Watts SimonSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. It's ironic when you hear the overview from the Minister there that actually this is so so urgent. There is no good reason why this bill the Local Government (Official Information and Meetings) Amendment Bill is being considered under the urgency motion. If you look at some of the background detail supporting this bill which is reasonably scant the Government received their regulatory impact statement on parts of this bill in November of last year. Twelve months have passed. In November of last year they got the regulatory impact statement but you know what? They've waited 12 months and now it's going through under urgency. It's so urgent that we need to push this bill through the House. Cor blimey! Why it has taken so long? Why has it taken so long for the Minister to believe that this bill needs to come to the floor of this House? No one's going to argue around the detail of the bill. It's all lovely it's all good and it needs to go through a select process. It's going through under urgency but we're still having to put it through a six-month select committee process. Well it reminds me of that good old three waters water services bill but we won't get into detail about that will we. No we won't talk about that. I'll get back to the bill.At the end of the day irrespective of why it's taken an incredibly slow amount of time for this bill to get to the House there is another issue and this will wind up people at home. What time is it now? Farmers will be back out of the cowshed and having a cup of tea. When you look at the regulatory impact statement none in the local government area has been consulted on this bill. So the regulatory impact statement was done in November of last year and they haven't used the last year to consult with the local government sector. And you know why? They couldn't because of time constraints"—and that is quote unquote from the regulatory impact statement.I tell you what—there's a few members on the other side of the House that are asleep at the wheel. They're in this plane and it's flying towards a mountain. The engines are on fire and there's smoke in the cockpit and they are on their phones playing games and going "Every thing's wrong" and the lights are going "Pull up pull up. We're about to crash." Woop! Woop! The alarms are going.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): That's interesting Mr Watts but can we come back to the bill please.SIMON WATTS: You're absolutely right Madam Speaker. I was getting a little bit excited there and I will pull myself back into focus.What I do want to raise before we let this one pass through to the keeper is that the local government sector are incredibly stretched at the moment. This sector is dealing with a barrage of reform and regulation by this Labour Government. The local government sector is dealing with high levels of attrition. The central government departments are poaching all the local government staff at a time when they're really on their knees and the Government's saying "What does local government need to help them? They need a bit more regulation a bit more compliance. It's making their job a bit easier around the official information process." The other issue is of course cost—the cost of living crisis. We're in the cockpit heading towards the mountain and Labour thinks everything's fine. This is going to cost between $1 million and $2 million for the Department of Internal Affairs to try and implement—another $2 million. We seem to become accustomed in this House to seeing millions of dollars being thrown around here and there. Those who've ever owned a business or run a business which aren't too many on the other side know that to earn a million dollars is damn difficult—but it's easy when you're spending other people's money.We're going to be supporting this bill to select committee because I think the select committee process—Hon Members: Oh!SIMON WATTS: The members on other side have woken up. They've thought "What's going on here? Where am I?" We're in Parliament ladies and gentlemen and we're in urgency dealing with a bill that has been sitting on the Order Paper for 12 months yet all of a sudden someone has woken up and decided this needs to be pushed through under urgency. What an absolute shocker—what an embarrassment. But that personifies the Labour Government. It's out of touch. It isn't listening to hard-working Kiwis and while we'll be supporting this bill to select committee I expect we'll do a damn good job at making sure this bill is a stringent as it needs to be to deal with the real issues we need face in this country."