Parmar Parmjeet: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParmar Parmjeet: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Reading[Sitting date: 04 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10809. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the third reading of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) in the name of Alfred Ngaro. I am taking this call to support this bill. Having seen the process that members’ bills go through I have to say that Alfred Ngaro is very fortunate first to have his bill drawn from the ballot and second to see his bill go through the parliamentary process. I am the final contributor to speak on this bill so I want to congratulate Alfred Ngaro on this.I see that this bill was considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee and that the committee has recommended that this bill be passed with some amendments. I am not a member of the select committee hence I missed the opportunity to hear submissions but when I read through the submissions I saw there were 17 submissions. One submission was in two parts. Overall 10 submissions supported this bill five submissions supported it with some amendments and three submissions opposed the bill. The interesting common thing in the opposing submissions was that those people are on local boards—more than one local board—so obviously those people opposed this bill. But the majority of submitters supported it including the Auckland Council. The Auckland Council supported this bill which is a very important thing. The Auckland Council supported the prohibition of local board members being on multiple boards at the same time.My colleagues have already spoken about the importance of local boards. Especially in Auckland in a super-city structure local boards have immense importance. It is really important that they are effective that they are able to deliver results for ratepayers and that they are working in a fair manner. It is very important for us to see that representation is fair and that representative practices are improved as and when possible. This bill is to fix a loophole in the current legislation that allows an individual to be on more than one local board in the Auckland Council area at the same time. This is about accountability; this is about priorities. But this bill is very fair because it does not stop anyone from running for more than one local board. Yes a candidate can run for more than one local board but what they will be required to do according to this bill is provide a written notice to the electoral officer about the local boards that they are running for. They will be required to provide a ranking of those boards in the order of priority. They will also be required to provide that information in the candidate profile statement.I think this is a very fair process. It is great because yes it is the people’s right to stand for local boards and they should be able to stand for as many boards that they would like to. Ron Mark the member from the other side who spoke before spoke about equal opportunities. This is about equal opportunities. No one is stopping people from running for as many boards as they would like. This is also about freedom of choice and about personal responsibility. It is about being transparent because yes although people have the right to stand for more than one local board ratepayers need to know where their loyalty is. It is about being transparent from the start. If a candidate gets elected to more than one board then that candidate will be a member on the board that is ranked as his or her highest priority. He or she will cease to be a member on any other local boards listed. Those wards and local boards will operate as if he or she never stood.As central government is responsible to taxpayers local government is responsible to ratepayers. There are expectations of local boards—they are the voice of ratepayers. What I have experienced—and this is not once but many times—is that sometimes it is hard for members of the public to differentiate between the role of the local council and the role of central government. This has happened to me not once but many times. Just last weekend I had a meeting in Mount Roskill. Some of the attendees asked questions that were more to do with the local council and not central government. I want to urge local boards and local councils to make ratepayers more aware of their roles because their roles are really important at local levels and ratepayers should know what their roles are so that they can ask those questions of the local representatives on their local boards.Since Auckland became a super-city the importance of local boards has also gone up. It is important that local board members are able to act in a fair and consistent manner leaving their personal interests aside. My colleague Scott Simpson gave an example of someone standing in two electorates to be a member of Parliament—it cannot work. Similarly this should be applied to local body elections too so that people should not be able to stand for two local boards. If we look at a local board it is just a mini-unit of the democratic process that we have in the country. It is about fairness. It is about accountability. It is about loyalty.There can be many reasons for a conflict of interest when people stand for more than one local board. People I know who are on local boards work really hard. Some of them have full-time professional jobs and are on their own local board too. Local board work is seen to be more likepart-time work but I know that a chair’s role can be close to a full-time role. It is a huge commitment; it cannot be taken lightly. It is a huge commitment to their local ratepayers and we are very keen to see that our system is delivering for both ratepayers and taxpayers. As an Aucklander myself I am really keen to see that the super-city structure functions well without putting an excessive burden on ratepayers. It is important that people have trust in their local board.As a Government we are very keen to see that all sectors private and public are working well and that government at different levels is working well. We want to see businesses doing well. These things need to apply to us and to local government too. Government is like a business because we are running schools hospitals law enforcement and many other sectors—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am now going to invite the member to go back and speak to the third reading of the bill.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR: Thank you. I have been talking about the importance of members staying on one local board in the Auckland Council and why they should not be on more than one local board. When I am talking about government it is local government that I am talking about. Why can the things that apply to central government not be applied to local government? There are responsibilities that central government is delivering and similarly we expect that local government should be able to deliver things too.Local boards have huge responsibilities. They have to manage their budgets local facilities events parks inputs to council-controlled organisations economic development plans and their board planning. There is a huge expectation of local boards and their role cannot be taken lightly so we want people to be fully committed to the board that they are standing for. Yes they can stand for more than one but once they are elected they have to be on the board that they have indicated is their highest priority.The important thing is fairness to people. People should know that the person who is there on the board to represent them is there for only their board or that the person is standing for more than one board. That is about transparency and that transparency is needed from the start.As I said even the Auckland Council supported this bill. It suggested that “elected members should be able to sit on one local board only at a time and support the proposed amendments to the LGACA to reflect this. This would ensure full representation in all local board areas. Candidates should still be able to stand for several boards but would have to choose which board to sit on if they were elected to more than one.”So this bill received huge support. It is a great bill. I support this bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.