Shearer David: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShearer David: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8300. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): I thank the Minister in the chair Louise Upston for taking the floor to try to explain that particular issue around the reduction of the quorum for the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel from three members to two under clause 4.On the one hand I am a little more satisfied that this is not going to become the norm which is what Phil Goff was saying just now as part of his contribution. But on the other hand I am still vexed and actually quite concerned that although she has said that the two-person panel will be site-specific—and I can understand that because there are a lot of issues to be looked at—it is not going to be a decision-making process and that does actually create some concerns. That is because these people are going to tasked with the job and given the responsibility of making recommendations around a particular issue yet they will not be able to make that decision and will cast that back to a wider group who have not been part of hearing the submissions and sharing the evidence and therefore will not be fully apprised of the information in order to make that decision.In some ways it is comforting to know that this is going to be—using the word from the Minister’s mouth—exceptional rather the common occurrence but at the same time the panel is not going to be able to make a decision or make recommendations which will have to be passed back to people who have not been part of hearing the evidence around that. I do not believe that that is a good way of making decisions on issues. I know from my own personal experience of being an Auckland MP that people are extraordinarily worried about some of the issues whether it be height to boundary whether it be the concentration of houses whether it be heritage buildings—a whole range of different issues. So that raises I believe yet another concern that we have certainly as Auckland MPs as to what we are looking at in terms of the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill.The second part of the Minister’s contribution I want to pick up on is the issue that Ron Mark raised before which is that going from three members down to two means that we actually do not have a deciding vote. Those panel members do not have voting role—I understand that from the Minister—but we may instead have two competing recommendations coming back from that two-person panel from which a decision is going to be made without actually understanding the full ramifications of the evidence that was heard. So that seems to me to make the situation worse rather than better.So we have dug ourselves into a hole of complexity and bad decision-making around this which will provide Aucklanders with no real feeling that they are getting a better process rather than a worse one at the end of this. So I thank the Minister for standing up and taking that—Hon Phil Goff: Brief call.DAVID SHEARER: —brief call on clause 4 but it still does not address some of the other issues.I come now to clause 7—I am sure that there will be other people who want to pick up on the Minister’s contribution just now. Clause 7 provides for the expansion of the hearings panel from seven to 10. Once again I think we support that and I can see the merits in having an expansion in the numbers excluding the chair. But the choice and the decision about who is going to be on that hearings panel is something that the Minister has not addressed and I think that this actually does cut to choice—to whether Auckland can decide who is going to be on that panel or whether it has to be done centrally and top down. I want to come to the I think very good amendment that Phil Twyford has put forward as part of that with the provision to have the Auckland mayor involved.