Sio William: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSio William: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18489. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): Talofa lava Mr Chairman.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): O a maioe?Su’a WILLIAM SIO:Manuiafa’afetai Mr Chairman.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson):Fa‘afetai lava.Su’a WILLIAM SIO:Fa‘afetaiua lavaloa.To just quickly respond to the Associate Minister of Local Government—people might think that he has a sore throat but he was choking on those words. He just struggled with trying to convince the rest of the Committee about whether theGovernment really does have any commitment to having more houses. I want to say to the public that the Government has no commitment. You heard earlier from the Minister of Housing and he listed the consents and the various dots on the map but there were not any houses. If you are wanting more houses the Labour Party is the party that you should look to in order to build 100000 houses in the next 10 years and that is what we will do. That is what we will commit to.Can I just briefly thank you Mr Chairman for the introduction in Samoan and with the indulgence of this Committee just briefly pay my respects to a Samoan elder inMāngere who has passed away. In accordance with Samoan Language Week this week may I just pay my respects to this elder by saying:Uagasolosolo aoiTaoaluga maTaoalalo o lemaota eafioaiSatele maouAlo.Uata’ape papaiSi’ufaga o lemaota eafioaiPaitomaleifi.UalagiafoiTuavao o lemaota eafioaiLeota.Uapō lenu’ui le Matua ma leFalefa o le AigaTalimalama maupu ia teoe leFalelua.Uausuia le fonoi leTofaTuigate’e o setasi opoutu o leEkalesia PICiMagele. The chiefTuigate’e TinoElia passed away this week at 83 years of age. He was a lay preacher for the Pacific Islanders Church inMāngere which the Minister would be aware of and a pioneering member of that church. More important to me and the people ofMāngere and particularly to the family he was a staunch Labour supporter going back to the days of David Lange. This man never forgot that David Lange asked him to be a JP and so he become a JP.May I simply give some preliminary comments about this particular bill the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) and say that our vision—Labour’s vision not this Government’s—is to ensure that local government is responsible responsive and accountable to local communities affordable for its residents and ratepayers and effective in dealing with local issues. The Government’s reforms to promote amalgamation council-controlled organisations and local boards are concerning not only to us but to the local government sector and to many ratepayer organisations. The true cost of the Auckland super-city reforms still has not been calculated and we should not be pushing that model out on the rest of the country ignorant of the cost to local communities.Local boards do not have the same powers and competence of full councils. Establishing them as a replacement for representation from councillors can shut communities out of the important decisions made about them and that is certainly a strong view expressed by regions outside Auckland City. Although local boards may work in an Auckland context it is felt that the imposition of these on provincial and rural New Zealand will undermine the existing territorial authorities. The ability of the Local Government Commission to impose council-controlled organisations on communities in the process of amalgamation is undemocratic—a view held by a growing number of New Zealanders. Council-controlled organisations significantly reduce the ability of council services to be transparent and be held accountable and although there needs to be flexibility in consultation meaningful input from the community must not be shut out.In our view this bill erodes the consultation that councils have with ratepayers by repealing most requirements to use the prescribed formal process when consulting under the Local Government Act 2002. I have got to ask the Associate Minister of Local Government why the Government wishes to scrap this provision. I have introduced on behalf of our Labour Party five Supplementary Order Papers. The aim of those Supplementary Order Papers is that in our view although we will support this bill there are significant elements of this bill that we would like to be able to improve upon to give us confidence and to give the rest of New Zealand some sense of confidence about some key elements of the bill that we believe ought to be strengthened.I also want to ask the Minister this. Not too long ago a group of local mayors calling themselves the Local Democracy Coalition were concerned about the forced amalgamation agenda being pushed by this Government. This coalition is an organisation that favours regional cooperation on service delivery. It is against the removal of responsible local democracy and particularly it is against the imposition of the super-city structure on them. I want to ask the Minister whether the Government is in receipt of the Supplementary Order Papers that this group the Local Democracy Coalition forwarded to the Minister. I ask whether the Government has a view on that and whether it is prepared to introduce them as Supplementary Order Papers at this particular time.This organisation and other local territorial authorities including I would say in the Bay of Plenty region have very strong cases as to why they feel—and I believe that they are in the right—that they should not be compelled to amalgamate without a cost-benefit analysis being done and they should not be forced to amalgamate without genuine and meaningful input from the ratepayers. They have proposed I think at least two or three Supplementary Order Papers. I take it that they were in the name of the Hon Paula Bennett as the Minister of Local Government. I just want to ask the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister of Local Government whether he is in receipt of those and whether it is the Government’s intention to table those for our debate.Can I go through the Supplementary Order Papers. I will just briefly say that Supplementary Order Paper 456 amends Part 1 and schedule 5 to restore the four well-beings. I think that this is important because the four well-beings in my view and in the view of the Labour Party are the foundation of why we do things. We do not do things just to keep count of how many councils there are. We do not do things to keep count of what our gross national product is. We do things for the sake of people. We do things because we are trying to achieve social economic environmental and cultural outcomes. I think that as long as the four well-beings which are at the core of the Local Government Act remain intact in the Resource Management Act I am asking this Committee to consider that we have also got to ensure that they are put back into the foundation of this particular bill.We will support Supplementary Order Paper 458 from Eugenie Sage of the Green Party. It is very similar to my Supplementary Order Paper 459 with the exception that it provides one further technical change. We are asking that we restore the definition of “community infrastructure” that can be funded by using development contributions. Those members of the Local Government and Environment Committee who sat through the public submissions would have heard strong and passionate advocacy from local government local boards mayors chief executives and a range of organisations that have serious and genuine concerns about what we then do with local infrastructure. Many of those people who were quite angry with the changes that this Government is proposing are in actual fact members of the National Party. I know that because I did ask one or two of them who turned up in Auckland. They were paid-up members of the National Party but they were very angry with the proposition by this Government to change the definition of community infrastructure.Supplementary Order Paper 460 is a Supplementary Order Paper in my name from the Labour Party to amend schedule 2 to remove the ability of the Local Government Commission to impose council-controlled organisations during the process of local government amalgamation. We believe that councils already have the ability to create council-controlled organisations outside an amalgamation and simply legislating that you are now going to force councils to do this is something that I think we need to correct in this piece of legislation.