Jones Shane: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Jones Shane: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:668;Page:15523] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora ano tatou. Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker i tenei po. For a mercifully short period of time I remained on the Local Government and Environment Committee enduring its chairing by the member who has just resumed his seat Chris Auchinvole. I can tell members that since my departure the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill has not improved. That is reflected no doubt in the powers of attention that were directed to it at the instigation of Rodney Hide by our colleagues over there. 
Labour opposes this bill. The reason that we oppose the bill lies in its very secretive and clandestine agenda. It avoids the challenge of how the community will pay for the underlying costs of the infrastructure that local government has a stewardship role in providing to its citizens. That debate is buried because the democratically elected representatives will no longer be under a statutory duty to seek out the views of the people who actually own those assets. They are assets that have been paid for over many generations. The long-term capital plan which has been deeply eroded as a consequence of this legislation played a very important role. The Auditor-General’s staff came to the select committee on numerous occasions and no doubt I was one of the few people who paid attention on that particular day. The staff came and they reminded us that local government had to seek if not the consent then a mandate from the rate-paying community as it sought to commit the rate-paying community to a capital strategy. That is the long-term capital plan which is being gutted as a consequence of this wretched legislation. 
The long-term capital plan at a very deep level was designed for families firms and communities to have their say through the long-term capital plan provisions as to priorities and their costs and benefits and which services might be cut or expanded. We should allow that debate to take place rather than its having to be abandoned because of the ideological innovations brought forward by Mr Rodney Hide. He seems to think that ratepayers are suffering a growing burden of pain through the cost of local government because local authorities are splitting out into more extraneous activities. 
The truth of the matter is that there is a rising tide of cost associated with the development of infrastructure. Indeed the rate at which the cost of infrastructure has risen actually goes beyond the rate of inflation. That is the real problem that this bill ought to deal with but it tries to leave local government people with the obligation that they have no real duties to the communities that they purport to represent. They can monetise and they can privatise. There is nothing wrong with economising but when one is going to privatise one should seek the informed consent of the owners of those community assets. One should not use a piece of legislation that under the camouflage of Rodney Hide’s language is designed to strip every single member of the community of the ability to stop these furtive transfers. 
Water treatment assets water harvesting assets—whatever the asset is the real damage being done here is being done by the fear on that side of the House of going out to seek a mandate. It is a rather novel concept in their view of democracy to have to get the informed consent of families and ratepayers as to whether they think it is a good idea for a 33-year period of a property right to be handed out to preferred and favoured interests. They want to do that without seeking meaningful community input or without seeking the community’s imprimatur. That is really what is going on here. 
We had the organisation that represents all regional and local government in New Zealand come and make a submission to the Local Government and Environment Committee. My colleague Mr Twyford has already referred to its contribution. It came and said this bill will have the effect of worsening red tape. This bill it said will have the effect of adding layer upon layer of more paperwork and more material— 
Phil Twyford 
: But he’s the “Minister of Red Tape”. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: I know it sounds ridiculous that this bill comes from the man who purports to be the destroyer of red tape. That is just one of the many contradictions that adhere within Rodney Hide’s psyche but that is another matter for another time. We have the most authoritative voice on behalf of all local and regional government actually saying that the impact of this bill is to worsen the dead-weight effect of Rodney Hide’s hand upon the affairs of local government. That is what will happen here. It is hard to imagine anyone more important than the organisation that represents all local government when it came to see us. We should pay particular attention to the fact that although it made quite a strong attempt to avoid alienating anyone on the select committee in particular anyone skilled in understanding bureaucratese would know that its contribution was a stream of disdain for Mr Hide’s very narrow and wretched ideas about how local government should be restructured. 
The pith of this bill is an attempt to turn local government for community purposes into corporatised local and regional governance. That member aided by his colleagues over there has lost confidence in the ability of democratically mandated organisations and indeed democratic communities to chart a course as to where they are to go. Nowhere is that more evident than in the very clumsy language that is employed in this bill in relation to those responsible for delivering on outcomes. Communities own outcomes. Communities embrace them and they have to live with the consequences of them whether they are successes or failures. This legislation by constraining the opportunities for communities to be consulted actually allows the decision makers within councils to arrogate all the power and authority in order to quietly and secretly dispose of assets without bringing that power back to the people who represent not only current generations but future generations. Fortunately after 2011 help will be on the way. 
Perhaps the final point that I should round up on in this brief but nevertheless important contribution lies in the fact that community consultation which was the hallmark of Labour’s style of governance in relation to local government has been both abandoned and stigmatised in this legislation. Members on the Government side of the House are endeavouring to treat community consultation as an unbearable cost and threat to the financial viability of ratepayers in their capacity to contribute to local government. Consultation with the community gives legitimacy to local government. If we remove local government from the community it is no longer local. It then grows into something akin to a Gordon Gekko creature more at home in the Wall Street marae than in the halls and the community centres etc. of local government. That is why we do not support this bill and we certainly do not support a single thing that that member over there is bringing forward for local government. But we will provide and make allowances for the lost members on the Government side of the House. Kia ora tatou.