Rutherford Tom; Kuriger BarbaraTOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you Madam Speaker. As we were sitting here just prior to a couple of speeches I said to my colleague the Hon Chris Penk sitting next to me If there's one thing that excites me in this House it's talking about standing orders." The change that the Local Government (Facilitation of Remote Participation) Amendment Bill does is exactly what local councils already have the power to do through their standing orders.Going back on to my local government experience prior to being a member of Parliament here I thought "Why don't I dive into a couple of standing orders for some of my local councils from the Bay of Plenty?" I actually brought receipts to prove it so let's have a look.This is the standing orders for 2022-2025 for the Bay of Plenty Regional Council. I just had a quick skim through—I know it off by heart but I wanted to bring it in anyway. Standing order 13.11 "Conditions for attending by audio or audio-visual link": "[The] Chairperson may give approval for a member to attend meetings by electronic link either generally or for a specific meeting. Examples of situations where approval can be given include: (a) where the member is at a place that makes their physical presence at the meeting impracticable or impossible (b) where a member is unwell and (c) where a member is unable to attend due to an emergency." So the Bay of Plenty Regional Council has this provision already in their standing orders.I thought "OK I've got one local council from the Bay of Plenty that's got it in their standing orders. It can't possibly be the case that another one has it." So I dived into the Western Bay of Plenty District Council standing orders for the 2022-2025 triennium and I thought "Oh now this will take a bit of reading. I used to work at this council so goodness me this will be interesting." Standing order 13.7 "Right to attend by audio or audiovisual link": "Provided the conditions in Standing Orders 13.11 and 13.12 are met members of the local authority and its committees (and members of the public for the purpose of [attending as well]) have the right to attend meetings by means of an electronic link unless they have been lawfully excluded." Then it goes on.I could go on for the other 2½ minutes about reading these provisions but what I actually thought would be the case is this simply shows a Wellington-knows-best approach to how local government and how local communities should be operating. We've got two standing orders from two local Bay of Plenty councils saying they've got this provision already. Simply said—and as my colleague Tim Costley said previously—this bill is a solution in search of a problem. Councils already have the ability to meet remotely. Local councils have already been empowered to set their own rules about remote attendance. Similar changes to remote participation at local authority meetings were made in August last year. The Local Government Electoral Legislation Act 2023 made permanent the ability for elected members to meet remotely if the council's standing orders allow this. You'd go "Oh how often do councils review their standing orders?" Hey it's one of the first things they do after they're elected in the triennium.National and this side of the House believes in localism and supporting local communities to make decisions about what works best for them. Legislation like this is just another example of Labour's Wellington-knows-best approach to local government which imposes rules on councils instead of allowing them to do what works best for them.This Government—this Government—supports local decision-making rather than a prescriptive top-down approach like this bill is proposing. One of the best examples of this is our move to restore local control and ownership of water assets by repealing Labour's divisive and unpopular three waters plan. This bill demonstrates how out of touch the other side of the House are and the National Party does not support it.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have been advised that the member who has the right of reply is not taking the reply call."