Copeland Gordon: Local Government (Rating Cap) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Copeland Gordon: Local Government (Rating Cap) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:633;Page:4809] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 When I first read through the arithmetic set out in the first and second clauses of the Local Government (Rating Cap) Amendment Bill it was a little bit like déjà vu. I thought to myself that it was an interesting way of tackling legislation in the 21st century. The bill seeks to regulate rates by putting in place a formula which is the movement in the consumer price index plus 2 percent in the first 12 months or the consumer price index plus no more than 4 percent over a 3-year period—about 1.3 percent per annum in addition to the consumer price index. 
 When I read that I thought to myself that it was very reminiscent of the kind of legislation we used to see under Rob Muldoon. That thought was further strengthened when I got down to clause 3 where I read that if a local authority wishes to exceed that cap it can ask the Minister of Local Government to make a decision about it. So I thought that that was the kind of cap the bill had in mind. It has local authorities duly elected by the citizens of that territory going cap in hand to the Minister and saying: “Minister can we please take our rates up next year by let’s say consumer price index plus 2.5 percent? Would that be OK?”. Really at that stage I asked myself whose bill it was. I actually thought I would see the name “Robert Muldoon” on the bill but it turned out to be “Rodney Hide”. I am amazed that a bill like this has actually come from the ACT party because it is not the kind of approach I associate with the history of ACT. However it is the kind of approach I associate very strongly with Muldoon who in the immortal words of David Lange ran the country like a Polish shipyard. I think that was a bit of an insult to Polish shipyards in many ways. 
The fundamental problem I have with the bill is that it is contrary to United Future’s political philosophy which is dependent on subsidiarity—namely that we devolve political decision-making to the appropriate level and that local authorities duly elected by their citizens should be making decisions on behalf of their communities and that includes decisions about rates. 
Having said that members might be surprised to hear we are going to vote in favour of the bill. It is simply a quirk of fate that the drawing of this bill from the ballot—and I congratulate Rodney Hide on being successful in the ballot—coincided with massive outrage right throughout this country but particularly in Auckland about the fact that rates increases have now become unsustainable for many of our citizens. We know for example that in Auckland City the cost of water is going up by 9 percent and the cost of rates is also going up by about that percentage or more. For many people now that is just too much. There is great concern particularly amongst those people on fixed incomes and in their retirement years that that is just not affordable. Therefore our vote in favour of this bill is to signal United Future’s strong support for an inquiry into local government in New Zealand and the reason why we are seeing these massive rates increases occurring. 
I know that the Local Government and Environment Committee has already said it wants to have an inquiry. We think that might be useful but it will not get the job done. We want there to be an independent commission of inquiry into the whole structure of local government in this country. After all when one really thinks it through one realises that these massive rates increases are just a symptom of many things; perhaps it might be local and central government duplication of effort or perhaps the massive forward plans that local bodies now do at great cost—they circulate books of the size of the Wellington phone book to every citizen in their city stating their plan for the next 10 years. I wonder whether we have now reached the stage of paralysis through analysis which really is like it was under Rob Muldoon as well. With those reservations we support the first reading of the bill.