Foster AndyANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Given this is a five-minute call I'll get straight into it. Look we fundamentally disagree with the premise of this bill. You don't get extra votes; what you get is one vote in each separate election. The introduction to the bill talks about—[Interruption] Be quiet; you might learn something. The introduction to the bill says that in respect of the country as a whole the practice of voting in multiple elections was abolished for general elections in the 1890s. Why was that abolished? Because that was multiple votes for one electorate and that electorate was this electorate: Parliament. But when you're talking about local government we have 67 separate territorial authorities—67. They are each effectively sovereign—sovereign under Parliament but sovereign. They are separate elections.Eleven regional councils—look I'll take this for one more and that is Greg O'Connor in introducing this talked about two examples: a property in Auckland and a property in Wellington. You own both of those. Those are two separate elections; you get one vote in each of them if you've got properties in each of them.You then used the example of a property in Wellington and a property in Masterton. In that case you get one vote for the Wellington City Council you get one vote for the Masterton District Council but you get one vote for the regional council. One vote for the regional council because that is one election that you're voting in—one in that case. That is one vote because—and everybody who is involved in Wellington City will get one vote for each of those everybody involved in Masterton get one vote for each of those but if you have a property in both you'll get one vote for that regional council.What happens if you have two or three properties in the same jurisdiction? How many votes do you get?Cameron Brewer: One.ANDY FOSTER: One—one vote. Now of course you could get some other people to help you. We had that example that Celia Wade-Brown was saying. What about these big property owners? Well what about the person who pays hundreds of thousands of dollars for a commercial property? Do you think that they should be able to find somebody to vote on their behalf? I think that they should. In Wellington City close to 50 percent of the rates are paid by about 18 percent of the value of the city. They cross-subsidised big time the residential sector. Should they have the right to have a say? I think they should have a right to have a say and at the moment they do.This bill is about trying to take that right away. I guess what it brings to me is it says to me that it questions the very basis of local government funding because at the moment the bulk of local government funding comes from a rate on what? It comes from a rate on a property. Why would you then take away the right for property owners to vote? If you don't want that the logical approach to take is to arrange things in a different way arrange the funding base in a different way. I think Maggie Thatcher tried to do that and I don't think it was terribly popular.But what you're trying to do is you're trying to disenfranchise people who contribute to that rating base. It is as we've already heard no taxation without representation. And what you want to do on that side of the House is you want to give people who contribute essentially virtually nothing to the cost of running a city—you want to give them the vote but you want to take it away from people who contribute an enormous amount to the running of a city. I think that while this bill is intended to try and be more democratic—and I think that the intention is a good thing to do—the reality is it is doing exactly the opposite. It is taking away people's franchise that they've had for many many years.I also would say how do you determine that a person who has say a holiday home in one place and lives most of the time in another place—maybe who represents a part of the country in one place and maybe has bought themselves a property in this place—how do you determine which one that they've got a foot in? How do you decide that they have no stake in both of those places? I think that's quite wrong. They should be entitled to have that stake in both places. So I think the intent of the bill is an honest one but the effect to me is an anti-democratic one and we will be voting against this bill. Thank you.