Mark Ron: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMark Ron: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8274. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): It is always a challenge and I have said this before when you rise at No. 7—Phil Twyford: What would you know about local government!RON MARK: What would I know about local government? A teeny-weeny little bit. I have to say in response to the question from the honourable member if I had known as much about local government when I first entered Parliament as I know today having spent 4 years as the Mayor of Carterton—and elected unopposed in one of those terms—I would have been a better MP.I think that many many of the speeches that I have heard and sadly a lot of the commentary that has come from Ministers as they have sought to justify legislation that they have advanced through this House have been made from a baseline of pure ignorance about local government matters and a total lack of understanding of the consequences of those pieces of legislation that they put through and inflict upon the ratepayers and the people of those communities—which is quite a sad thing. But I am hopeful that there is a greater degree of understanding now between Local Government New Zealand and the Government and this bill probably gives a “smidge” of hope that there is some meaningful conversation going on between this Government and local government which is absolutely essential given the enormous amount of damage inflicted by its erstwhile Minister Mr Nick Smith when he rammed through this House and justified the production of the local government amendment legislation back in 2013.I do recall as a mayor sitting in the company of many other mayors and deputy mayors and chief executive officers and senior managers of local government territorial authorities throughout New Zealand the absolute anger at some of the assertions of this Government about what local government was and was not doing how competent it was and how capable it was. It astonished me to the point that I actually sent an email to the Minister of Local Government at the time—who is now the Speaker Mr David Carter—and copied it in to the Prime Minister making the observation that I could not understand why the Government would be so rude and behave in such an ill-informed manner and be so derisive of local government given the large number of card-carrying National Party members who were mayors deputy mayors and senior councillors within local government incorporated. As I said in my email I hoped that they expressed their dissatisfaction at the next election and I know a good many of them certainly did.What stands out in this piece of legislation and the point in time that we have arrived at now in the House is the irony. I say to the honourable member Phil Twyford that I was a little bit gutted because he took my first paragraph off me when he started his contribution last night in the second reading but I am going to repeat it here today because I think it actually says something quite pertinent.We are in the second reading. Normally this would be post a select committee hearing—a time when this bill would have been put on the Table and New Zealanders and particularly the ratepayers of Auckland would have had an opportunity to make submissions to express their views express their concerns ask their questions and seek some satisfaction and some surety around any of the issues that they might have spotted in this bill. This bill is designed to enhance the hearings process. This process that we are engaged in right now ironically is undermining the parliamentary hearings process. I do not get it. How blatantly obvious must this have been to the Leader of the House and the Government whips when the proposition was first put to them: “Oh we’ve got this item sitting at No. 15. We need to bolster up the urgency. How about we chuck this on the Table? We’ll just flick off the select committee stage. We’ll run it through ram it through.”The truth of the matter is that if the Government really believes in enhancing the hearings processes and expediting more efficiently whilst giving people the opportunity to have their say on the Auckland Unitary Plan through their submissions—if it seriously believes that that is what it is doing through passing this bill then why would it undermine the credibility of the process of the passage of this bill by removing the hearings process from this bill? I do not get it.Someone over there—maybe Mr Seymour because he is to paraphrase him sometimes a very very bright chap.But as we know very very bright chaps can sometimes be quite amazingly thick very intelligent people—Jami-Lee Ross: Ron Mark would know about that.RON MARK: Well there he goes “Mr Mouth”—what is his name? I keep forgetting it but he is a “whipper” apparently in the National Government. But someone surely must have understood the irony of the situation—Jami-Lee Ross: You’re proving the thickness argument.RON MARK: —that they were putting on the Table right now. That man will find out just how stupid his statements are come 2017 when he wants to come talk to me will he not? But we will hold it until that day. We will move on from here because the ignorance of that man is not worth commenting on.I would only say to the Government that it is sad that we are pushing this bill through under urgency. We could have actually had the first reading done a month or so ago. We could have moved it through to select committee and even if we had said—well it is a very small bill. It is a very tight bill. It has got the support and looking at the departmental disclosure statement there has clearly been some very good conversation with Auckland City. Auckland City is on board with the bill—it has been involved in it. I read in the departmental disclosure statement that its consultations have been done via emails and other communications.It would appear that if we had had a select committee process it would have been a pretty straightforward matter from the Auckland City side. It most certainly would have given the citizens of Auckland an opportunity to come along and voice their concerns. What would their concerns have most likely been? If one takes 5 minutes to have a look at the Auckland City website and look at the unitary plan and the processes it has to go through—I mean it is very clear that Auckland has decided on a vision statement which is to be the world’s most livable city. Of course to make a vision statement worthwhile there has to be a plan. This is the unitary plan we are looking at. The plan has to determine what can be built and where.There is no shortage of controversy in Auckland around that very question of what can be built and where. Auckland is suffering right now from a massive housing shortage and it is very clear that the initiatives of the Government have not done anything to alleviate that problem. Auckland people quite rightly in their submissions on the unitary plan would want to have those conversations. To “create a higher-quality and more compact city … provide for rural activities”—under the Auckland Unitary Plan and the hearings that would be heard on this I have no doubt that there are some serious concerns being raised out of Rodney and out of rural Auckland. Although people might say that their plan needs to provide for rural activities that mere statement suggests to me that the people who wrote it actually do not understand rural New Zealand.It is not just about rural activities—being able to get down to the river for a picnic. This is about how the economic units within the rural part of Auckland City actually operate and are permitted to operate under the unitary plan. I have no doubt that amongst those 5000 submissions that are yet to be heard there will be some very strong views from rural Rodney.The bill as it lies on the Table right now is designed to expedite the hearings process. New Zealand First has already said in the first reading that it has no trouble with those provisions. The only concern we have is around reducing the quorum from three to two—it seems a bit strange—but having concurrent committees running under different chairs as well seems to fill that gap. It seems to make up for some of the concerns we have. I will leave it there.In conclusion let us have a conversation during the Committee stage. We will have more talk around the quorum and why the Minister thinks that is OK and we will take the bill from that point. Thank you very much.