Simpson ScottSCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): I am rising to take a brief call on this Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) in the name of my friend and colleague Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga. I am delighted to hear that the Labour Party will at least support this bill at its first reading to the select committee. As chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee I want to assure that member who has just resumed her seat Meka Whaitiri that the committee will give this bill very thorough and due consideration as we do with every piece of legislation that comes before the committee. This is on the face of it a very good piece of legislation and I want to just spend a minute or two explaining a little bit about why it will have an impact once it is passed in an electorate like mine the Coromandel. In the Coromandel I represent about 60000 people in the electorate as do most constituency MPs—about that sort of number. We have in the Coromandel—I have to deal with five district councils and two regional councils for 60000 people. That is an awful lot of local government for a relatively small percentage of New Zealand's 4.5 million people. Across the country we have 78 councils—district and regional—and 66 water authorities. That is surely not by any measure the most efficient allocation or distribution of intelligent resource at a local government level. This bill is all about trying to create an environment where local government the Local Government Commission local communities and local interests can ensure better supply of service to ratepayers in a way that gives real meaningful value to those ratepayers and also to the councils that operate at a local government level. There are three main objectives of this bill. Firstly this bill will give more options for councils to create jointly owned council-controlled organisations. The council-controlled organisations that we know today were essentially established for the Auckland super-city and that was what we know as a forced amalgamation. There is nothing in this bill that will in any way provide for further forced amalgamations. That is not a model that this Government wants to pursue. It may be something that the Labour Opposition and its memorandum of understanding partners do want to pursue but it is not something that this Government wants to pursue. The second objective of this bill is to give the Local Government Commission greater powers to support councils when they are in fact creating those council-controlled organisations and when councils want to look at options for reorganisation across regions such as mine in the Coromandel. The third and important objective of this legislation is that the bill will ensure that there is greater and more statutory oversight for the guidance of the Local Government Commission. I was delighted to hear the Minister make the point that he is intending to increase the membership of the commission to a maximum of five members. I think that is a very good move and something that will be welcomed not only by the hard-working current members of the commission but by anyone who has dealings with them. This is a bill that is about lifting local government performance for all New Zealanders and ensuring that ratepayers get good value for their hard-earned ratepayer dollars. I know that there will be many councils many individuals and many stakeholder organisations that want to make submissions to the Local Government and Environment Committee and I want to assure all of those organisations and individuals that they will get a good hearing from the committee. We are interested in hearing what their thoughts views and opinions are. I know that as we work through the select committee process this bill will come out of the legislative process—that is the way we do things in this Parliament—as a good bill and one that is suitable and fit for purpose. I thoroughly commend it to the House.