Foster-Bell Paul: Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoster-Bell Paul: Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 01 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2851. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call in this debate on the Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill. For a start I would like to respond to a couple of points that have been raised by other members during the course of this debate. We heard from Mr Mark the New Zealand First position on retrospective legislation. In fact—I hope I am quoting the member correctly here—he said: “Retrospective legislation does not sit well with New Zealand First.” This is a position that I think most of us in this House would generally agree with although I would refer to the expert if I might the authority on the issue of retrospective law: Professor Albert Venn Dicey the Vinerian Professor of English Law Fellow of All Souls College at Oxford. He wrote in 1885 in his seminal work Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution that there is often a very valid case to be made for retrospective measures where they are curative—that is where they have a restorative or a curative effect. He cites somewhat more archaic legislation than that used by my learned colleague Mr Muller—and I do hope I am saying the surname of the member for Bay of Plenty correctly—Todd Muller: Muller.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Muller—Muller. Mr Muller cited some of the rates validation legislation that has been passed in recent years in this House including the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill and other recent examples. Unlike Mr Muller who is a modernist I am a traditionalist. I would go back to the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act 1794 as perhaps a better example of legislation that is of the sort we would want to avoid—that is retrospective legislation that had in effect a monstrous effect on rights and liberties.The other point I would make to Mr Mark is that although we generally opine in this House that retrospective legislation is abhorrent—or at least something that is not preferred—members may be surprised to learn that actually we pass a surprising number of bills that contain retrospective provisions. I do not have the figures for New Zealand here but I can tell the member that in the Commonwealth Parliament of Australia a recent study indicated that 20 percent of bills passed contained at least one retrospective measure and there was a similar proportion in the Queensland Parliament which is one of the Australian state parliaments that has a better legislative analysis committee. So 20 percent seems to be an average that institutions comparable to our own generally adhere to.This is a slightly different matter to the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of the 1700s. In the New Zealand context section 7 of the Interpretation Act 1999 provides that enactments do not have a retrospective effect. So in our criminal law section 6(1) of the current Sentencing Act 2002 is very clear that penal enactments are not to have retrospective effect to the disadvantage of an offender. As we all know this is not a criminal bill; this is a bill that deals with local government rating. It is a local bill but arguably it has been to the disadvantage of the ratepayers of Christchurch in that they have not been well served by the administrative error that was made over a very long period of time by successive officials and councils during the 10-year period approximately when the procedural matter of correctly moving a rates resolution was taken. I just thought that those matters may be of interest to Mr Mark given that he is bringing up the issues around retrospective legislation.This bill is addressing a problem that arose over a long period of time. The Christchurch City Council failed to state in its rates resolutions that the rates were payable by instalment what those instalment dates were and that the penalties would be added to the rates if they were not paid by the due date. In respect of the rates from the previous years that remain unpaid by certain dates it also failed to state when the penalties would be added to the unpaid rates and the amount of those penalties and this resulted in a technical breach by the council of the Local Government Rating Act 2002. These irregularities have little practical effect for ratepayers in that when we heard evidence during the select committee hearing process in Christchurch we were not told that there would be an impact on anyone in terms of unpaid rates. So Christchurch ratepayers cannot expect to receive an invoice in the mail as a result of this. This is very much remedying a technical deficiency rather than being something that has a practical effect.I listened very carefully to the contribution by the Green member Eugenie Sage. She attempted to I think itemise some of the subcategories of rates that are laid out in the bill. These are targeted or local rating measures in addition to the general city council rates. She mentioned the Church Bay sewer loan rate and the Church Bay water loan rate but she did miss out some others that I think are quite significant. We have also the Governors Bay sewer loan rate the Governors Bay water rate the restricted water targeted rate the waste minimisation rate the water fire service connection rate and the uniform annual general charge. I think it is important to get those all on the record because these are rates that do affect people in those areas. Although the member Eugenie Sage did manage to give quite an extensive itemised diatribe on the perils of the mixed-ownership model within local bodies I thought it was a bit of an omission that we did not have the full list of the targeted rates that are included in this bill.This is a position as other members have canvassed that we do not like to find ourselves in but it is important that we remedy this matter. We on this side of the House take the rule of law very importantly. We cannot have a situation where the good hard-working rate-paying citizens of Christchurch have paid over a period of 10 years rates that were not correctly imposed. But I do ask myself the question—and I did certainly when I was on the Local Government and Environment Committee—that other members have posed in this House and that is around whether we will be back here again given that in the past we have dealt with these issues in relation to Mangawhai in relation to Tasman and in relation to other local bodies.This is something that we were advised by officials there would be some difficulty in providing a cast-iron assurance for because these are matters that are often detected retrospectively through an audit process. But there was some degree of confidence from the officials—and certainly it left the committee with a degree of hope—that such a situation may be avoided in the future by a more careful policing of those particular provisions of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002 which prescribes the correct form for councils annually filing copies of their rates resolutions with the Secretary for Local Government who is also an official in the Department of Internal Affairs.This irregularity in terms of the scope of the rating resolutions that were not correctly filed covers the period from 2004 to 2012. I think this is significant when you look at the number of different chief executives who were in charge at the Christchurch City Council during that time. There were several different mayors. Certainly we were told by the councillors who came to present at the select committee hearing that there are no current sitting Christchurch city councillors who were involved in the initial error back in 2002. I take from this a lesson that perhaps could be applied which is that you may have individuals who have a high level of expertise and who are very assiduous and dedicated to their job but we do find ourselves in a problematic situation where you have insufficient institutional knowledge and processes including such things as desk files or an intranet that lays out the necessary steps—action checklists and those sorts of administrative tools—to ensure that the council is adhering to the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002 in its entirety.This is important legislation. It corrects a procedural error. It validates the due dates for the payment of rates. It does validate the dates on which penalties may have been added retrospectively. It validates the uniform annual general charge. Although the funding impact statement including information about how the charge was to be calculated is included this information was not originally included in rates resolutions. So this retrospectively validates that particular issue and it validates those seven other targeted rates that I listed earlier in my contribution. This is important. It is something that we pass reluctantly. But as I have previously canvassed it is not unique as an example of retrospective legislation and for that reason I reluctantly commend this bill to the House.