of local boards and the role of councillors and the local boards are the advocates for their communities. 
Mr Smith continues to bang on about the rising levels of debt and he suggests that this is because councils are frivolous. Yet he makes no statement about the legislation passed by central government which puts an onus on to local government to provide certain infrastructure and for Rodney I pick up the point around water quality. When the Rodney District Council was still in existence central government passed legislation that said that the infrastructure had to be upgraded so that all water quality was the same across the country. That was a massive amount of infrastructure required by that local government. That is how you get these levels of debt Mr Nick Smith and if you do not know that— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Of course I know that. 
TRACEY MARTIN 
: —then I suggest you have not had a good enough breakdown. You have not had a good enough breakdown from the officers from whom you have requested it because you continue to shout across the Chamber “Why is the debt fourfold?”. That is why in the same way that central government decided that rates must be based upon capital value. Do you know what that did? Do you know what that did to the farmers and the people of Rodney when that decision was made by central government? But now central government wants to blame local government for the rise in rates that came out of that decision. 
I think that is misleading. It is misleading to say that local government has been frivolous with money this has created this massive amount debt and that it has come from the four well-beings. Let us remember what some of those four well-beings provide shall we? There are Christmas parades. Christmas parades are happening all around my area at the moment. They are all funded by discretionary grants for social cohesion. There is privet removal. For our young unemployed people working with organisations like Springboard and through economic and environmental grants we are able to form working parties to give work experience to those young people to remove a noxious weed from our environment. It is called a win-win situation and it would not happen under the restrictions that are applied inside this bill. There are libraries. Libraries currently provide literacy and English for speakers of other languages support inside our environments. Libraries currently provide literacy and English for speakers of other languages support and again they are supported through discretionary grants for volunteers to provide community programmes. 
Mr Smith in the first reading of this bill pointed out—he made a big song and dance about it actually—a council-controlled organisation that Auckland City has called City of Manukau Education Trust. He made a big song and dance about why—why—a local government body is involved in education. I would suggest that the Government needs to be careful what it wishes for. I believe the City of Manukau Education Trust is three or four human beings who collectively hold all the knowledge about the different educational providers and initiatives inside the whole of Auckland City and the Ministry of Education and the Minister of Education use that single touch point to save them money and to save them from having to put people on the ground to go and find out where those organisations are in order to come up with a comprehensive overview of what Auckland needs for its future. 
The hand of central government is so far down into Auckland it is not funny. This is not about saving ratepayers’ money and the ratepayers of Rodney and the ratepayers of Auckland can tell you that. This is about control. This is about taking control from the people of Rodney and Auckland and giving it over to central government. This is not—and I thought it was particularly interesting that one of the speakers said it was—about local government trying to keep control for itself. We are on the ground every day with our ratepayers. You sit here in your ivory tower and you tell us we do not know. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Order! 
TRACEY MARTIN 
: I beg your pardon. Members of this House sit here in an ivory tower and do not go down to see the ratepayers at street level. Just because they have a few constituents who are property developers who find it too hard to get through the Resource Management Act or have to make a reserve contribution for their communities this is not the way to address those issues.