Hipkins Chris: Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hipkins Chris: Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 19 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5439. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I am very happy to take an unexpected— 
Andrew Williams 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. As a relatively new member of this House can I just ask for clarification. I heard the chief whip from the National Party specifically ask for the documents to be tabled so that National could ascertain what the documents were. He wanted clarification as to what they were. This was provided and then National declined to allow them to be tabled. Does he want it one way or the other? He asked for clarification of what was being tabled he sought the information and then he declined to have them tabled. Which way does he want it? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: All right. I will ask the member. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? 
Michael Woodhouse 
: Is leave being— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The leave is being re-sought. No objection. 






Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Encouraged by that I seek leave of the House to table a report from the Marlborough District Council detailing the organisations under the control of the council which similarly are not under the ambit of this legislation. The two listed are MDC Holdings Ltd and the Marlborough Housing for the Elderly Trust. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none. No objection. 






Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I am very happy to take a call on this— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave of the House to table a letter from a constituent in support of this bill. It is dated 13/9/2012 to my colleague Mr Williams MP. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none. 






Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Very good. I think they are done for now. That is good. I am very happy to take a call on the Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill and can I say it is not a great day for openness and transparency in the House of Parliament today. There have been two bills in a row put forward by the Opposition designed to increase transparency and to increase the flow of information to the public about the activities that they have an interest in as taxpayers and both have been voted down by the Government. 
First there were the changes to the Ombudsmen Act which would have allowed the Ombudsmen to charge for investigations. Of course we know that the majority of investigations we would be talking about under that would be Official Information Act investigations—potentially even some of the investigations that they could be conducting under this bill if it were passed because the Ombudsmen could end up investigating some of these things if this bill were passed. So there is a great irony there. 
Government members are voting against more transparency and democracy twice in the House tonight and I think that is very very disappointing. Why? I have not heard anyone from the Government. I accept that there was no autocue earlier on so Maggie Barry’s one-sentence speech could easily be explained by the absence of an autocue— 
Hon Member 
: It was the best speech. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: —and yes it was actually the best speech she has given in the time she has been in Parliament. But I do want to say I am disappointed that no National member has actually stood up and given a reasonable explanation for why ports should not be subject to the Official Information Act. It is actually quite a simple issue. Why should it be that the Official Information Act can apply to schools and to any range of Government entities but not ports which are council-controlled organisations fully owned by the council? Why would it not apply to them? I cannot actually understand this. There is no justifiable reason for that. What we are talking about here is openness and transparency around ports and I do not think it is unreasonable for the Government to at least send this bill to a select committee to give some explanation of why it is voting against it. 
I turn to the purpose of the bill for a moment. The explanatory note of the bill states: “This Bill reverses the exclusion of port companies and their subsidiaries from the definition of council-controlled organisations in the Local Government Act 2002. This will have the effect of applying normal public accountabilities to port companies including the application of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 the requirement to act as a good employer”—and I will come back to those in a moment—“and the requirement to exhibit a sense of social and environmental responsibility by having regard to the interests of the community in which they operate.” 
Again I come back to the point: who could possibly argue—who could possibly argue—that a port should not be required to do those things? A port should act as a good employer and we as a Parliament have defined what a good employer is. There are requirements in the legislation for what a good employer needs to do so why is it that the Government would object to passing a law that would require ports to act in that way? It extends to them the requirement “to exhibit a sense of social and environmental responsibility” so let us talk about those things for a moment. 
A port is quite a large employer so the social responsibility element comes in quite significantly. There are huge environmental issues with the operations of ports. It is not unreasonable for us to expect that ports would operate with some sense of environmental responsibility. And as I said they must have “regard to the interests of the community in which they operate”. Again these are large entities owned by the local authorities and of course they should have regard to the interests of the communities in which they operate. 
This is actually a very sensible bill and I am absolutely staggered that not only are the Government members not voting in favour of it but they are not willing to articulate their reasons for not voting in favour of it. That suggests a level of contempt for the concepts of openness and transparency in this House that I think the New Zealand public should rightly find incredibly disappointing. 
There have been two strikes today against a more open Government. The first was the voting down of more powers for the Ombudsmen to allow them to clear the huge backlog of investigations that have accumulated under this National Government. Of course we know the reason for that—it has shut down the flow of information. Government members are not willing to stand up and be accountable for the decisions that they are making. They are not willing to release information—that is disgraceful—and now they are voting against this as well and that is disgraceful too.