Blumsky Mark: Local Government Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
Blumsky Mark: Local Government Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:632;Page:3820] 
MARK BLUMSKY (National) 
: 
 When I spoke to Part 2 earlier I alluded to how much I have enjoyed working through this particular omnibus bill. However as my colleague John Carter just mentioned it is difficult when we have such a wide range of items coming through in one bill to agree totally with some of them but disagree with one or two. We end up voting against certain parts when in the main they are actually not bad but the Government just stuffed them up a little in the process. That is when it gets a bit difficult. 
I suppose what I want to do in this opportunity to speak to Part 4 is to comment on a couple of provisions we agree with and a couple we disagree with. We certainly agree with new section 138 inserted by clause 33 which talks about parks. It talks about the need for a local authority to consult the public before selling or disposing of parks. That is not an issue at all—we can buy into that. Parks are very important to the community and it makes a heck of a lot of sense to have a solid consultative process when one is to embark on disposal. Where we think the bill gets a little bit off-track is in clause 34 which talks about minor boundary changes. If a council has a park and it wants to make an itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny little boundary change to the park the bill suggests that the council has to go through the full consultative process on that itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny boundary change. The word is “minor”. It could be that just a footpath is being put in or a wee bit of road is being widened but a full consultation process has to be gone through. That is incredibly expensive and National thinks that is stupid. 
Development contributions are also alluded to in Part 4. We do not have an issue with development contributions per se but the provision is a warning to authorities to be careful that their development contributions are fair. We believe that development contributions—as the Property Council of New Zealand indicated to me just the other day—have a role in funding but there is a fairness issue. One of the things I am glad we did park in the select committee was the issue of giving development contributions to regional councils. They want them but we have said that we should have a good talk about it and look at this issue which is highly complex. A report is coming through from the Local Government Forum and we agree with that. 
The third and final matter in Part 4 that I would like quickly to talk to is the long-term council community plans. There is consultation fatigue I tell the Minister. He talked about how fantastic it is that communities are being consulted on their long-term plans. We do not have a problem with that. But the Minister should not forget that every year they have to do an annual plan. Asset management plans are also done by law and there is now a 3-year review of the long-term council community plan. I can assure the Minister that every time a new council gets elected its members go through the whole thing all over again to make sure that the new council buys into the strategy and vision of that plan. The community is very tired of consultation. I tell the Minister that I think we have to be careful that we do not lose the community in this work we are asking it to do—at a very expensive cost. The Queenstown mayor made a point of telling me that it has cost $350000 and has taken one person 6 months just to do the council’s little bit through the long-term council community plan process. The mayor is actually not sure of how much the community really knows is happening. That is where we have an issue. 
I hear what members say about the need to be transparent and the need for councils to be audited but I assure them that the audit does not look at what the community is deciding but at whether the council has dotted the i’s crossed the t’s and followed the process. I do not believe that this will result in any long-term big savings because the other costs in the process happen when councils spend their money on things. The audit does not look at what councils are spending their money on. It looks at whether inflation was included and whether all the bits and bobs were done—bits and bobs that actually have very little relevance in the long term to the community but they are very much relevant to auditors who get right into that. National members like a lot of what this bill does but there are bits and bobs throughout it that we think are wrong. We will be voting accordingly.