Doocey Matt: Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDoocey Matt: Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 03 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4308. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It is a great honour to rise for the first time to speak on this bill the Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill in its third reading. I must admit that I feel like I have been on the highs of the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill and the lows of this rates validation bill. It is legislation that is very important to me as the electorate MP for Waimakariri. A lot of people think that the electorate actually mirrors the “Waimak” district borders but in fact my electorate covers part of northern Christchurch Northcote Redwood Belfast and Northwood and about a quarter of the population of my electorate live in the Christchurch City Council zone. So it is a very important issue for my constituents and it is a very important issue for me.I must join with the rest of the members of the House in acknowledging the work of the Hon Nicky Wagner who has brought this local bill to the House tonight. She is a very hard-working Minister who has shepherded what could have been a very controversial bill through the legislative process. You very much see why that Minister has turned a red seat blue. Can I also acknowledge the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee equally for shepherding the bill through a process that could have been very controversial.I do acknowledge the sentiments from the other side of the House about respect for local government. My late grandfather was on the Christchurch City Council for over 30 years in the 1960s 1970s and 1980s and he spent several of them as Deputy Mayor of the Christchurch City Council. Probably that is where my political ambitions hark back to. I very much respect the people of his ilk—that it was about civic service and civic duty. So we must be mindful of that when we do critique local government performance.But in saying that we should not reward poor performance. If you do not challenge something then you are complicit in it. So I think it was very well summarised by the Minister when she introduced the third reading and she said that the bill although controversial was simple straightforward short and very focused. I mean at first I did not know whether she was talking about me or Ron Mark but she is quite right. It is a controversial bill. It is simple straightforward short and very focused but it could have caused a lot of issues for the Christchurch people. I must say that that is the last thing Christchurch people need at the moment. I do not need to rehash the last few years but we all know it has been a very difficult time for people in Christchurch and of course in the “Waimak” and Selwyn as well. So it is quite right that we take a very diligent and thoughtful approach with this legislation.What we do know if we look at it in some detail is that every June the council resolves to set its rates for the next financial year. We know with this rates resolution that it did not meet the requirements. And the Minister referred to this—the issue that arose from trying to put things in simple language. I actually have some sympathy for this. In my previous career in mental health I managed a drug treatment service in London for the London Borough of Barnet a local authority in northern London. It had a policy of having simple English to make it accessible for people to engage with information and literature. But of course when you are talking about technical information sometimes if it is simplified you do lose a lot in translation. So I can understand how this may have happened but at the end of the day like I say we cannot reward poor performance and if we do not challenge something we are complicit in it. So we do know that all the required information was available in policy and newspapers but just not in the set resolutions and there were other technical issues around targeted rates. We have heard a lot tonight about the issues around retrospective legislation.So overall I think that with the issues at hand for both the leadership of the Christchurch City Council and of course the Waimakariri District Council and the Selwyn District Council as they lead through the recovery we just need to be mindful that we do need positive relationships in central and local governments. I want to thank our chair Scott Simpson for holding the select committee hearing down in Christchurch for the day. Not only did we get the opportunity to go to the Christchurch Arts Centre which was a valuable trip but we also got to hear the submissions around this bill. There was only one submission as people have spoken previously about and the councillor who did turn up was Glenn Livingstone. I know there have been some comments about his performance in that submission but I would like to say that in my dealings with that councillor he is someone who is very humble and very hard-working in his region which is primarily in eastern Christchurch. We know they were hard hit by the earthquakes and councillor Livingstone and councillor East are doing a fantastic job out there. But it was good to see that overall there were no ratepayers who were affected by this and what we are doing is just validating the resolutions retrospectively for about the last 9 years—2003-04 to 2012-13.It is a tough job for the Christchurch City Council. I was on Chris Lynch’s radio show on Monday morning with my colleague Clayton Cosgrove talking about the political issues in Canterbury. Quite often we are asked to comment on local government performance and on mayors but I must say that it is not really our place to give a running commentary too much on their performance. But it was a great opportunity to take the select committee down to Christchurch and see what is happening down there. There is a lot of hope—there is a lot of hope—and I must say that at the end of the day we are delivering in Christchurch. The previous speaker from the Green Party Eugenie Sage mentioned the white elephant of the rugby stadium which I thought I had to pick up on because at the end of the day Canterbury is the best rugby region in the world and we need a stadium to reflect that like the Hagley Oval—[Interruption]Thank you very much. Can I just say just to summarise really that we are one region one Canterbury and I am very happy to be one-eyed. Thank you.