Mackey Moana: Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mackey Moana: Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 15 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4450. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 So speaks the former “Minister for Manufactured Crises” Nick Smith. So speaks the former Minister not for local government but against local government. I congratulate my colleague Annette King on bringing this bill the Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill to the House. It is a matter that impugns all of local government and it does not need that when it has an enemy in the current National Government. And it has a very real enemy in the current National Government. 
Let us not forget that the former Minister who just took his seat was the one who manufactured a crisis in ACC so that he could push through reforms that he knew were deeply unpopular and that would undermine our world-leading scheme. He then went on to try to do exactly the same thing with local government with figures that were so dodgy that they were taken down off the Government website not long after they were put up. The reforms that he has lauded here in the House today were all based on figures that were so shoddy they had to be removed from a Government website—so shoddy. 
Local government debt is at prudent levels. In fact it was not that long ago that local government was being accused of having lazy balance sheets and of not borrowing enough to fund infrastructure. It was not that long ago that that was a criticism of local government. The good thing about the 2002 Local Government Act was that it required long-term planning. This is one of the areas where local government had gotten into trouble. Instead of looking for a long-term plan for its infrastructure needs and spreading that cost out over a period of time so that massive rates increases would not be required local government was not doing that. So we did see some big rate increases to pay for core infrastructure. 
Everything this National Government does now continues to undermine that position of local government. Let us look at the issue of local roads for example and the cost to local government of them. Well our provincial councils have lost huge amounts of support and assistance from central government because it is all being sucked out to pay for the roads of national significance. How does that help those provincial councils? They are now facing rate increases not because of the Local Government Act 2002 and not because of the former Labour Government but because this Government is making decisions to suck money away from them to stop assisting them. That is what is causing rates increases in a number of the provincial councils Dr Smith. 
The Local Government Act 2002 did a very important thing: it allowed mayors and councillors to decide what was really important to their communities what was really going to be the game-changer and what was really going to assist their communities to grow economically environmentally culturally and socially. The mayors have taken that job on with two hands and relished it. They have led charges against youth unemployment. In Kawerau they have led charges against youth suicide. They have led charges for economic development. Local government is not just about potholes rubbish and waste water; local government is about communities. That is why Labour does not support the approach of the current National Government which wants to take those abilities and those powers away from local government based on figures that are so dodgy that the Government itself had to pull them from the website. 
 I hope that the Hon Dr Nick Smith who is a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee will attend all the submissions so that the local mayors can actually say direct to his face in a way that they have not been able to before what his reforms are going to do to local government in this country. They are retrograde they will take communities backwards and no amount of dodgy figures made-up reasons and manufactured crises change the fact that those reforms are going to be very very damaging for local government. And what is damaging for local government is damaging for the country. 
So I welcome this piece of legislation from the Hon Annette King. It provides a process for local government that is welcome. It provides some kind of comparison between like jobs which I would have thought would be welcomed. The Local Government and Environment Committee is about to hear submissions on the Government bill. This would seem to me to be a good time to send Annette King’s bill to select committee alongside that local government bill so that we can consider the two together. 
The issue of remuneration of chief executives is important but how very telling that Nick Smith said that that is the most important thing local government does. He said that the most important thing local government does is set the chief executive’s salary. That is not the most important thing local government does. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: The appointment of the chief executive. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: It is important but the appointment of the chief executive in my mind and from what I see local mayors in my community doing is not the most important thing they do. They are community leaders. They are the face of that community when something goes wrong when we have a civil defence emergency when there is some kind of social issue and when there is an economic issue. They are the ones who front on behalf of their community. To say that the most important thing local government does is to set the chief executive’s salary shows just how much contempt the National Party has for local government. Nick Smith can roll his eyes—