Heatley Phil: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHeatley Phil: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 12 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16609. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei):Back by popular demand I would like to thank the Hon Damien O’Connor for bringing this Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill to the House on behalf of his constituents. As I spoke about in the first and second readings it is very important that we put to bed this particular issue and the issue around the rates payments in the Tasman District from 2003 through to 2008. Of course the preamble neatly summarises the mistakes—what ought to have happened in council meetings in that period what actually did happen and where the faults are. So essentially this piece of legislation and preamble talk about the 2003-04 years right through to the 2008-09 years when the council passed rates attached to the annual plan rather than ratifying each rate individually which needs to be done under the Local Government (Rating) Act and setting rates before the council had actually adopted the annual plan. That was the second big mistake; it was also in breach of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002.The rating Act provides an avenue for councils to amend and correctly set rates but the window for that has now passed. Whether that was because the errors were not picked up quickly or because they were set aside as unimportant or were in fact ignored we do not know. What we do know is that this House reluctantly now needs to pass this retrospective legislation to ensure that what is unlawful in that rates setting is now lawful. So the bill is needed to validate certain rates set incorrectly during that period. Without validation the council remains vulnerable to legal challenge from ratepayers and validation is also required to allow the council to collect or recover unpaid rates and penalties for expenditure that it has undertaken during that period.Looking at the preamble here I think that by way of example it is worth working through the errors that were made in that 2003-04 rating year. I am not going to go through the 2004-05 year or the 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 and 2008-09 years but I think that by way of example the 2003-04 year is a good one to start at and to examine. In that particular year a special council meeting was undertaken. It was held on 26 June 2003—the birthday of many New Zealanders I am sure.The Tasman District Council resolved amongst a whole bunch of things first of all that the general rate including the utilities rate be adopted as proposed in the council’s draft annual plan. So that was the first thing. It proposed that that general rate be adopted. Secondly there was this Motueka business rate which the council voted to be approved for that particular financial year. There was the Richmond business rate which it wished and in fact voted to be increased in that particular year and the council also voted to adopt a community facilities rate. So there you have just four actions in that particular year: to adopt a general rate to approve the Motueka business rate to increase the Richmond business rate and to adopt a community facilities rate. And I am sure the council meant well. I am sure there was some consultation about that. I am sure there was much debate in the council chambers before it voted.Unfortunately the funding impact statement provided that rates be paid by instalments. It set out the penalties and it set out all those rates that the council had proposed. However the resolutions did not in fact comply with section 23 of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002 because the council failed in several ways. First of all the council failed to state clearly that it was setting rates as required by that section. So the vote on the floor should have relayed the setting of those rates as associated with that section under the Act. Secondly it failed to refer to all of the rates that were purported to be set when the resolutions referred only to the adoption of some of the rates. So it referred to a few of the rates not all of them. It should have individually set out each of the rates that it wished to be set for that financial year.The council did not comply with section 23 of the Act by purporting to set the rates before the council had resolved to adopt the annual plan. It should have adopted the annual plan and then set the rates so there was an issue of order. The council failed to state the financial year to which the rates applied—a simple thing we might think in hindsight. It did not actually state in its resolution as to which year these rates would apply. It failed to say that the rates could be paid by instalments. Lastly it failed to resolve to authorise that penalties be added to the rates if they were not paid by a due date. So I think those are quite simple things that the council overlooked to do—say what year the rates related to say that they could be paid in instalments and actually say that in fact there were penalties that could be added to the rates if they remained unpaid.So there we have it. Many years after the 2003-04 financial year we are now reluctantly having to pass legislation because of the oversight of that council at that time. Of course those oversights ran into the 2004-05 financial year the 2005-06 financial year the 2006-07 financial year the 2007-08 financial year and lastly the 2008-09 financial year which we are dealing with this evening. As I say I will not go forward and explain in detail the errors made in those subsequent financial years. Members can be assured that I know what they are and that I know here and here what they are. I encourage members to read for themselves the preamble in the legislation to get a good understanding and grasp of what those errors were.What I can say is that National is comfortable with passing this legislation to validate in law what should already be lawful had it been done properly and had due process been undertaken properly in the council chambers when those motions were debated voted for and passed. We are going to pass this legislation through the House. It is our intention in National to make lawful what should have been lawful. We do it reluctantly because it is retrospective legislation. We understand there are still aggrieved ratepayers in the Tasman District. We know that Damien O’Connor in a sense was reluctant also to bring this bill to the House but we feel that it is the right thing to do.I do support this preamble. I challenge other speakers to perhaps go through the 2004-05 year and explain to members and to colleagues the errors that were made there. Perhaps Damien O’Connor could do that off the cuff for the 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 and 2008-09 years. I will leave him to make that choice. I have highlighted the difficulties. I have highlighted what are quite difficult errors to make. Those things should simply have been passed by resolution. They were not. That is why we are here today.