Sage Eugenie: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sage Eugenie: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 27 November 2012. Volume:686;Page:6784. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 Well that was very interesting again the way in which debt issues in local authorities have been twisted to promote this bill the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill. There has been a small number of councils that may have overstretched themselves in relation to their debt levels but that debt is driven—as it was in Kaipara—by the need to fund core infrastructure like waste-water treatment and none of the councils involved are perceived to have a problem or any difficulty that would suggest that they are going to default on debt. So this has been magnified as a reason for this legislation a piece of legislation that is fundamentally undemocratic. As the Human Rights Commission noted: “Effective democracy demands respect between the different spheres of government and recognises the defined roles that they play in serving their citizens.” The bill is undemocratic because of the significant increase in the ministerial powers of intervention and tying it back to these fiscal benchmarks and because of the way in which it changes the purpose of local government and because of the reorganisation proposals. 
I would like to focus on the purpose of local government. This National Government knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing and this bill is a tribute to that. It is causing significant constitutional change which has not been widely debated and by putting in these changes to the purpose of local government—removing the promotion of the four well-beings as the purpose of local government and changing it instead to public services and core infrastructure—it is going to substantially undermine the ability of councils to deliver on their community priorities. How do they determine those priorities? Through their election every 3 years through consultation with their communities and through the councillors representing those communities. So that was the thrust of a lot of the submissions to the Local Government and Environment Committee—calling for the purpose to be kept. Given that this Government has overseen the decline of jobs in manufacturing by at least 30000 we will see this change in purpose potentially cutting across regional development and the efforts of local authorities to promote sustainable economies in their regions. 
There were a number of submissions from organisations like the Tourism Industry Association which represents 1500 players in the tourism industry that showed that the change in the purpose potentially put at risk a lot of the council funding that exists with tourism promotion with destination promotion with i-site management and with the services and facilities that councils provide to encourage visitors to come and to return. Tourism is a $63 million-a-day industry. It employs one in 10 people in the New Zealand workforce. It is those jobs that councils assist with at the local level through promoting events like the Blossom Festival and the Wildfoods Festival in Hokitika—things that would not happen if they were not supported by local councils—that create vibrant local communities and that encourage people to go to and to return to those communities. This change in well-being not only puts at risk a lot of the community facilities that councils provide in the social service area but potentially undermines the ability of councils to promote regional economic development. It is the sort of infrastructure like museums and art galleries that councils invest in that is not clearly within the definition of core services that the bill proposes to implement. So having presided over all of those losses of jobs in the manufacturing sector this Government and this bill is going to potentially increase the number of jobless by undermining the local bases for tourism. 
As well it affects organisations like Venture Southland that are involved in the promotion of economic and community development. Venture Southland is a joint initiative—as the Chair will well know—by the Invercargill City Council the Southland District Council and the Gore District Council. It is funded by those councils and the Community Trust of Southland. It works to encourage regional tourism promotion destination management and business enterprise development but nothing in this bill and this new purpose provides a platform for the work of regional development organisations like Venture Southland. It does not allow councils to support that economic development that ensures the economic sustainability of their communities. 
The change in the purpose also cuts fundamentally across councils’ work with environmental management. At the moment the purpose talks about the promotion of environmental well-being. As an excellent submission from the Environmental Defence Society noted the bill and the change have got implications for how councils perform their responsibilities under the Resource Management Act. That is because if the promotion of environmental well-being is not part of councils’ purpose then it is not clear how councils particularly regional councils can fund and undertake activities that are part of their core function of environmental management. Of course it is the financial decision-making processes through the annual plan and the long-term plan that allocate funds that allow councils to engage in a lot of the non-regulatory activities in environmental management whether that is promoting riparian planting whether it is incentive and award schemes or whether it is encouraging stakeholders to engage in collaborative processes. It is these processes that are non-regulatory yet they are not within the definition of core services in the new purpose clause of the bill. 
Again the Government is cutting across the breadth of councils’ functions and it is potentially undermining councils’ ability to implement the Resource Management Act. That then has a perverse consequence. If councils cannot fund these non-regulatory initiatives—like riparian planting and like subsidies for efficient heating—then they are forced back to just the regulatory functions that the new purpose clause talks about. So cutting back this breadth of activities that the councils engage with under the well-being purpose is completely out of step with international best practice. In the UK since 2000 councils have had the ability to promote or improve economic social or environmental well-being. Similarly in New South Wales there is a test of ecologically sustainable development. So the 2002 principal Act is completely in keeping with what is happening internationally and it is the Government with this bill that is cutting across the promotion of community well-being and the fact that councils are much more responsive to their communities by looking at economic social environmental and cultural well-being. 
The select committee had a number of submissions about the diverse social activities that councils are engaged with—things like early childhood education. Councils like the Auckland Council provide their early childhood centres with premises or land to build those centres on at peppercorn rentals. When the well-being purpose goes that sort of provision for those services is potentially vulnerable to challenge by corporates and others because it is not provided at the most cost-effective rates for businesses and residents. At the moment councils through the well-being purpose are guided by their communities. The new purpose with its restrictive nature and its focus on cost-effectiveness cuts right across that.