Mahuta Nanaia: Local Government Borrowing Bill — First Reading 
Mahuta Nanaia: Local Government Borrowing Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:672;Page:18749] 
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) 
: 
 I am happy to take a brief call on the Local Government Borrowing Bill and to endorse the statements made earlier by my colleague Phil Twyford about the benefits of the bill. 
I point to a couple of practical things. If the earthquake in Christchurch highlighted anything it is the challenge that a lot of local authorities face when it comes to upgrading the core infrastructure that our families and local households depend on. Territorial authorities in a number of regions have significant investment challenges with regard to upgrading water and sewerage infrastructure. If this bill provides any opportunity it will do so by creating a scale with the Local Government Funding Agency being able to pull together a number of local authorities to participate in this bond bank. It will enable local authorities to plan forward on significant investments and infrastructure upgrades. It will—I say with some optimism—ensure that the local community can continue to invest in things that they can see feel and touch. There is quite a strong affinity for making investments like that in local communities. It will also enable councils to start to plan forward around the biggest pressure on them which is to try to keep rates under control. There is a whole manner of aspects to this solution and we can talk up their virtues. 
We are looking forward to supporting this bill at the first reading. We are looking forward to receiving submissions certainly from the local government sector. I recall attending a Society of Local Government Managers meeting in the previous term of Government. This was one of the very issues that local government managers were grappling with: pressures to constrain rates increases but also to ensure that the necessary investment in infrastructure could take place. At that time there was no illusion that the Government could be a key partner in a lot of this. 
I think in terms of the opportunity that the select committee process provides the submissions will provide a healthy informed debate to members of the select committee and to this House about how the bill can be given practical effect and implemented positively. I hope too that submissions will raise some of the issues on the level of assurance that people can have in their investments in this area. I have no doubt that they will. In terms of planning forward for local authorities I hope that the submissions are able to give us a clear and accurate picture of the landscape going forward in terms of necessary investments in infrastructure. 
When I considered taking a call on the bill it was not really with the view of using time unnecessarily so I will not do that. What I will do is ensure that to inform myself on these matters I look forward to the debate I can have with local authorities in my own electorate to see the types of opportunities that could lie ahead for Kiwi mums and dads. There is no doubt people are looking to this bill as one way of not going down a privatisation path but we will see. We will see when it comes to the detail of the implementation of this bill. 
I commend the Minister of Local Government for bringing the bill to the House. It is an issue that was foreshadowed in Labour’s previous term of Government and undoubtedly in this Minister’s term of Government. It is a step forward. Kia ora.