SpeechHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I must applaud the member for Nelson on her diligent use of the 10 minutes that she had available to her. The whips were nodding enthusiastically. But I have to say to her credit some of it was even interesting and actually—[Interruption] Ha ha! She spilled her water. It did actually summarise I think very well the deliberations of what I think is an effective Governance and Administration Committee so ably chaired by the member for Rangitīkei. And I want to just put on record my congratulations actually to a new member Mr Utikere—not that new now but I think this is his first member's bill. It's always good to bring a bill to the House and have it passed into law. I'm confident we're going to get there. I don't intend to re-traverse the very good summary that Ms Boyack gave except to say that I want to congratulate both Mr Utikere and the chair who are both former local councillors because that actually I think added some real insight into what we were doing here. It's one thing to bring the bill in one form but then to make sure it's fit for purpose when it comes back out of the select committee is also important and I think we've done that as a committee very well. Can I thank the officials who supported us and the many submitters from around the country many of whom were councillors or councils themselves who made the suggestions for improvement that Rachel Boyack summarised.It's a thankless task. In fact I've always said that being an MP is actually not as hard as being a local councillor. We have the benefit of collective caucus responsibility and we generally comply with it. I describe councillors as being like islands in an archipelago. They are out there all with their own franchise keen to be re-elected it that's their wish and it's a bit like herding cats if one is the mayor or even the chief executive officer as is the case down my way and it is also thankless. When we get to select committee and we have people submitting particularly for the first time I always think they look a little bit wide-eyed a bit overwhelmed by the fact that they're in this great place and they're submitting to MPs; the same respect isn't given to local councillors in my experience. When I go to planning meetings or resource consent hearings actually it's pretty disrespectful I have to say what I've seen and I think anybody who puts themselves up for a local office even as a community board member or as a local councillor or a regional councillor has my admiration. What worries me is that they're not well remunerated as the submissions and the report says. I use this at a macro level because I don't want to highlight any individuals but what we risk doing is having a lot of people for whom the meeting fees and the stipend looks pretty attractive and a lot of people for whom they've got so much independent income or wealth that it doesn't matter and actually we're losing a really solid rump in the middle who might make excellent councillors but who are too busy in their day-to-day lives to actually put themselves up for office. When I was a kid all of our councillors were truly part-time even in the fourth-largest city in the country; that's not the case anymore. So for those people and it is mentioned in the report who are thinking about putting their hands up I hope that the examination of their pecuniary interests and other aspects of their lives isn't a barrier to them doing what is such important work. We've discussed that as a committee. I think we've landed it in the right place and certainly the changes are improvements in that regard but I would hate to think that somebody felt that there was such scrutiny that they weren't prepared to put themselves through that. If somebody is of significant means and they have a potential conflict LGOIA—the local government official information Act—Chris Bishop: LGOIMA.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: LGOIMA—the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act thank you Mr Bishop—does actually cover that. They can declare it. They can recuse themselves from decisions so that there is no conflict or even an appearance of conflict and I hope that that doesn't make matters worse. We need good people to stand for local government. The last thing I just want to touch on is in respect of the issue of including local and community board members. The select committee report says that We want to be clear that we don't recommend extending the bill to representatives appointed to council committees." I agree with that but just not as stridently as the committee ended up. I am a bit worried that we're coming to an area in our local government where regardless of the reasons we are doing more appointments relative to elections and appointees to committees or councils where there is a financial decision-making process actually could be the subject of the potential for disclosure. I and my National colleague singular weren't so stern on this that we that we thought that we should put in a minority view mainly because the existing declarations would suffice but I will be interested in whether or not that becomes a problem in the future. I look forward to the committee of the whole House because there is a bit of work to do as Ms Boyack said. But in the meantime thanks to submitters thanks to officials and well done to the sponsor."