Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. Thank you for giving me the call on this bill—an excellent bill and I am sure it's going to get a good working over in select committee because it's a very simple precept. The premise is very simple that we want people who are making important decisions to be transparent about their interests so that they can be scrutinised in terms of the motivations they may bring to the decisions that they make. I do think that it is time for a good look at conflicts of interest at local body and I know the Auditor-General did have guidance that in fact he withdrew from his website because it was a little outdated.But one of the real problems is that there seems to be a lack of clarity around when people can bring their own strong personal views to a decision-making process—that is to say a political point of view—and when that crosses over to being a personal interest where their own financial or other position will be affected by that decision. Certainly there are places where a strong view is not appropriate in local bodies and certainly hearing panels is one of them where it's a quasi-judicial decision-making process but when it's just round the council table political views are grist to the mill. I'm a bit perplexed to hear that people think that being transparent and honest about the influences on your decision making might be a disincentive to standing for council. I must say if people want to conceal what financial interests they have which might affect their decisions then I'd be pretty happy for them not to be standing for local body politics.This is a great bill and I haven't yet congratulated Mr Utikere for this—and I think it's kind of weird to do so to congratulate someone with having a number randomly pulled from a biscuit tin but anyway good on you mate. Well done for getting a number randomly pulled from a biscuit tin.I note that the Local Authorities (Members' Interests) Act actually sets out what a local authority" is in a somewhat dated way now—talks about drainage boards and all sorts of things. It may be that a definition section will be needed here because for example the Local Authorities (Members' Interests) Act actually identifies community boards as local authorities and I'm not sure that they're intended to be captured here. And of course we've got territorial authorities and local authorities and whether it crosses—I imagine it's intended to capture both but that may be a useful clarification in terms of regional councils territorial authorities unitary authorities and so on.But look I absolutely welcome the scrutiny that this is going to get. Certainly in my own local authority there are councillors around the table who have significant business interests who may indeed be contracting through an attenuated series of companies and business interests with council. And certainly there's a real need for transparency there so that any suggestion that one day they can be communicating as business owner with council officials and the next day they can be communicating with those same officials as an elected member is really problematic. I think a spotlight can rightly be drawn and thrown on that kind of conduct.I also think in terms of the proposed new section 42C there's some thinking to be done about how far down the road you go. Obviously there are things like managed funds where you may have interests but they're not active interests—they're not actively managed or purchased or sold by you but nevertheless you do have an interest in companies or properties. But perhaps you don't need to go into that level of detail. Certainly the members' pecuniary interest register makes some distinctions there. Obviously the travel there: "family member" might need some definition because obviously if a husband or mum or dad or wife purchases travel that's one thing. We need to make sure that captures all domestic relationships whether that be what we might've once called a de facto partner—just make sure we don't spread the net too narrowly there.But look I think this will be a really good and interesting select committee discussion. I do hope there are lots of submissions on it. I do also think that we've got to be cautious about smaller councils here as well. Thank you Mr Speaker—I see my time's expired."