Simpson Scott: Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSimpson Scott: Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 03 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4297. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): As the chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee I am going to support the Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill. I do so reluctantly. The previous speaker Dr Megan Woods made mention of the criticism that had been levelled at Christchurch City Council in previous debates as this bill has progressed through this House. I want to just acknowledge that the criticism that was levelled at council members was in terms of their lack of ability as highly paid professionals to get it right. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and on this occasion the intention was actually to make the passing of rates motions by the council easy more simple and to use so-called simple English. The net result of the change however was that the motions that were passed for 9 consecutive years at the council were in fact invalid not correct and wrong. The problem with that the net impact is that although in this particular instance no malfeasance no fraud no wrongdoing no maliciousness and no actual—more by good luck than good management—financial liability to council or ratepayers occurred had a ratepayer decided to challenge the validity of the rates for any one of those 9 years then the council would have had not a single leg to stand on in terms of enforcing those rates payments.That is not a situation that is professionally acceptable in one of the nation’s largest councils so I do not resile at all from my criticism particularly in my second reading speech on this bill of the lack of professionalism by the council. When we visited Christchurch as a select committee we were stuck by the manner and tone of the single submission that we received on this bill from the Christchurch City Council itself. I guess that some members of the committee found that it was the tone and the manner of the submission that was of most concern. It was not the error in itself but it was that there seemed to be no sense of proportion no sense of contrition no sense of culpability and no sense of understanding that in fact what had occurred was something that should not have occurred—simply that Parliament would put it right by merely passing a piece of validating legislation. As the previous speaker indicated this Parliament does not like passing retrospective validating legislation. When it does have to from time to time usually it is introduced by some local member—and in this case it was my colleague the member for Christchurch Central the very good and hard-working Nicky Wagner who has had to bring this bill to the House as sponsor a bill promoted by the council. She has had to convince her colleagues in caucus and then manage and steer it through the House in a way that I do not think a local member would ever really want to do.So what of this bill itself? Well this bill seeks to validate specified rates between the financial years 2004-05 through to 2012-13. The legislation itself has no impact at all on ratepayers. There is no change to the amount of rates or penalties due from any ratepayer as a result of the wrong and error-filled wording of the council-passed motions in each of those 9 years. The errors were entirely restricted to the Christchurch City Council’s rates resolutions on each one of those years and the rates assessment notices and invoices contained the right information. This is the sort of slightly odd thing about this. The information that went to ratepayers and the actual amounts of rates that were levied were correct but it was just the legal niceties—it was the fine print the dotting of the i’s and the crossing of the t’s that did not occur. The errors were spotted by the audit process and then giving full credit to the council it did seek to remedy the situation as promptly and as quickly as it could. However it did not change the fact that retrospective legislation was still required to validate and legalise the motions that had been passed for each of those 9 years. So what Christchurch City Council did was it corrected the situation by issuing a revised resolution and resetting its rates as soon as it was aware of it but the historic errors for earlier years from 2003-04 to 2012-13 could be corrected only via a validating piece of legislation and that is this bill.What this bill does is it validates those payments for historic rates back over those 9 years. It validates the penalties that were added to unpaid rates for those years which of themselves were not legal in terms of the motions that were passed by the council. What it also does is it validates the basis for certain targeted rates during those various years and the penalties that were subsequently added to those rates as a result of non or slow payment. What this bill also does is it confirms that all rates money collected by Christchurch City Council during those 9 years is in fact lawful. What I guess we need to consider as a Parliament is what lessons have been learnt through this process and not only how we might ensure that a situation like this at Christchurch City Council never arises again at any time in the future but how other councils district councils regional councils and other territorial authorities might be protected from a situation of this sort occurring in the future. The good news is that lessons have been learnt.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Tēnā koe e te Whare. Kia ora mai tātou tēnā tātou katoa. The House has resumed. When we reached the dinner break we were discussing the Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill and Scott Simpson has 4 minutes 20 seconds remaining to speak should he wish to avail himself of that privilege.SCOTT SIMPSON: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. I do wish to avail myself of that opportunity to spend a further 4½ minutes speaking to the very good bill that has been presented and sponsored by my colleague and very hard-working MP for Christchurch Central the Hon Nicky Wagner. In saying that I support the bill I do so rather grumpily and that is because prior to the dinner break I was speaking about how this House resists and does not really like having the need to bring retrospective validation legislation before the Parliament. This was a matter that related to incorrect rates motions being passed by the Christchurch City Council during the years 2004-05 through to 2012-13. For those 9 consecutive years although no ratepayers were financially impacted in any negative way nor indeed was the council impacted in any negative financial way more by good luck than good management none the less had a ratepayer chosen to challenge the validity of the rates for any one of those 9 years then the council would have been found legally liable and negligent.One of the problems with retrospective legislation is that it is something that validates something that would otherwise not have been legal. That is exactly the case here. In August 2013 the Department of Internal Affairs alerted the Christchurch City Council. This is not some small territorial authority in a remote part of the country; this is one of our largest municipalities and the internal affairs audit team alerted the council to the fact that there was a problem. To the council’s credit it did attempt to remedy the situation for the future but it was not able to put right the errors of the preceding 9 years. That is why Nicky Wagner the Christchurch Central MP has had to sponsor this local bill on behalf of the council and bring it to the House so that we can put right the dotting of the i’s and the crossing of the t’s that did not occur for those 9 years. This is an example of a situation where I hope other territorial authorities will learn from the mistakes that have been made in Christchurch City and that in future more care and diligence will be shown in the wording and drafting of motions before the council particularly as they relate to rating issues.I reluctantly commend this bill to the House but I thank Nicky Wagner and congratulate her on her efforts in stewarding it through the House.