McAnulty Kieran; Brown SimeonHon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much Mr Chair. A number of points I hope to make as the local government spokesperson for the Labour Party in relation to the impact on local councils the process of consultation etc. However I do wish to speak to an amendment that I've made. I've submitted this because I was listening very carefully to the Minister's response earlier I think it was to Rachel Boyack's contribution. Frankly it was incredibly weak. He claims that there is a difference already previously before the rules were changed because they didn't have the option to go to the Local Government Commission whereas all other wards would. Well just make that change. Just make Māori wards have the same process as the other wards. Isn't that your problem solved? Surely that's a pragmatic solution. Then you wouldn't have to open yourself up to accusations of institutional racism and all the other things that are going the Minister's way which in my view are founded.The issue here is that I don't think the Minister has actually fully discussed the alternative here. If he really wants things to be fair which was the guts of what he was saying around the Local Government Commission that there was a massive injustice so let's throw the whole thing out it doesn't quite make sense. So if we really want things to be fair and we want local communities to have a say and if the Minister is genuine in his distrust of local councils' ability to make a decision for their communities let's remove all decisions for all wards from councils. So I would encourage the House to support my amendment which will lead to that so all new urban wards and all rural wards and Māori wards would require a referendum endorsing them from those communities. Surely that is the only fair way through this. We could have avoided the whole thing if the Minister had just said Right well we've seen an inequity here from their perspective that voters don't have the opportunity to go through the commission." He could have changed that and do you know what? I probably would wager that we would have supported that because it is fair across the board and that is the rationale behind this amendment.Now of course it does raise some serious issues around the process where Parliament is being asked tonight—and will be if it passes tonight to the third reading—to essentially remove democratically elected members. Now this was alluded to earlier but it's something that I think we should go into more detail. So for those councils that have already decided for themselves that Māori wards are the right thing for them and their communities and have had that in place at the previous local body elections like so many councils have they have a democratically elected councillor on their council that was elected through the Māori ward.Now if the member disputes that I think he should look every single Māori electorate MP in this House in the eye and tell them that he believes that they aren't as equal as other elected MPs because if you can't have one you can't have both. If you want to be a consistent Minister stand up and do that. I bet he doesn't. He doesn't have the guts but he's quite happy to hide behind this.So we've got a scenario and this is how it will play out if the Minister gets what he wants. So you've got a democratically elected representative from the Māori wards in these councils. This bill passes and the people that didn't vote that democratically elected representative in have a say in whether they stay or go. How the hell is that democracy? If he wants to be consistent he should let the people that elected them decide but not. I tell you what I would love a referendum to let the rest of the country decide whether Simeon Brown should stay in the House. I would love that result. Would they stand for that? Not a chance. Not a chance because they wouldn't like the result. What's good for the goose is good for the gander and I've never seen a lack of a genuine consistent rationale as much as I've seen here. None of this stacks up and if the Minister really stands for democracy and really stands for consistency he will support this bill and I urge the House to do so.Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Well I've got news for that member; I am supporting the bill and so that's just the first bit of news. The second bit of news for the member: it's hard to break it to him but there was a referendum on him in the Wairarapa and there was one on me in Pakuranga on 14 October so go back and have a look at the numbers.In terms of the question that was raised in regards to democratically elected members their positions being determined to no longer exist that is not what this legislation is doing. The legislation—any effect does not come into effect until the end of the term. Either if they decide to rescind or to disestablish the effect does not take place until the next election. If there's a referendum the effect of that referendum does not take effect till the next local election. I just put it on the record of the House that no elected member has a right to a seat around a council table or a seat in this House. The only people who determine whether we sit here or we sit around a council table or a local board table are the voters. The voters determine that and so no democratically elected member will have their position disestablished. There will be the roll or the ward but those decisions and if the position is disestablished that happens at a local body election period at which point people have to go out to the public and ask them to re-elect them. If there is a disestablishment there is nothing stopping that individual from standing for the mayoralty or for the community board or for the council. Likewise if the public decide to retain the ward those positions will continue to stay in existence and the people will be able to stand for those particular wards."