McAnulty KieranHon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I think that speech there was quite telling. I'm very pleased that James Meager realises that we will still be here on Monday and Tuesday because they thought that we would give up. They gave up. They were giving 60-second 90-second speeches and here we saw another one but it spoke volumes because he didn't actually speak about this bill; he gave a speech to the previous bill. He had a point to make. He didn't have anything to say about this bill because this bill is a pointless exercise that will actually contribute to them still being here on Monday.Why on earth are we ramming this through under urgency? This bill is utterly pointless in the context of the Budget and utterly pointless in the context of this urgency and it actually is a relatively small amount of money in the context of the Budget. It does speak volumes as to why they believe that this bill is so important because they are so desperate for any form of revenue to try and plug the gap. But the problem is the gap is too big. The gap is so big that they've had to borrow billions in order to fill it.But there's a principle behind this bill that I oppose and it is yet again the National Party kicking local government. Yet again the National Party thinks local government are so irrelevant that we can actually take some of what they would consider income and revenue and try and plug the gap that they created by their decisions because ultimately it is their decisions isn't it? They are the ones that are deciding to give $2.9 billion to landlords they are ones who are deciding to reduce the time of the brightline test—they are the ones that are deciding to do that instead of doing things like funding cancer treatment that they promised.But here's the thing: in the context of this bill and local government they promised that they would help every council in the country pay for their water. Matt Doocey stood in this House in that seat right there—I remember it like it was yesterday—and he promised councils that if National were elected they would help them pay for their water. We knew at the time it wasn't true because we knew that we were talking about $185 billion. They broke that promise and you can add it to the list because there is a long winding list of broken promises that result from the Budget and that is one of them.Now after doing that and after repealing water reform and placing the burden back on councils—and we're about to debate a bill that actually won't help councils one bit and won't reduce rates bills by any meaningful standard—here they are having another crack at local councils. It's not bad enough that they have to pick a Minister who's totally disinterested in the sector; now they have to put the boot in by saying Yep we'll take $400000 this year and $500000 the next year." Oh yeah OK it's only 4 percent but here's some context: Local Government New Zealand came to the Governance and Administration Committee earlier this week and they talked about the pressure that they are under in terms of the rating system. And I asked them whether the Minister had anything meaningful to discuss with them about assisting them with rates and they said no. They were excited about the prospect that there might be some shared GST for new builds—well that's not in the Budget so there's another thing that they've dangled in front of local government and they've taken away.But what they told us which is useful in terms of understanding how important this actually is to local government is they used the example of the MacKenzie District Council who because of the increase in tourists that have been visiting their district have had to fund someone to clean the toilets twice a day as opposed to once a day. Now that small adjustment equates to a 1 percent increase in rates across the entire district. That's massive.So yeah OK fine it's only $400000. But that's actually significant for local government and it's very significant proportionally to small rural councils—the very areas that these people are supposed to represent.Hon Matt Doocey: Cheer up—it's not that bad.Hon KIERAN McANULTY: And all I get is "Cheer up".Hon Matt Doocey: You're negative all the time—"Negative Nancy" over there.Hon KIERAN McANULTY: We're negative because you guys have stuffed local government. It's easy for Matt Doocey to say sitting there in Waimakariri who were the lead opponents to water reform who have all their pipes paid for by the Government after the earthquake and then say "No we don't need reform." Matt Doocey has let his district down. Matt Doocey has let New Zealand down and he claps and he laughs and it's a genuine display of—Hon Matt Doocey: Hey I won my electorate buddy. How did you go?Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Now he's making fun of people who didn't win their electorates; I'll pass that on to Nicola Willis shall I? They snap and they respond and they have a crack because they have no answers. It's typical of this arrogant Government."