Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to this Local Government (Community Well-being) Amendment Bill—but it should be called the Local Government (Puppy Dogs and Ice Cream) Amendment Bill" because like so much of what this Government gets up to it is built on the myth that if only the intentions are good the results will follow and as this Government is going to find out painfully over three years the real world don't work like that.This bill takes the Local Government Act and changes it to take away the important features that stipulate what local government should be doing and says that local government can just do whatever it feels like. At the moment the bill says that the purpose of local government is that local authorities should play a broad role in meeting the current and future needs of their communities for good quality local infrastructure local public services and performance of regulatory functions. Under the current Act local government is given some actual tasks and responsibilities.Under this bill—and it's only four short pages but it goes to the heart of what local government is supposed to do—it says that local government should "play a broad role in promoting the social economic environmental and cultural well-being of their communities … taking a sustainable development approach." What does that mean? Well for local government it means they can justify any activity they want at cost to ratepayers. That is why this is not the community well-being bill; it is the "Puppy Dogs and Ice Cream Local Government Bill".And it gets worse: we get on a few sections later and we again attack the purpose of local government. At the moment the purpose of local government according to the Local Government Act is to "[meet] the current and future needs of … communities for good-quality local infrastructure local public services and [the] performance of regulatory functions." in a way that is most cost-effective for households and businesses. Well that's not going to be there any more; that's going to be gone. It's going to say "As long as the council thinks it's doing the right thing then that's OK and forget cost-effectiveness for households and businesses." This is rate increases telegraphed from Parliament through your local council coming to a town near you—not you Madam Deputy Speaker but the people waiting at home who actually have to work hard earn the money and pay those rates.And it gets worse: at the moment the Local Government Act says that good quality services are "efficient; [are] effective … and appropriate to present and anticipated future circumstances." That's gone completely. Efficiency effectiveness—this Government is actively bringing a bill to the House to try and make sure that local government won't be effective or efficient. If it wasn't so serious it would be hilarious. But it is serious because I can tell the Government that people in the real world such as the Epsom electorate know that they want a local government that delivers those services which have no substitute in private markets that central government doesn't provide. They want their council to provide those things at the most efficient and effective cost possible.It's bad enough now but once the last remaining restraints on local government the last remaining requirements for local government to perform efficiently and effectively are proactively removed by this Government—would you believe it—then local government is going to have a field day at the ratepayers' expense and those real problems we have in Auckland those real problems like raw sewage getting washed into the Waitematā and Manukau Harbours when it rains too much those real problems like people that get sewage going down the creek at the back of their house in Remuera when it rains too much—those will remain unfixed. Those real problems like the shortage of infrastructure those real problems like the lack of affordable housing for the next generation of New Zealanders—those will remain unfixed by local government which under this bill no longer has to be efficient and effective. Rather than solving the real problems at a cost-effective rate for ratepayers up and down this country local government will be pursuing puppy dogs and ice cream and that's why the ACT Party opposes this bill."