Williams Andrew: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williams Andrew: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 12 June 2012. Volume:680;Page:2851. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 It is a shame—I seem to always get the call with 2 minutes to go and the line of thought can be a little bit interrupted when you have only 2 minutes to wind up. It is very interesting to hear the comments of the National members in relation to this bill the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill particularly as most people in the National Government have had no experience in local government at all. They speak as if they have got huge knowledge. Ian McKelvie over there a former Mayor of Rangitikei certainly does but most of the National Party people have no knowledge. It is interesting therefore that they expound these utterances but they really do not know what they are talking about.  
Coming from 9 years in local government and as probably the only person in this Parliament elected as a community board member elected as a councillor and elected as a mayor— 
Maggie Barry 
: Not at the last elections. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: —I do have a little bit of knowledge rather than those who concentrate on gardening activities. There are those in this room who would not know that there was a certain National Party backbencher—John Key—who had a member’s bill back in 2005-06. It was not drawn from the hat in that Parliament but he was trying as a backbench MP of the National Party in Opposition to create a super-city in Auckland. Is that not interesting? Most New Zealanders do not know that the person who was pulling the strings to create the super-city in the first place was a backbench MP by the name of John Key. Is that not interesting?  
I now have only half a minute to go but I will come back after the tea break and I will continue this discussion on the proper history of local government and how we got to this stage and the fact that local government in New Zealand is actually doing very very well. For instance the Shand report back in 2007-08 said that local government had $100 billion in assets and only $2 billion in debt and it was the recommendation of the Shand report into local government that they should leverage their balance sheets— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. It is time for me to leave the Chair. This debate is interrupted. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: When we left off just before the dinner break I was giving details of how the National Government cannot be trusted when it comes to local government. From 9 years of experience in local government I certainly came to learn how the National Party both in Opposition and subsequently in Government could simply not be trusted.  
I mentioned before the dinner break that John Key as a backbench MP back in 2005-2006 put forward a member’s bill which was not pulled from the ballot to create a super-city in Auckland. When National became the Government it handed that over to Rodney Hide and gave him the dirty work but basically John Key’s paws were all over it and it was his idea in the first place to create the super-city to back National’s rich mates in Auckland to corporatise Auckland and to create all the council-controlled organisations.  
We are now seeing water bills in Auckland being posted out on a monthly basis under Watercare Services we are now seeing weeds growing all over Auckland where they were not growing before and we are now seeing the destruction of many of the services that were previously available in parts of Auckland. Those services are now all being centred on the centre of Auckland where basically local government in Auckland in many respects particularly in the case of communities is going backwards.  
We must recall that National in those days when it was still in Opposition promised prior to the 2008 election that it would consult the people of Auckland on the creation of the one council in Auckland. It said it would consult on the outcomes of the royal commission of inquiry into Auckland. Well 6 months after the election such agreement to consult people of Auckland disappeared out the window. The commission reported on 31 March 2008 and subsequently within 10 days Rodney Hide threw that 800-page $5 million report out the window and came up with his 34-page result for Auckland.  
That was an example of how National works with local government and this latest local government reform is basically a continuation of that where it basically gives lip-service to local government in this country. We must remember that Australia has three levels of government. It has a Federal Government state government and then it has local government whereas here in New Zealand we have only two levels of government—that is our central government and our local government—yet this central government seems to want to get its paws all over our local level of democracy and basically have the Minister determining much of what will happen within the local councils and within the local authorities.  
We have to remember what local government came out of. It came from hundreds and hundreds of years of history—the histories of town councils town shires and representatives of a town or a village or whatever being chosen by the people of their town village or district to represent the interests of the greater mass of people in that area and to do the work on behalf of that community. That is what local government is all about and it is not for central government which is supposed to work on high-level policy high-level planning and high-level direction in respect of central government issues to start delving into how a local council should operate.  
I mentioned before dinner that there was the Shand report in 2007 a very extensive report into the ratings structure in New Zealand and how local councils should be funded. This report which was delivered by the commissioner mentioned that local government in New Zealand was some of the most efficient local government anywhere in the world and that New Zealand local government was the envy of local government around the world.  
The report also said that New Zealand local government was sitting on about $100 billion of assets but only had about $2 billion of debts. If New Zealand was to increase its infrastructure grow its infrastructure and improve its infrastructure those balance sheets of the councils should be leveraged to a higher degree and they should take on longer-term debt to pay for the infrastructure within New Zealand which central government could not afford to fund.  
Therefore over the last 7 or 8 years that has been an ongoing case and councils have extended their debt. For instance in the North Shore we built a $120 million sewerage outfall pipeline to go 3.9 kilometres out into the Hauraki Gulf. That was costing $120 million a lot of money for a population of 230000 people but because we amortised it over 50 years and we took a long-term debt on it and we made intergenerational debt as part of that whole loan we could afford to do that and basically provide the sewerage services for the community not just for the 50-year life of the loan but for the next 100 years that the asset would be there.  
In that respect when councils in New Zealand are turning over in the order of $7.5 billion a year an $8 billion debt across our councils is not a huge amount of money in the greater scheme of things. This National Government in 3 short years took the national debt—I am not talking about the National Party’s debt; I am talking about the national debt of this country—from $8 billion to over $50 billion today. That is an extraordinary loading of debt in 3 short years and it is projected that over the next 3 years it will go to $72 billion. So this bill is so hypocritical of National. It is the pot calling the kettle black. Then we had the Hon Nick Smith say that local councils went from $2 billion to $8 billion of debt when they have $100 billion in assets while central government—this National Government—has gone from $8 billion of debt and will end up at $72 billion of debt.  
Another example of where National kicked local government in the teeth was a situation where Auckland was trying to fend for itself and trying to provide for itself. It needed the infrastructure and was prepared to put in a regional fuel tax to start at 2c a litre and rise to 9c a litre over a period of 4 or 5 years. It was negotiated over a period of 3 years with central government and it was going to help fund much of Auckland’s infrastructure and pay for the likes of rail ferries public transport buses and all sorts of thing out of a fairly charged petrol tax across the region.  
What did the National Government do? It got into power and within months it kicked the proposed regional fuel tax in Auckland for touch and cancelled it. It would have by now today been producing more than $1 billion a year for the Auckland region to pay for public transport and to pay for infrastructure in Auckland but what did National do? It took it away but typically did not replace it with anything. It has ridden on the strings of the former Government which was in partnership with the New Zealand First Party at the time which was already rolling out projects such at the western ring route the Northern Busway and the motorway extension to the west.  
Quite frankly in closing I just say that I am very tired of people from the National Party who know nothing about local government who have spent no time in local government and who spout on about what they know about local government. Quite frankly this latest reform of the Local Government Act 2002 is basically taking the councils right back to where they were maybe 20 or 30 years ago where they simply had a town clerk who fixed some potholes did some footpaths and maybe fixed up the roads and patched up the local hall. Well the days of that have gone and the days of local communities expecting much more from their local council are here. It is a very sorry day in this country that this National Government is going back to those days.