Hayes Joanne: Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHayes Joanne: Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 03 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4304. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JOANNE HAYES (National): I rise to take a call on the Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill. I must say after listening to that kōrero from our colleague across the way over there Ron Mark that I agree with him. I agree with him. The mistake that was made was not made by the current mayor it was not made by the current chief executive officer; it was made by all of those who went before her. But the thing is once you take on those positions and those posts you do inherit unfortunately all the rubbish that had happened prior to you coming in there. I think that when we elect our mayors and our councillors those are some of the things that may come up. I am not a fan of passing retrospective legislation through this House either. However that is the position we are in with this Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill and we need to keep going with it and get it through the House.I think that with a lot of what you said Mr Mark you hit the nail on the head when it comes to past histories of that particular council and the accountability of its chief executive officers. At times it looks like the bigger councils get the more complicated it is to manage and messages stop getting moved around. I think that for Christchurch City that is basically what happened—messages were not getting to the people. Was it incompetency? What was it? We will not know. All we need to know is that we are going to move this one forward.I guess that is why this Government has been doing a lot of work around establishing prudent benchmarks that require councils to produce 30-year plans and strategies. Councils now have to provide information to their ratepayers about everything that they are doing so that the ratepayers can actually judge the council’s performance. That is really key. I am not a ratepayer of Christchurch City—yet. I am a ratepayer of another smaller district council and these are some of the things that I ask my councillors who represent our area: “OK we voted for you so what are you doing? What type of job are you doing? What kind of job are you doing for us as ratepayers and how are you measuring it?”.There is a lot to be said around performance measures of councillors and their workers and how councillors get around the table to do performance management of their chief executive officer. I had no idea about that type of work but it is one of those things that I learnt. I come from a small NGO and we had to do that. As Māori NGOs we had to do that with all of our staff and our boards had to do that with managers like me. I guess there are a lot of lessons to be learnt from the small groups—that is if they have good performance management systems then maybe the big ones could actually learn from the small ones.Ron Mark: Would we do this for a small NGO or a small council? No we wouldn’t would we?JOANNE HAYES: No but the point is we are dealing with that legislation now for Christchurch CityCarmel Sepuloni: The point is the National Government’s shutting down all those small NGOs anyway.JOANNE HAYES: Oh no no no no no! We are talking about this council and that is where we are going to stay.We are reducing red tape for councils. That is what our role is and I can tell you right now that one of our key projects happening within the local government area has been our Rules Reduction Taskforce. It is an amazing task force that is going around all the local government areas seeking input from ratepayers and from people who are interested who may not be ratepayers but are still affected by some of the things that are happening in their cities or their towns—especially around the regulations rules and laws that that particular council has. So the task force is asking for feedback.Recently I hosted one of those Rules Reduction Taskforce meetings in the Christchurch East electorate. It was very interesting to hear about some of the red tape issues that some of these developers and some of the people who were redeveloping their homes were actually going through—the really minute things. The task force was led by Jacqui Dean and sponsored by Paula Bennett and was looking to actually help ratepayers. We are actually there to help ratepayers into the future to make sure that their cities and their towns are actually working for them and that is what it is all about.So when we start to look at the Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill we start to ask what it is. What are the sections? What are the sections that require the rates to be set—the resolutions of the council? The resolutions must specify the financial year to which the rates apply—I am repeating this I understand that. I understand that I am repeating this but I do so because it is really key. I am hoping that other councils which may or may not be perhaps heading down towards the same situation can actually look at some of the things that they are doing and the way they set their rates and are making sure they are using this as a tick box to make sure that they do not end up in the same situation. So we are looking at the financial year to which the rates apply the date on which the rates must be paid and/or if payable by instalments the payment dates for each instalment the penalties to be added to the rates not paid by the due date and how these penalties have to be calculated.Some of the irregularities made by the Christchurch City Council under the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002 include a failure to state in the rates resolution that the rates would be payable in instalments by certain dates. These rates resolutions also failed to state the penalties that would be added to the rates if they were not paid on the due date and the rates that were to be assessed in the previous year that remained unpaid. So the dates that the penalties were to be added to the unpaid rates and the amounts of the penalties that would be added—all of these things were actually missing from within the rates resolution.In addition to the irregularities we also had areas that included the failure—and my colleagues here have already stated it but I am going to state it again—to state the Church Bay sewer and water loan rates system. All of these were provided within the Christchurch City Council’s funding impact statement—everything that I talk about from here on is provided in the Christchurch City Council’s funding impact statement. It failed to state the Governors Bay sewer and water loan rates as a fixed amount and it failed to state that the liability for the restricted water target rates was calculated on the level of service through a restricted water supply system. It failed to state that the water minimisation rate was set as a fixed amount per rating unit as provided—Hon Member: It was very serious.JOANNE HAYES: Yes it was very serious. I carry on. It failed to state that the water minimisation rate was calculated on the number of separately used or inhabited parts of the rating unit and it also failed to state the water fire service connection rate. Finally it failed to state the uniform annual general charge which was to be calculated on the number of separately used inhabited parts of the rating unit.So again in order to address those procedural irregularities this bill validates the payment rates for the rates set and assessed by the Christchurch City Council between 2003 and 2013 and validates all the penalties added to any validated unpaid rates between 2003 and 2013. It validates the basis on which certain specified or targeted rates were calculated for the rates in the years that were set out as I have just stated. It also declares all moneys for the Christchurch City Council in relation to validated rates and penalties to be lawful because prior to that they were not. Finally it provides that any unpaid rates or penalties in relation to any of this would be made lawful and would be recovered by the Christchurch City Council.We have all learnt something tonight have we not? We have all learnt something tonight. I just want to take this time to take a bow because that is what you have all heard from this side of the House.Hon Member: They’re just touchy.JOANNE HAYES: They are just touchy. And we need to keep on reiterating that because we do not want retrospective bills from councils coming through this House again as my colleague Paul Foster-Bell outlined in his wonderful speech before.Let us carry on because I know you are getting very engaged in what I am saying. I can seethat. When you put your hands up like that it means you want more and I am going to give you more. The select committee received only one written submission on this bill from the Christchurch City Council. [Interruption]Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!JOANNE HAYES: And they were also—Tim Macindoe: I’m sitting here and I can’t hear a word.JOANNE HAYES: Do you want me to start again?Tim Macindoe: Yes please.Hon Member: From the top.JOANNE HAYES: From the top. So the Christchurch City Council—here we go—also made an oral submission so it is good that it is supporting this bill. The council was promoting this bill and the grounds on which it was introduced. The council recognised there was a mistake. Let us not blame the current mayor. Let us get this bill through and perhaps the Christchurch City Council can then concentrate all of its time on the redevelopment of New Brighton. Kia ora.