Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Madam Chair thank you for the opportunity to make another comment on this bill which has been a really fascinating one. Look I really did want to have this further call because I want to address something that Mr Simon Court said in his last speech in support of his Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 150. It struck me as a very odd thing to say. He seemed to imply—and I can't remember the exact words but let me just get the gist of what he was saying—that it was a concern that I think it was Christchurch City Council conducted its own road repairs. I was gobsmacked by that—that Christchurch City Council somehow should not have employees that conducted their own road repairs. I don't know perhaps I shouldn't paint my own house—who knows? But it did seem an absurd thing to me and it became clear a little while later in Mr Court's speech when he asserted without evidence—and this is an empirical question—that we'd get a better result if we employed private firms to do so. Now that is actually an empirical question; it's not an ideological one. The assumption from Mr Court I think underpinning his speech was that private firms were necessarily better in terms of completing work and so he was very concerned that the Christchurch City Council had its own organisations that would repair their own roads. Now I don't see the problem with the city council deciding that it is more effective to have its own organisations that repair their own roads instead of contracting it out to the private sector and actually the question could go either way. Perhaps it would be better going to the private sector or perhaps it would be better being done in-house. But whatever else it is it is not an ideological question. There is no obvious right answer here. It is an empirical question and Mr Court has not presented the evidence to show that private firms are necessarily better. Show us the empirical evidence please Mr Court—empirical. It goes to his SOP when he took great care to explain to me—oh thank you Mr Court—the difference between an elected representative and a CEO and an employee because apparently I didn't know and I thought it was actually quite precious of him to explain it in detail to Mr Utikere who has been a very senior member of a city council. He's been a deputy mayor so he actually has the experience of being an elected member versus a CEO versus an employee. So Mr Court I'm sure Mr Utikere is terribly grateful for that explanation. But in all seriousness—and I think it was something that Ms Boyack pointed out very well—there was ample opportunity for the ACT Party to attend the Governance and Administration Committee hearings. Now they don't have a member on that select committee—that's fine; that's not a problem—but any member of Parliament is entitled to attend any select committee meeting and is entitled to ask to speak and be heard at that select committee meeting or in fact a member of Parliament can even put in their own submission to a select committee and ask to be heard at the select committee. So all those procedures could have been followed rather than this business of coming to the Chamber with a tiny little SOP with very little explanation attached to it very little argument attached to it and very little understanding attached to it of the difference between elected members and CEOs and employees. So I am going to invite Mr Utikere perhaps to have just a final word on that matter. I would be interested to hear how he feels about the explanations from Mr Court. I know that I was perhaps not as appreciative of him as Mr Court thought I ought to be.