Russell Deborah; Utikere TangiDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): I just wish to raise a couple of points in respect of this bill and the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs). I'm going to address the SOP from Simon Court first. Perhaps Mr Court will answer this himself; perhaps Mr Utikere might have something to say in respect of it. It is the distinction between elected members and employees. I think my colleague Ms Chen referred to this earlier as well. I just wish to check if Mr Court understands that elected members—elected representatives—are responsible to those who elected them and that is the people who you might declare your pecuniary interests to—Simon Court: Well they're disappointed now aren't they? I mean clearly they'd be disappointed in who they've elected.Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: —to the people who elect them. However employees of an organisation are actually—I'm sorry about the yammering from the seats over there. The people to whom employees are responsible—the employees of council-controlled organisations and the like—are in fact the elected members. It is up to the elected members to hold employees of council-controlled organisations to account. So perhaps Mr Court might like to address that at some stage and clarify his understanding of what the relationship is between employees and elected members and the public who elect the elected members. So I think from his SOP he quite clearly doesn't understand that and of course we won't be supporting that SOP.I wish to address a question as well to the member who brought this excellent excellent bill to the House Mr Utikere. Again it follows on a little from what Ms Chen has been saying. It's particularly to do with the extent to which elected members are placed at risk because they declare their pecuniary interests. What concerns me in particular is in amongst the pecuniary interests is the fact that as we do here in Parliament an elected member must declare any real property they own which is going to be likely to be if they own their own home. Now we all know that all politics is local but local politics can get particularly personal at times. I have seen this in my own community that my own local elected representatives sometimes face questioning from their constituencies that perhaps I am not quite so subject to because an MP is a little more removed—down in Wellington half the time. But our local elected members often get some quite personal contact from people; people who want a footpath or they want some bollards at the beach or they want some funding for their community organisation—all quite reasonable things to ask of an elected member. But now we're asking that elected member also more or less to say where they live. I think on the whole it is the right thing for people to declare their real property. It will just be the degree of specificity that we expect when people declare their real property.If this does place our elected members well at a degree of risk from an aggrieved constituent—as it turns out I have found that despite all the turmoil of recent times that on the whole my constituents are really good to me. They are delighted to see me down at the shops and around the place. Plenty of my constituents do actually happen to know where I live not because I advertise it; because they just happen to know. It's a community. I've had people drive past saying Hey Deb." as they drive past. That's kind of cool but there can be some risk in this as well. On the whole I accept that risk. On the whole I know I can do things to protect myself. We possibly have greater resources in Parliament to do that than our local elected members do. So it is an issue that I think we need to consider carefully. I think we've got the balance right in the Governance and Administration Committee that it is something that we should be declaring but I would be keen to hear from Mr Utikere whether he thinks we've got the balance right as well and on the whole whether we've got the balance right in terms of declaring interests to our constituents so they know where we come from and what might or might not be influencing us.TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you to members for their questions. Can I start with Dr Russell and thank her for firstly actually pointing out that distinction between elected members and employees. Because you know as a former council elected member all councillors know they have one employee. Willow-Jean Prime your previous experience in local government you'll know that as well that it's the chief executive and then you have the rest that follow there. What concerns me now with the ACT member's Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) is that ACT now seem to be seeking to politicise that employee relationship between employees and the chief executive.Simon Court: What a load of rubbish.TANGI UTIKERE: Well it's not a lot of rubbish Mr Court. It's come from your SOP—come from your SOP. So that does concern me even more now that the member has raised that for the committee.In terms of the extent to which the risk exists for elected members one of the I think balanced changes that the Governance and Administration Committee obviously turned its mind to was around the need for elected public officials to disclose the extent of real property but also to balance that with what are expected standards or norms around your own privacy. I think where the select committee landed is actually a very nuanced but balanced approach where the requirement now is not to say "I live at this specific address." but simply that "I hold property interests in this particular city or suburb." I think that is a very wise approach from the select committee. The other point I'd make on that Dr Russell is that you know councils are very supportive of elected members even if elected members perhaps have different views than the council organisational staff may wish but they no doubt will be supporting them through this process as well.Can I turn to the questions that the Hon Eugenie Sage raised and can I thank her for raising these points in the first and second reading as well. I have to say it didn't seem to be an issue that the select committee had a number of issues of that ilk before it. But I do note that Auckland Christchurch and Dunedin councils were submitting in support generally of the bill with a few tweaks that the select committee have taken up. The parliamentary approach which this is looking to align itself with is slightly different in that the registrar is appointed by different means. Currently there is no entity or organisation where you could nationally appoint someone to that role. What does give me some confidence is that the officials through the select committee process did indicate that if this bill was successful they would be looking to work alongside two specific sector organisations. The first is Local Government New Zealand in terms of that governance arm which the member will be familiar with. The other is dealing with the operational which is Taituarā previously known as the NZ Society of Local Government Managers. They will work alongside those two organisations to ensure that there are some minimum standards and that there is some consistency. So my response to the member is I think it's perhaps a little bit too early or premature to think about how this might be rolled out on a national level or domestically but the approach of trying to address this in a way that's not going to put more pressure on local government is really important. That's something that was discussed by the select committee and I think at this stage they've got the balance right."