Henare PeeniHon PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise in support of this particular bill. The member who has just finished her contribution makes some very good points. I wish to elaborate a little bit further on some of those and also point out and support the words of the Minister who in the second reading of this bill mentioned some of the substantive changes in the bill. There are all-up approximately I think seven changes to the bill but in particular five substantive changes to the bill. And I think what this does too is it shows that we can make some very good transitions into a far more democratic environment to engage our people. As we know as locals in Tāmaki Makaurau voter participation is particularly low and that's the case across many local governments across the country. Little things can actually go a long way. This bill attempts to tidy up some of those things and takes away the focus—because most of my neighbours that I talk to always say that the council only ever concentrates on the three Rs: roads rubbish and rates. What we do know is there is so much more to the beast of council. Some of the things that are addressed in this bill actually go quite a long way to making sure that voter participation rises and one of them—and it sounds rather mundane—is the definition around internet" and allowing councils to post notices electronically on the internet. Given that the internet's been with us for quite a number of years now the mind boggles at why we didn't move to this earlier. It makes us question what has been missed because readership of papers has been declining at the same time. So when public notices go into the paper—I for one certainly don't read the paper and the last time I checked on apps quite often public notices are hard to access there. But we know that with this particular move in this bill we can number one define internet and number two provide a framework around which notices should be advertised on the internet as well as your standard forms of the paper—because I know quite a number of offices in this institution still receive papers.It's important that if we want to increase in particular the younger generation to become more civically minded and more involved in civics generally it's important that we speak to them on the platforms that they access the most and the internet is one of those simple forms. I guess at some point in time there'll be some consideration given to far more varied social platforms such as Facebook and whatever else it might be like Instagram—it seems that the only way my 22-year-old son will talk to me is via social media or on the internet. So it stands to reason that a move like the definition around "internet" and allowing public notices to be advertised through the internet is just one of those smart moves that should have happened a long time ago yet here we are. It's some of those little minor things that came through in particular in the submissions around this particular bill. Some of the submissions were outside of the scope of this bill but I won't talk to those. Also on the point of public notices the Minister raised some good points around transparency and accountability—the ability as a ratepayer or as someone involved or as someone who takes an interest in local government to be able to access the portal of those councils to make sure that they can access past information which sounds once again a rather mundane thing but they're all important steps to make sure that our people are informed and engaged. I recall another bill in this House where attempts to find old records through local government actually always came up against so many hurdles and barriers. That didn't help the process for the locals nor did it in fact help the process that this House was using. It was a local bill; namely the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill. But the fact that the general public couldn't access information raises questions about whether or not the council is hiding something or simply weren't just fit for purpose to make sure that information was readily available to the general public—and that's a good thing.One of the parts gives some powers indeed to the Secretary for Local Government. Part of that feeds on from sort of the last bit I mentioned about public notices which is about growing civic engagement diversity and accessibility for the disabled in particular to be a part of civics within their local government. But more importantly it actually appoints a task to somebody a particular role to make sure that this happens.At the moment most of the general public will look at the legislation or will be told to look there to see how they can participate. What this actually does is it says to the chief executives of local bodies "Actually it's your role and your duty to make sure that participation across all sectors all communities increases." Therefore accountability I think is a good thing whereby we can measure whether or not that person is actually delivering that. And there is one other thing—and there has been a number of bills and I recall on a separate bill a submission by a past member Mojo Mathers but I still think it's related. It was around the ability of people who are hearing impaired or disabled to participate. They couldn't fully participate in either debate or in voting or as a potential candidate. I thought it was a powerful submission. But when she and others sought a remedy or sought a way to actually increase their participation they were always told "Go back to the legislation." Well we're doing that now. We're assigning a role to the chief executive to make sure that participation increases and I think it's a fantastic move forward to make sure that actually local governments and this particular bill reflect our communities wherever they may be right across the country and involve those who have felt locked out for so long.One of the other parts too is of course the legislative framework and it's important because while these changes might be rather non-controversial and have support across the entire House it's important to note that while making some minor technical changes there are some more significant changes that affect the legislative framework and that's important when we consider an omnibus bill. I say that because there have been a number of omnibus bills in the five years that I've been a member of Parliament and for the most part a lot of the detail is lost on a lot of people. But it's important that as we consider this bill those legislative frameworks are spelt out and I believe that is certainly the case here in the second reading of this bill and of course the work that's been done by the select committee.In conclusion I wish to support this bill and of course thank the select committee for the work that they've done. I know—and if people read the notes they will see—that this has taken a long time. There are productivity reports from a number of years ago that have been mentioned in this. There has been mention of the last term of Government and now this term of Government. Well all I can say is that it's about time. It's about time that this bill arrived into the House. The sooner this gets through the better and I commend this bill to the House."