Williams Andrew: Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 12 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11095. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on this somewhat unfortunate situation with the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill. It is with a somewhat heavy heart that I have to stand and talk on this particular matter. Having had 9 years in local government it is most concerning when you are faced with a situation like this where a relatively small council—of the 78 councils in New Zealand—has really really mucked it up badly. It is most unfortunate because at the end of the day we all suffer. New Zealanders as a result of this suffer whether we be ratepayers whether we be taxpayers or whether we be simply residents or bystanders. At the end of the day we all as a people of New Zealand suffer from an incident like this. It is unfortunate.I am sitting here looking at a whole range of papers that I have received and these are just a few of them from all sorts of sources in the Kaipara district—from residents from the Mangawhai Residents and Ratepayers Association people from advisers to the residents from the commissioners of the Kaipara district themselves who have come to see me to discuss the matter and from other informed parties and everyone agrees that this is a real mess.It was a mess that evolved over a period of 4 or 5 years when the Mangawhai community required an upgrade to its sewerage system. It was necessary and when we talk about this particular scheme we could equally talk about schemes that could occur anywhere else in the country because many many communities around New Zealand are requiring an upgrade of their sewerage systems many of which are well behind requirements of a First World country. This particular community found itself in that situation. Its council working through the executive of the council selected the consultants whom it chose to go ahead with the scheme. Obviously there has been a level of professional advice professional input determinations by the council and determinations by expert professional consultants and contractors and it is most unfortunate that much of it at the end of the day has been very very poor informationthat the council has received. As a result the scheme has blown out to something like $70 million or $80 million for a relatively small community. You feel very sorry for all the ratepayers of that community of Mangawhai who have ended up in a sense having to carry the can for some very bad decisions that have been made over a number of years.Mr Sabin the local MP has brought this local bill to the House to try to validate those wrongful decisions that were made and those errors that were made. I can understand his need to do that and we as New Zealand First can understand his need to do that because at the end of the day somehow this has got to be sorted. But on the other hand we certainly also have a great deal of sympathy with the residents who want to have their day in court and who want to have their opportunity to take this before the court to have it properly vetted in terms of all the information have it analysed and have it properly scrutinised under the true light of day.So we will be allowing this and supporting this to go through to the Local Government and Environment Committee for hearings. We will encourage many people to make submissions on this. We will encourage them to come forward and give their views on it. But at the end of the day we still do thoroughly support the residents also having their day in court and being able to have the opportunity through the court system to actually go after some of the people who were responsible for this. In particular I would say in my experience of local government that there will be some professionals involved in this who should certainly be accountable for their actions because they have very very badly informed the council there. They have provided information that has blown out by tens of millions of dollars and at the end of the day somebody should be accountable for this. So it is with a heavy heart that we will support this through to the select committee but we certainly will be scrutinising this very very closely.