Shearer David: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill(No 2) — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShearer David: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill(No 2) — Third Reading[Sitting date: 15 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:13903. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): Yes that is right a split call with the Green Party. I would also like to congratulate all those successful candidates who stood in the local board elections. We had some very good results from that and as some of my colleagues have already pointed out a number of the centre-left groupings—Labour-Greens centre-left groupings—were successful in getting across and getting into local boards. We look forward to some progressive policies being pushed through the local boards under their leadership.I would also like to acknowledge the work of Richard Northey who worked very hard as a councillor and I also congratulate Chris Darby a friend of mine who has made it as a councillor on the North Shore. I think he will provide a real boost to the council with the passion and drive that he has for Auckland.The unified Auckland City has been a success. We look back to 3 years ago when there was a great deal of trepidation about what was going to come about when all those local councils were amalgamated. We look back now and it is almost difficult to believe that there was so muchnaysaying and doomsaying about where we were going to go with that. The change and the positive outcome of the Auckland Council has been a response really to a couple of things. One has been the effective leadership of the Auckland Council. I would like to pay tribute to and congratulate Len Brown on his re-election and acknowledge the drive energy and passion he has shown for bringing the various components of Auckland together into one super-city and having that functioning as it has.It has had some huge successes in the work that it has done: the Auckland Unitary Plan which has been controversial is still open for submissions but will nevertheless transform the way that Auckland looks at itself and the way it plans its future; theunification of the rates and the various other types of administrations that were so divided and split and differentiated between the various councils and that have been brought together in one entity; and the council-controlled organisations and I think there is still some work to be done around those. But that is all a tribute to the Auckland Council—the fact that it has been able to bring that together.The second thing that I think has been effective in making sure that people still have a voice is the local boards. I have to say that in the first year or two I think they struggled to find a place for themselves and how they were going to operate and how they were going to represent their communities adequately. But over time they have bedded in their role. I still think that their role is somewhat superfluous. It is not linked in strongly enough to the council. It is still in some ways out to one side. They are seen somewhat as the poor cousins of the actual council itself. But however they have been successful in being the focus for advocacy for ensuring that local issues are being brought to the attention of the council and they have acted on things themselves.I would like to congratulate those local boards in my electorate of Mt Albert that have done so well theWhau Local Board and Albert-Eden Local Board and wish them all the very best in the next 3 years.