Clendon David: Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill — Second ReadingText is subject to correctionClendon David: Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 13 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:54. Text is subject to correction.]DAVID CLENDON (Green): In keeping with the general theme of this debate this evening I stand to restate the Greens’ very reluctant support for this bill the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill. We take no pleasure in it. Our very capable and experienced colleague Eugenie Sage sat on the Local Government and Environment Committee and came back to the caucus recommending that we do support this bill—previously we had agreed to support only its referral to the select committee—through its further stages. We accepted that recommendation basically because we felt that any other course of action would actually worsen the situation of the people in Kaipara and particularly the people of Mangawhai. It is not a happy situation but the financial and social situation could only get worse if we do not do something in this Parliament to resolve the shambles the mess that has been created.The commentary of the bill refers to “a number of irregularities” that must be validated. That is very genteel language which is entirely appropriate I suppose in a written piece of legislation. But it actually understates the scale of the sheer incompetence the illegal activity and the unlawful activity that was occurring over a number of years and it is very unfortunate. One can get a sense of the scale of it by looking at the bill. It is an odd bill in the sense that the substance of the bill is in a dozen or so—14—clauses over five or six pages. The other 20-odd pages of the bill are the preamble where the shortcomings the failures of the Kaipara District Council are documented. The words “the Council failed to comply” or variations on that phrase appear no fewer than 45 times. It is a litany of errors. It is a disgrace to those people who were on the council and it must be said that some of the disgrace must be shared by some of the entities whose task it was to have an eye on what was actually going on in that situation over a number of years.I would have to say that the committee has brought back a much better bill. There have been some significant changes made that I think have tipped the balance for us in terms of enabling us to support it. Of course key to those would be in clause 3 “Purposes” the deletion of paragraph (g). The purposes clause outlines a sort of veil of legality that is going to be drawn over the illegal acts and the incompetence of the council over time. The original drafting of the bill sought to include a catch-all provision—a genuine “get out of jail free” card as it was called earlier. The language was something along the lines of validating “any other actions or omissions”. Not only would that be unreasonable in the context of this bill but it could have set a fairly dangerous precedent—an expectation that all would be forgiven. A great deal is being forgiven in this bill but it is important that we do retain the right—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.DAVID CLENDON: Just before the break I was making the point that the select committee has brought back a better bill than the one it received up front. It is still not a lovely piece of legislation but the committee has done some good work.One of those things is to ensure that those who have withheld their rates will not be penalised and that any penalty payments that were added to rates of those people who were for principled reasons withholding payment will be waived. That is as it should be. The point has been made that it was referred to as almost a token return because the people of Mangawhai particularly are facing very large bills but I think it goes beyond that. We know that yes there are some quite wealthy people living in that area but equally there are quite large numbers of people who may be asset-rich but who are on fixed or low incomes. For them the extra penalty payments would have been quite a significant burden to bear.The last point I would make is that I think the point about the banks—or rather Local Government New Zealand suggested that the idea of the banks bearing some responsibility could lead to higher interest rates for other local bodies. I think that if the banks have loaned this money carelessly or without due diligence or thought then there is a case to be made that they ought to bear some of this responsibility. If they are getting too comfortable—too much in the comfort zone; thinking that they could never go wrong by lending to local authorities—and if they are just not doing good business practice and risk profiling then perhaps they should stand up and accept some of the responsibility as well.We will have more to say at later stages but for the moment thank you.