Twyford Phil: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee[Sitting date: 06 April 2016. Volume:712;Page:10297. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): The first thing that strikes me about this bill is that it is good to see a member of the National Party bringing a bill on local government to this House that is not about demeaning insulting undermining or scapegoating local government—narrowing the purpose clause of local government or trying to clip it wings. In fact most of the local government bills that I recall National bringing to this House over the last few years have actually been about undermining local democracy and about taking away the powers of elected local councils. So I am quite surprised that the member Alfred Ngaro should have got support from his own caucus for this modest but worthy bill because it is completely out of character with every other local government bill that his colleagues have brought to the House over the last few years. In that respect it is good to see.It isof course worth taking seriously because local government is something that makes a big difference. It touches the lives of people in all our communities. In fact we regularly debate housing affordability in this Chamber and I think it is agreed by most that councils have a major role to play in the way the built environment in our cities towns and suburbs is developed. Roads and public transport are incredibly important matters and with their responsibility for local roads and much of the public transport infrastructure councils have an extremely important role to play—not to mention the water quality of our rivers and streams waste management parks and open spaces and libraries. You name it councils play a vital role in all of our communities. So it is also refreshing to see this bill attempt to improve and fine tune the rules relating to electoral democracy particularly with this bill in relation to the local boards that are such an important feature of the amalgamated Auckland Council which was put in place by Rodney Hide. Do you remember Rodney Hide? It seems so long ago Rodney Hide.Hon David Cunliffe: Seen hide nor hair of him?PHIL TWYFORD: That is right. It is worth I think just recapping on the debates that we had in this House about the formation of the Auckland super-city because the local boards and their electoral rules which we are going to debate here were a subject of great controversy in the establishment of the Auckland super-city. There was much argument about whether or not the local boards should be bigger and therefore have more critical mass and more resources or whether they should be smaller—and some argued that the smaller they were the closer they would be to their communities. Local boards it is worth noting are quite different to community boards which are found in most other parts of New Zealand. They have a very specific governance role in the Auckland model that was put in place with the establishment of the super-city. It is often referred to as a dual-governance role and they have responsibility they have some funding and they have some decision-making roles in relation to parks community facilities and disbursement of funds for community organisations. The local boards for all of their limits in terms of their decision-making powers have been I think pretty keenly contested by candidates and various political groupings.One of the things that emerged straightaway with the local boards was that we saw an interesting phenomenon where people would seek to be elected to more than one board. It is interesting the provenance of this bill. It has been reported and comment has been made on it. It was claimed in the North Shore Times that the provenance of this bill which was begun by the Hon Maggie Barry before she became “Honourable” was the result of a tense hostile and difficult relationship that the Hon Maggie Barry had with a local-body politician in the North Shore called Grant Gillon. It was claimed by Mr Gillon in the North Shore Times that this bill in its earlier incarnation before Mr Ngaro took it over was simply a ruse by Maggie Barry to drive him out of local government. Of course Maggie Barry denied it. She said that this was a conspiracy theory but Mr Gillon said that this was basically revenge by Maggie Barry motivated by his support for stopping a housing development at the Bayswater Marina and his opposition to closing the Takapuna Beach Holiday Park to make way for a national sailing centre. Maggie Barry said that he should not flatter himself and that the claim was ridiculous. Mr Gillon was an elected member of both the Kaipātiki and the Devonport-Takapuna boards. He is no longer I think a member of both boards as far as I am aware but at the time in 2014 when this bill first came to life he was.There is another case that I am aware of and that is the case of Warren Flaunty. I think the member in the chair Alfred Ngaro will know Warren Flaunty. I commented back in 2011 after the 2010 elections that Mr Flauntywas at that time a member of five local boards. In fact he was elected to three of them in the first term of the Auckland super-city as well as to the Waitematā District Health Board and the Waitakere Licensing Trust. I have to say that I am in general support of the intent and the sentiment behind Mr Ngaro’s bill and I do not mean at all to besmirch the good name of Warren Flaunty because he is I think the exception that proves the rule. He is in my view a wise experienced and very well motivated local representative in his community. He is still a member of the Henderson-Massey Local Board and he is someone whohas made over a long period of time a very significant contribution to his community. But notwithstanding all that I think most people would agree that simultaneously representing five governance boards—publicly elected governance boards—is a step too far. We will discuss in more detail the precise provisions in this bill but that is the thing that we are trying to address with this bill.There are two principles I think. One of them is that some of these local boards may be adjacent in an area—for example local boards in west Auckland may at times be in competition with each other. They may be competing for development opportunities or for investment in transport infrastructure. They may be competing for funding. And I think it is hard to argue with the thesis that a member—an elected member—who serves on a number of these boards is in grave danger of being in a situation of conflict of interest. That is the last thing I think that electors would want to see.The other principle—I would be interested to hear the member responsible for this bill comment on this—is that it is at least a part-time job to be a member of one of these local boards. There is a salary of something like I think the high $30000sa year possibly in the early $40000s. It is at least 20 hours’ work a week. In fact I know that many of the elected members work full-time. They have got policy workshops they have got briefings and public forums and they are politicians. They are elected representatives so they have to if they are going to do their job properly spend time in the community as we do as local members of Parliament listening to people taking up people’s issues helping to solve problems and providing leadership in the community. Is it possible to do all that to undertake that kind of workload and those responsibilities for five different elected boards simultaneously? I doubt it.So if we go back to the case of Mr Flaunty under Mr Ngaro’s bill he would be able to continue to represent three boards. He is still a member of the Waitematā Local Board and he is still an elected member of the Waitakere Licensing Trust but he would be able to represent only one local board and I think that that is probably appropriate. I think it is a pretty good analogy to imagine as local members of Parliament how the voting public would feel if we were able to stand for election in more than one electorate. I think it would be seen as kind of absurd if we did that.