SpeechLOCAL GOVERNMENT (CUSTOMER FOCUS) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingDebate resumed from 21 July.DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Madam Speaker thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to this particular bill in the name of the Hon Jacqui Dean. I appreciate her intent her strong intent to bring a customer focus—literally as the title says—to this particular piece of legislation.What the opening purpose of the bill refers to is the current requirement to not have under the Local Government Act 2002 local authorities taking a customer-focused approach to all that they do to delivering public services and regulatory functions. It might sound pretty ABC that that is something that they should do but it is not actually there in plain simple language and sight for all to see. So I really applaud Jacqui's deliberate measured approach to make sure that intent translates into action—that there is a culture that requires local government to look at processes and systems to be timely and effective to have a value-for-money approach. All of that of course is wrapped up in the term of customer-focused" because when we keep our eyes on what people actually need from Government and in this case local government it's where we can see quite clearly where the frustrations come and I want to touch on a couple of those in the short time that I have.Resource Management Act application processes—I almost need say no more: a shining example of why this bill is necessary. Also I think when it comes to talking on legislation it's always good to have a personal approach right? I asked my staff in my office knowing that I'd be speaking on this "Remind me again what we're seeing through our doors on a regular basis and where the largest set of complaints and frustrations come from." and it's council-related processes. I'm no longer a city councillor but I still have many many many constituent cases that cut across council issues. One particular example and I've had quite a slew of these recently is not having a case manager or a one-stop shop or a point of contact for something like the consenting process. For many many people the consents that they apply for—large or complicated or small—should be straightforward but when you have something like staff turnover it's a huge source of frustration almost mind-blowingly so when you can't have consistency. Yet if we were able to bring a customer focus to what local government does you'd see things through a different lens: perhaps with a case manager a consistent case manager not just in consenting but in other departments that councils have we may see a reconnection or a renewal of trust in local government and we all know that that's lacking. I don't particularly like holding up papers in Parliament but I'll just do a mini hold-up here. I've got in my hands the Citizens Insights Monitor Auckland Council's own Colmar Brunton regular quarterly survey where they survey themselves on their trust ratings and rankings. I went straight to the back page and highlighted a couple of things here where satisfaction—does council advocate for Aucklanders and do they have examples of good value for ratepayers' money? Shocking results absolutely shocking. The most recent PR's all about all-time highs. In these categories an all-time high is 26 percent of satisfaction with the way Auckland Council runs—all-time high. Normally they're ranking around—and I'm just looking at the last three years—16 and 18 percent. That's our largest council; in fact Australasia's largest council. So thank you the Hon Jacqui Dean for doing something really thoughtful and full of intent and the right intent to bring back customer focus. It's what New Zealanders deserve at the very least from the world of local government. We here at the National Party have over this term being looking at different ways to address this. I ran a "Rate your council" survey for which we received many many many respondents who are raising the same thing—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I'm sorry to interrupt the member. Her time has expired."