Yang JianDr JIAN YANG (National): You know there are 78 councils and 66 water authorities around New Zealand so local government is a very important part of our governance. Councils today are facing increasing pressure to provide better core services to ratepayers due to changing demographics and the cost of infrastructure. Now it is a huge challenge already to local governments. Local government sits at the heart of a civil civic society. It is essential for our governance to perform efficiently. Councils these days manage roads water supply rubbish collection and libraries—all those essential daily services essential to residents. With an increasing population these councils local government at different levels are under pressure.It has long been known that there are some councils in New Zealand that have been struggling because of the lack of finance because of some poor structure and because of lack of efficiency so there is a problem there. It isn't controversial to say that some councils are not structured optimally to meet the known and unknown challenges ahead. That means we need a better process to allow councils to facilitate better delivery of service and infrastructure even while preserving the voice and preferences of local authorities. This was the original purpose of the bill. But now with some changes the bill has changed its nature. Essentially this particular bill now plans to disestablish the Local Government Commission by removing many functions away from the Local Government Commission. That is a problem for us.So as I said already local government is under pressure and the Local Government Commission plays quite an essential role an important role in trying to make sure that local governments in various regions work efficiently. The local government sector is already overwhelmed and taking the commission away will not help this. The Local Government Commission is in the best position to help local government authorities. To reduce their function to reduce the ability or power of the Local Government Commission will not help local governments. Unless there is a proactive body that is an agent of the Government then there is no effective way of recommending supporting and looking at change objectively. That is why we do need the Local Government Commission there. So taking away the proactive role of the Local Government Commission and there being no other driving force for any substantive change—this is the problem with this particular bill.National does not accept that council-controlled organisations are a bit thin. There are many examples that show that these organisations do play a very important role. In many cases they deliver a very good service and in many cases they are quite accountable. They are not councils though; they are effectively more corporate-type organisations running the business of a council and they have a different role. They are deliberately like that to bring a more business-type focus to running the business of council.That is why we believe that this bill itself will not really help the efficiency or the functioning of the local government at different levels. Therefore we oppose the bill. Thanks.