Katene Rahui: Local Government Borrowing Bill — Second Reading 
Katene Rahui: Local Government Borrowing Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:675;Page:20987] 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 Tena koe. The circumstances around irresponsible borrowing and lending have been at the heart of the financial crisis of the past 3 years. In many respects therefore we could look at the Local Government Borrowing Bill as an extension of the borrow borrow borrow mentality that has had disastrous consequences at the central and local government levels at the community level and at the family level. But we cannot ignore the very serious debt issues facing our local government which this bill attempts to address. 
I am really pleased to be able to speak to this bill as the Maori Party member of the Local Government and Environment Committee. As the Maori Party member on that committee I am really keen to ensure that I do as much as I can to assist the committee to tackle an extremely significant issue for local government—that is to dramatically improve representative democracy as provided for in the provisions of the Local Government Act 2002 in particular Maori representation. 
The provisions are really specific in terms of providing opportunities for Maori to contribute to and participate in the local authority decision-making process. There is the opportunity for fostering the development of Maori capacity and the requirement to provide relevant information to Maori in order to best uphold the commitment to democratic representation yet representation of Maori elected on to councils is at best between 5 and 7 percent despite Maori being 17 percent of the population. Of course as we all know the Maori population is increasing and at a faster rate than the European population. So there is no question that we have a long way to go in improving the effectiveness of local government for Maori. We must pull out all the stops to enhance Maori participation in local government to implement and monitor accountability mechanisms to ensure effective Maori participation and of course to be engaged in the true realisation of the power-sharing envisaged in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. 
In order to meet these needs we accept that local councils need to allocate priority to Maori representation. Yet as we already know local authorities are facing many competing priorities. It is a situation that this bill attempts to address. The forecast borrowing needs of local authorities are large. Total borrowings could reach $10 billion within 5 years from a current level of around $6 billion. The purpose of the bill then as others have said before me is common sense. It is very simply to make borrowing cheaper for local councils. This simple aim would be achieved by establishing the New Zealand Local Government Funding Agency Ltd to act as a type of umbrella organisation for the purposes of borrowing money for local councils. The theory is that multiple councils issuing their debt collectively will lower the cost of borrowing and we have to applaud that purpose. Economies of scale will mean that the agency is more creditworthy than individual councils and will therefore borrow money at a lower interest rate. We would hope therefore that the benefits of this approach will be realised by all and more to the point will enable a more comprehensive and enduring attempt to create representative democracy. 
The Maori Party places huge priority on listening to the people so we were particularly interested in the submission from the Society of Local Government Managers. We must pull out all the stops to enhance Maori participation in local government. In order to meet all of these needs we accept that local government councils need to allocate priority to making sure that as well as Maori representation there actually is the facility to make borrowing cheaper. That can only benefit ratepayers that can only benefit local authorities and that can only benefit taxpayers as well. So we are supportive of this bill. Kia ora.