King Annette: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
King Annette: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 27 November 2012. Volume:686;Page:6774. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 Thank you very much and I respond that I heard your dulcet tones Mr Chairman. Can I say that Labour opposes the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill. We will be moving a number of Supplementary Order Papers against this bill. 
This bill arose out of a Nick Smith paper released in March called  
Better Local Government 
. Much as he did with the ACC straight after the 2008 election he created a story around a crisis in local government a crisis with debt and rates out of control and he related this crisis back to the Local Government Act 2002 passed by a Labour Government. He produced figures to show that significant costs had arisen from changes that required councils to take account of social economic cultural and environmental well-beings in their communities—the four well-beings. 
Interestingly since then the new Minister of Local Government—and I have to say that I am disappointed that the new Minister is not in the chair because this bill is obviously of such importance and needs to be passed with such speed that we are hearing it before Christmas after it was rushed through a select committee process. I am disappointed that the Minister is not sitting in the chair to take and answer questions around this bill. He was not available to speak in the second reading either; he handed that over to the junior Minister Chester Borrows to do that job for him. So I am uncertain as to whether the Minister is actually really committed to this. 
All that is happening is that the Minister is following the path of Nick Smith who got the reasons for this bill totally wrong on facts—the basis of it was totally wrong. So we will be opposing this bill. In fact at the Local Government and Environment Committee we were unable to agree that the bill be passed and the only recommendations that appear in the reported-back bill are those where all members of the select committee could agree and there are very few clauses that we could agree on. We were evenly divided in our opinion so that is why there are very few amendments. We now have a raft of amendments coming from the Minister. 
The reason we could not agree is that the members of that committee listened very very carefully to the submissions we received around the country. We took this bill to Christchurch Wellington Auckland and Hamilton and we had many many submissions. There was a lot of interest in this bill not just from local authorities as you would expect but also from members of the community individuals groups and non-governmental organisations—organisations that have had close contact and association with local government. So we listened to those submissions—the New Zealand First Party the Green Party and Labour—and we listened to what the people were saying because is that not why we have a select committee process? There was one overwhelming response from the submitters—that is do not change the purpose of the Local Government Act 2002; do not get rid of the four well-beings. Of course there was the odd person and organisation that supported getting rid of them—for example the chamber of commerce and the Cockle Bay Residents and Ratepayers Association. So there were the odd number of people who supported that but overwhelmingly the submitters were opposed to removing the four well-beings. 
Will the Government listen to it? No it will not. It has decided that it is going to rush headlong into making these changes to hell with the evidence and to hell with what the submitters say. Well we are incredibly disappointed because if this Government had taken time to listen if it had taken time to look at the evidence it would not be making some of these substantial changes it is making in this bill today. I would say to those members—and I do not believe that many of the members have read it—to go and read the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research paper released just 2 months ago. It has done some in-depth work into local government and it actually put out a paper saying  
Is local government fiscally responsible? 
. 
The reason I am highlighting this is that the Government is making the changes based on shonky figures—shonky figures. These were figures that were put into the  
Better Local Government  
paper and within 5 days were removed. Go to the website now and look at the last page of the  
Better Local Government  
paper. The figures have been removed because the figures did not give an accurate description of what was happening in local government according to the Minister who wrote to me to tell me that. So this whole bill has been based on myth falsehoods and I believe distortions of what is happening in local government. 
If you want the evidence looking back 10 to 20 years in local government it is in this very good piece of research. This is what the research said. It said that “the data from the last 10 to 20 years suggests the local government sector as a whole has not been fiscally irresponsible. Rates and spending have risen. But the increases are not startling relative to property values or GDP. At an aggregate level investment and borrowing also cannot be said to be irresponsibly high.” Debt is low relative to assets capital spending is steady relative to the asset base and debt-servicing costs are at a responsible level. That is what came out of evidence. 
One of the things that I have been impressed with is the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor Dr Peter Gluckman. He has been saying to the Government: “Base your policy on evidence—evidence-based policy.” He says it on many many occasions whenever he can. Is this policy—are these changes—based on evidence? No they are not. They are based on a handful of egregious examples that Nick Smith used to promulgate this bill and it is not a basis to make such sweeping changes. 
I have got a number of submissions that I am going to share with this Committee but before I do that in another call later on I want to say that we have moved a number of Supplementary Order Papers. One of them is to restore the four well-beings. I say to Peter Dunne who is a pivotal vote in this that he ought to think long and hard about where he puts his vote in terms of this Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill. He knows as anyone in this Chamber knows the importance of local government being able to respond to its community and his vote could ensure that we do not remove those four well-beings. So we have got a Supplementary Order Paper on that issue. 
We have also got one to restore the right of local people to have a ballot as to whether they want to have amalgamations. That is the removal of democracy. In fact if you look at what this Government has been doing in terms of local government but also in other areas in our community it has been winding back democracy. This is an extremely good example of taking away the right of local people in their local community to vote as to whether they want to be amalgamated with another local authority area. That we believe is taking away democracy—local people making local decisions. Will the Government members listen to that? No they will not. They have not got the least bit of interest in what the public are saying and what many of those submissions were saying: “Do not take this away. Let local people have a local ballot as to whether they want to be amalgamated.” 
Of course this all came out of as we know the fact that Nick Smith lost the ballot when there was an amalgamation proposal under the current regime between Nelson and Tasman. He was unable to get the amalgamation he wanted so what does he do? He has a bill written and puts in it the taking away of the requirement for local people to have a ballot as to amalgamation and reorganisation proposals. 
We will strongly oppose this bill. It is an unfair bill. It portrays local government as out of control and I can show this Committee through many submissions we received that that is a falsehood that that is not the case and that local government is open to changes that improve it but it is not open to making changes that are based on falsehoods and myths and made-up stories about how it is operating within the community. If I was just to move to one very quickly it would be the submission from the smallest local authority the Kawerau District Council. In that submission the first thing it said to us was “We have no debt.”—we have no debt.