Mark Ron: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMark Ron: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8327. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): It is with mixed feelings actually that I rise to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. I say “with mixed feelings” because it could have been a sweeter moment had we gone through the process.Let me be very clear about the position of New Zealand First when it comes to super-cities. New Zealand First is not a supporter of the changes that were enacted in 2010 and the creation of the Auckland super-city. We never ever bought into the argument that by lumping all those city councils in together we would see improvements in efficiency we would see reductions in staffing levels we would see reductions in overheads we would see reductions in rates we would see reductions in the rate of increases of rates and we would see greater cohesion. We never bought any of that argument because for many people a bit of common sense tells you that the bigger those things are the more difficult they are to maintain and the further away the governance moves from the people.There is ample evidence of that internationally. In fact if one has a look at what is happening in Brisbane right now where they are de-amalgamating because they have learnt the lessons the hard way it was already written that the Auckland super-city—which the National Government created supported by Rodney Hide—was always going to fall short of the claims being made to justify its creation.So it was no surprise when I got a hold of this bill and started doing a little bit of research to find as has already been mentioned here a couple of times that in 6years—it is only 6 short years that the Auckland super-city has existed or since the legislation was passed anyway—this Parliament has redressed that legislation no fewer than 16 times.And here is the prediction: we predict that this is not the last Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill that we will see. We predict that there will be more yet to come as more of the worms start creeping their way to the surface and as Auckland City continues to make it known to the Government that there are flaws that need redressing. This is one such flaw. It is an issue that New Zealand First understands and we empathise.What we do not empathise with is the way in which this legislation has been progressed through the House. In fact we said in the second reading and I think during the Committee stage that the huge irony of what has happened here over the last couple of days has been in this simple fact: this legislation seeks to correct faulty hearings processes and seeks to enhance them but the process by which the Government has chosen to do that—urgency—has actually denied the people of Auckland their opportunity to have a full democratic process through which they would be heard. In short the Government has knee-capped the hearing process here in Parliament by putting this bill through under urgency. Why? Well we do not know why.Normally when the Government brings urgent legislation to the House it is critical it is crucial. There is something quite momentous that has happened. Something is sailing on a time line and it has to be corrected very very quickly or it is controversial hugely controversial and the Government wants to get it done and dusted really quickly to avoid the backlash in the public arena and the political debate. But none of that exists here. In fact had there been a select committee process we would have had a rather unique situation where 100 percent of the House voted in favour of the bill.So I guess we suspect here that there are people sitting behind the scenes—whether it is the Leader of the House or the Deputy Prime Minister or senior Cabinet Ministers—scratching their heads wondering what the heck it was that Nick Smith told them that convinced them that this bill needed to be done through urgency. I have got a sneaking suspicion that people will be asking Nick Smith when he gets back from down the West Coast what the issuewas. Why could this bill having been introduced in September not have gone to the Local Government and Environment Committee? You have got a very very good select committee there. It works in a very collegial manner chaired very well by Scott Simpson and backed up by Todd Muller very very well. The committee actually functions exceedingly well—some might even say too well because it is a joy to go along to that committee.There is no reason why the Government should have feared referring this bill to the committee and saying to the chairperson Mr Scott Simpson: “Look we really need to turn this round. There are some tight time lines but we actually want to give it the full benefit of a hearings process. Let Auckland people have their say. Let the committee question the Minister question the department question Auckland Council and get a greater feel for what the issues are behind the legislation. Get it reported back to the House and then we can put it through.” I know it would have gone through without any hassle at all. We certainly would have had shorter speeches on this side of the House—there would not have been a lot more to say. Much of the debate here has been about the process which is the irony of the whole thing. So I have no idea why the bill went through this process but I am pretty confident in the back of my mind that there are ongoing discussions comments and questions being asked on the Government benches as to why the Government used urgency. The truth is that given the way the Local Government and Environment Committee operates we could have done better. I have already covered that.So what are the changes that this bill makes? The changes have already been canvassed well. There is a change to the quorum—it will be two instead of three—and New Zealand First signalled right at the outset that we had reservations about that. With a quorum of two if you need to take a pause does that mean the whole hearing has to grind to a halt? Does it have to stop because one member has ducked out of the room whether it is to go to the bathroom or whether it is to take an urgent phone call from their partner because something disastrous has happened? The beauty of having a quorum of three is that one person can vacate the room and the hearing can continue.I would love someone to show me a trust deed or an incorporation’s constitution where they actually have a quorum of two. But take the next point: if you have a quorum of two there is a third person in there who is the chair and if the chair is not able to be there and only the quorum of two turns up who becomes the chair? My pick is that they will spend the first part of the meeting having a conversation about who is going to chair it. Of course everyone loves to be the chair because they get to sit up there and have the TV cameras on them. They get to call the shots and decide who is going be heard who is not going to be heard who is going to be curtailed and who gets the questions. So those conversations about who will be the chair just seem rather pointless. So we have made that point but we do not think we got satisfactory answers.The other issue is around increasing the number of appointed hearings panel members from seven to 10—actually to 11 because it does include the chair. This is sensible given that the aim is to allow concurrent hearings to be held. The other issue is about validating the hearings that have already been held illegally. That is interesting. I do not know where else around the country a local government territorial authority would get away with that but Auckland seems to have.The bill validates closing dates for submissions received between 14 January and 28 February. That again raises a whole bunch of questions which were never answered at all about those people who understood that the closing date was 14 January thought that was it and did not get their submissions in only to now find that actually the submissions that were received up until 28 February would have been legal because on 19 November Parliament made them so.I think that a number of issues were addressed in the amendments Phil Twyford put forward. New Zealand First supported those. We thought they were sensible. We thought it was right and proper actually and a better fit that the mayor and the duly elected representatives of the Auckland people have a say in whom the Minister for the Environment appointed on to that panel. Regretfully that amendment was rejected as was Mr Twyford’s other amendment. We in New Zealand First believe that those two amendments would have enhanced the legislation.Again had we had a full select committee process we might have been able to convince the Government that those two amendments were not harmful and did actually add to the quality of the bill and given a bit more time we might have convinced the Minister to go with it. We might have convinced the Minister not to drop the quorum from three to two—to keep it at three. We might have convinced the Minister on Mr Twyford’s other amendment to replace section 144(5) in clause 5 with a hearings panel that—