Parker David: Southland District Council (Stewart Island/Rakiura Visitor Levy) Empowering Bill — First Reading 
Parker David: Southland District Council (Stewart Island/Rakiura Visitor Levy) Empowering Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:664;Page:11770] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker and I thank Eric Roy for those comments. I say for a start that the Labour Party will be supporting the referral of the Southland District Council (Stewart Island/Rakiura Visitor Levy) Empowering Bill to a select committee but we do so with some reservations because there are some hooks in the principles that underlie this bill that we want to work through. It may well be that it is right but there are some things that we need to check. 
I say to the people of Stewart Island that those who have long enough memories will know me as the “tar baby” because in 1980 I was down there improving their infrastructure by sealing roads when I had a terrible accident. I was covered in—luckily—cold mix tar otherwise I would not be here talking to members today. I had some other injuries too that are memorable for me and perhaps also for some of the other people down there who helped me after that accident. 
The issues relating to infrastructure costs being disproportionate to ratepayer base are not issues solely for Stewart Island. I readily acknowledge what Eric Roy has said. He said that there are only around 400 residents and 451 ratepayers—many of whom will not be residents but will be holidaymakers who have holiday homes down there—and 36000 visitors per annum is the number that Eric Roy has given to the House. I can see that the ratepayer base of Stewart Island alone for funding toilets sewerage infrastructure fresh water and roading improvements is very small. I think that we have to consider these things a little more widely than we have already though. It is notable—and this is no criticism of Eric Roy or the local proponents of the bill—that because it is a local bill we do not have a regulatory impact statement. We have not yet had fulsome consideration as to what the macro effects or the wider effects of introducing local levies in respect of infrastructure are. 
Before Jacqui Dean was the member of Parliament for Otago and then Waitaki I was the member of Parliament for Otago and I know from my time in Parliament that similar issues have been periodically raised by Queenstown. Queenstown has a small ratepayer base relative to the huge numbers of tourists who go there. We might think that it is a bit different in Queenstown compared with Stewart Island and no doubt it is but in some ways there are also similarities. Queenstown also has enormous infrastructure costs because it has huge numbers of visitors and that impacts upon the infrastructure that it has to maintain for its peak periods. When the number of tourists in town hits a peak it has to have the infrastructure that is necessary for that peak number of tourists but not necessary for most of the rest of the time. Queenstown has on occasions said that it needs some special rules to collect a visitor levy to have a share of GST or it has been proposed to impose a special levy at the airport. All of those things have been suggested to try to raise money in order to build the infrastructure that Queenstown says is beyond the cost of the local ratepayer to fund. 
That may or may not be true and I am not sure that we are ready yet to conclude that that is correct. I think that we need to hear from the Ministry of Economic Development perhaps from Treasury and certainly from the Ministry of Tourism as to what they think of these issues. It is true that Stewart Island ratepayers have great difficulty in meeting these costs. Stewart Island does not have a district council. It is the Southland District Council that would administer this levy and I think there is a proper question to be asked as to whether the benefits of tourism without these sorts of levies are greater than they are with these sorts of levies. I do not know the answer to that question but if the answer is that tourism would be inhibited for the Southland region then maybe there is a case for the Southland district to be funding these things from all of its ratepayers across the Southland district to a certain extent for the benefit of making these infrastructural improvements on Stewart Island not just to the benefit of Stewart Island but to the benefit of the whole of the economy of the Southland district. 
So these issues are not quite as simple as they may appear at first blush. Having said that I must say that I have great sympathy for the position of the Stewart Island ratepayers because their position does appear to be untenable as it currently is. I am just not sure that this is the best solution. I am not saying that it is not and that is why the Labour Party is supporting this bill’s referral to the Local Government and Environment Committee. It may well be the best solution but I think it is very important to consider these issues because there is an important point of principle here that is of widespread application across the rest of New Zealand not just Stewart Island. I have mentioned the example of Queenstown. I have also seen many other smaller localities that have similar problems and if this becomes allowed on Stewart Island we will have people saying “me too” and saying that those same rules should be applied there. I think we have to look very very carefully at whether the underlying principle of this is right. Let us not forget that tourism is the second-largest generator of foreign exchange in New Zealand after the pastoral sector and we must take care that we do not kill the goose that lays the golden egg through an inappropriate rule that we might inflict upon ourselves from here. 
Members opposite might say that these are not real issues but I know from when I looked at these issues in respect of Queenstown—and I advocated on its behalf when I was the MP for Queenstown—I came upon considerable resistance from various Government ministries which pointed out some strong countervailing arguments against this. I was not in a position to have enough information to conclude whether the councils were right or whether the countervailing points of view were right but I was convinced that there were some complex issues that needed to be unpicked. So when this bill goes to the select committee I encourage the Government to make available the relevant ministries that have this expertise because without that expertise the select committee could make a decision that could adversely affect a very important national interest which is the viability of our tourism industry. 
With those comments I reinforce the point that we do not have the normal protections that we have when the Government introduces legislation that would have already been through all of those ministries before it made it to the floor of Parliament. It would have had a regulatory impact statement as to the effect of those changes and that would be produced after departmental analysis by the Ministry of Economic Development the Ministry of Tourism and no doubt other ministries such as the Ministry for the Environment which might say that we need this bill for the environmental protection of the marine environment because otherwise there could be raw sewage pouring into the sea and that would be relevant. All of those things would have been consulted on by the Government department that was proposing the legislation before it came to this House and all of those things would have informed the regulatory impact statement prepared by Treasury I think it is now—it used to be the Ministry of Economic Development but it is now Treasury—and the regulatory impact statement would be available to members to consider these issues even before the bill’s first reading. 
I encourage members opposite to consider these issues. Jacqui Dean is the member for Waitaki and these issues will have import for Queenstown as well as for Stewart Island. For communities like Te Anau and Milford Sound— 
Eric Roy 
: It already happens in Milford Sound. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: In a different sort of way yes. Mr Roy says that it already happens there but it is not quite in the way that is proposed here via a council-imposed levy. 
The absence of a regulatory impact statement and those processes before we get to this point makes me nervous that we could make a mistake. That nervousness could well be allayed at the select committee by appropriate advice from Government departments. Accordingly the Labour Party supports the first reading of this bill and its referral to select committee. We thank the member for Invercargill for bringing this bill to the House on behalf of the Southland District Council.