Williams Poto: Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Poto: Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 03 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4309. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I have to make just one quick comment before I get into the substance of my speech today and that is to say that the contributions from the last two National Party members have been really really dreadful. I also have to say that those last two National Party members who contributed were also the two people who stood in the last two elections in Christchurch East and lost—to me. So I just wanted to remind you with that little lesson.This bill is about people who are elected who have to be accountable for things that they may not have been responsible for. This is what this bill is about. All of us who are elected to public office know that at some point we may have to be accountable for the actions of those who have preceded us. That is exactly what this bill is about.I know that some of the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee have been a little harsh in their comments about the officials from the council who presented to the select committee. They were expecting them to be really overwrought in their desire to get this bill passed and really be grovelling I think is the term I want to use. Well actually what they have done is a really sensible thing at a time when their council is under some pressure. Let us face it: it is probably one of the most difficult jobs going at the moment—being a councillor on the Christchurch City Council—and it has been for the last 4 or 5 years. So for the select committee to be scathing of the attitude of the officials who presented is I think a little bit rich.While I am on that note I do want to send my greetings to the Christchurch-elected representatives to the hard-working councillors and to the community board members who might be listening tonight to this bill finally being passed so that they can get on with their jobs. They are going through a particularly busy time. They are hearing submissions on the long-term plan. I want to acknowledge the work that the hundreds of submitters from the Christchurch East electorate have done into that long-term plan with many of them wanting to ensure that the New Brighton community becomes once again the jewel in the crown of Christchurch City. I want to acknowledge all the hard work that they do that they have been doing and all of the hard work that the Christchurch city councillors and community boards have done.Let us face it: it has been a difficult time but in the midst of all of this difficult time the acting chief executive Jane Parfitt found a problem. Back in 2002-03 in an attempt to have a plain-language solution to the ratings language the council made a bit of a mistake and it did not actually include as my colleague Su’a William Sio says all the dotting of the i’s and the crossing of the t’s. But it took a very busy acting chief executive officer at an extraordinarily busy time—a very busy chief executive officer at a very busy time—to find the error and to ask for our help to put it right. And it is our job to do what we need to do to ensure we can validate those rates so that the council can be sure that it can use those rate payments that were collected in the manner that it should. But not only that the council also needs to ensure that it can provide for the collection of rates that were not collected during that period. From those I think 38 or so ratepayers owe in the vicinity of $600000.So that is what this bill does. I am not going to speak too much further on it. I think what we should do is get this bill passed so that we can get on with the job in Christchurch. I thank you Mr Deputy Speaker for permitting my contribution. Thank you.