Doocey Matt: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDoocey Matt: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading[Sitting date: 24 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4773. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It gives me great pleasure tonight to rise and speak to Alfred Ngaro’s member’s bill the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3). I suppose as a new MP I congratulate Mr Ngaro who has had this bill in his nameselected. I wish Alfred Ngaro all the best with that. Most people would know that member of Parliament as someone who is committed to the communities he works in. People would know that Alfred Ngaro is committed to Auckland. So it is great to see that he is bringing a bill that is relevant to the people of his communities. Can I also mention that I am looking forward to this bill being sent to the Local Government and Environment Committee a committee I am on which is very ably led by the chair Scott Simpson and the deputy chair Todd Muller—very much becoming the top guns of the legislative process.I had a read around this bill. Although very short and simple the purpose is around amending the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act to prevent candidates from serving on multiple local boards at the same time. It makes sense if I could run you through a situation. Imagine being at one local board and having—say we use Alfred Ngaro as an example—Alfred Ngaro on the local board then you go to the other local board and there is Alfred Ngaro sitting there again and then you go to the other local board and then there is Alfred Ngaro. I mean really it is going to be a bit confusing. So I can understand why this bill is being brought in.I do not have much experience of local boards in Auckland but I do wonder when we move through the submission process whether we are going to look at how we expand it out to community boards. Community boards are very big in my electorate of Waimakariri. We have the Kaiapoi and Rangiora community boards and of course in Canterbury—because 1989 was a great year for democracy: the Europeans were bringing down the Berlin Wall and New Zealand was setting up community boards. There is a big movement to empower community boards greatly. What they are saying is that as councils get more and more workload they can devolve to community boards which can pick up some of that important grassroots work. You could imagine that as the devolution to community boards happens there is more work increased workloads and it is quite right to ask how someone seriously could manage the workload of operating both on a local board and on a community board. So I am looking forward to this bill going through the legislative process.As I mentioned around the community boards I just want to acknowledge the real role community boards play in local communities. In my electorate I think we quite often forget—we call them the Christchurch earthquakes but in fact they were the Canterbury earthquakes and my electorate Kaiapoi was the most hard-hit area in the first earthquake in September 2010 having a very large red zone like in Christchurch. Kaiapoi Community Board led by the very able chair Robyn Wallace played a very leading role in the recovery and still does and it was great that she was acknowledged for this work by cutting the ribbon of the newly opened Ruataniwha Kaiapoi Civic Centre which consists of a new museum an art space a library and the council’s civic service centre. Very much that building represents the beacon of the recovery and it is really setting a direction forward for the community. So I would like to acknowledge her and her eight members on the community board. I visited them last Monday. They are doing a big piece of work around the Earthquake Commission and increased risks of flooding in those hard-hit earthquake areas.So overall I would like to fully support this bill. I am very much looking forward to it going through the legislative process. Once again I would like to thank Alfred Ngaro for bringing this very real issue to the House. I support the bill to the House. Thank you.