Prime Willow-JeanWILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure to stand and take a call on this bill tonight and talk specifically to the bill as it has emerged from the select committee. I hope that I can do that justice because I actually was a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee which heard the submissions on the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill. But first I want to acknowledge the Minister for Infrastructure Shane Jones who was responsible for introducing this legislation; the officials who worked on it; and also too the other members of my select committee from both sides of the House actually. We did work constructively in the main to make this the best possible legislation that it could be. Unfortunately at the end there was a bit of disagreement particularly around Supplementary Order Paper 362 which was introduced at the last minute which we could not support. But we received about 41 submissions on this bill and we heard from 15 submitters and overwhelmingly they were in support of what is proposed in the bill. We did recommend some changes to the bill and I want to talk specifically about those. They are now presented as amendments to this for the third reading. Specifically I want to talk about the changes in terms of local government. My history prior to coming into Parliament was as a councillor for the Far North District Council and one of the things that alarmed me when I first became elected to the Far North District Council was the state of disarray that we were in in terms of understanding what our infrastructure was that we actually had and what the current and future needs were how much deferred maintenance there had been and how ad hoc the planning had been. It was later in 2015 that an amendment was made to the Local Government Act 2002 that required councils to actually develop a 30-year infrastructure plan and strategy along with their long-term plans which are done every three years. That was a really good step in terms of addressing the issue that we were facing as local government at the time but what this New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill also recognises is that this is a problem not just at the local government level but for central government and across New Zealand. The problem is that we don't have a comprehensive understanding of our current infrastructure and our future needs for infrastructure. So this bill addresses that problem in terms of establishing an independent infrastructure commission which will be completely autonomous to the Crown. I heard David Bennett the speaker before me say that there is nothing in this bill that is going to require the Crown to do anything in particular with regard to the strategy that they will be required to develop but I actually differ. If you read the bill you will see in there that within the first two years of establishing the Infrastructure Commission they are going to be required to produce their first report and that within 180 days the Minister is going to have to provide a response to that strategy which will be open for all of the public to see. It is this type of thing that will ensure that Governments are held to account. So here is an independent commission that is being established and that is made up of experts in this field who are going to do that projection for us and who are going to produce that report within two years and then every five years thereafter. That is going to show the public of New Zealand what the infrastructure needs are for this country and Governments at that time—that will be ours when the first one comes out I hope and then the next one and then the next one. But it is going to be more than an election cycle. It's going to take the politics out of this and it's going to give something to New Zealanders that they can hold any Government accountable to. Now in our Budget we've announced $42 billion to be invested in infrastructure and capital spending over the next five years out to 2022. What this bill aims to do is ensure that we coordinate develop and promote an approach to infrastructure and the services that result from that infrastructure that will improve the wellbeing for New Zealanders. I just want to take this opportunity to say that originally in the proposed legislation when it came to the information-gathering powers it did not include local government. But we received a number of submissions particularly from the New Zealand Society of Local Government Managers and also from Local Government New Zealand and several councils but in particular Tasman District Council and Whanganui District Council who all recommended that we broaden the ability of the commission to obtain information from local authorities so that it isn't reliant only upon the publicly available information but that it can gather more information to help produce the best infrastructure plan for this country both at the central government level and local government level. Now there were some concerns from submitters that this inclusion of local authorities in the information-gathering powers of the commission could have a burden for local authorities—some who are not particularly well off who have small ratepayer bases with low average incomes—and so their concern was in trying to strike a balance between getting the information that would be useful to the commission and not overly burdening our councils with additional costs. So the proposed legislation which we have in front of us aims to address that balance by saying that in terms of any information that is publicly available the commission can access that themselves at their own expense and that the councils cannot restrict the information that they give to the commission if it is available under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) for example. But if it is not information that would be otherwise available—under the LGOIMA in councils' case and the Official Information Act in Government departments' case—and it is particularly sensitive in terms of commercial sensitivity then it can be withheld. If it's going to require significant research to give the information to the commission then they can be excluded from the provision within the Act but they are encouraged to have a conversation with the commission about that before determining that they won't comply with that part of the Act. So I believe that we are striking the balance and meeting the requests of those councils and other submitters who said that it should include local government but not overly burden our councils with additional expense. Just to wrap it up I want to talk about information that came out today and show how in context this is practically applicable. Today it was noted in the newspaper that Northland's population is the fastest-growing in New Zealand according to the latest census. I don't find that hard to believe because it's such a beautiful part of the country. But we have experienced 27000 more people coming to Northland between 2013 and 2018. Now the numbers speculated were much lower than that and that's put some pressure on our infrastructure planning. I particularly wanted to talk about the Far North District Council because we had a decrease of 110—a declining population—in 2006 to 2013. The general manager for strategic planning said that growing population was a complex issue to tackle. It is hoped that the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill is going to help us in terms of projecting for the current and future needs of communities like the Far North where there is now an increase in demand for goods and services boosting spending and employment within the district—which we welcome—but the challenge is providing affordable infrastructure for a growing population across a large district with more than 40 towns and villages. That remains our greatest challenge— SPEAKER: Order! Back to the bill. WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: —and so it is hoped—yep. That is exactly the type of situation that this bill envisages that this independent commission is going to be able to assist New Zealand and our communities. Kia ora.