Prime Willow-JeanWILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): E te Māngai o te Whare tēnā koe. Thank you Madam Speaker for the opportunity to make the final call on the third reading of the member's bill the Local Government (Pecuniary Interests Register) Amendment Bill.I have the honour then of finally acknowledging the member whose name this bill is in for bringing this bill to the House. As we have heard in all of the readings and particularly this afternoon there is a significant amount of work that the Governance and Administration Committee did on this bill—and a lot of acknowledgment has been given to the member for first and foremost identifying this gap and bringing this member's bill to the House but also the way in which the committee worked really hard to make this the best possible piece of legislation which we are debating this afternoon and are going to be passing shortly in about another nine minutes.The member is a new member and so I think it's wonderful that today his first member's bill is going to pass. I watch with interest what the next one will be. What I love about this one is it is connected to the work that he did prior to coming into Parliament and I think that's one of the wonderful things—with that experience that you have and the opportunity that you get in here to be able to put that experience to good use and to make meaningful changes.So I want to talk first and foremost about the purpose of this bill and the purpose of the register. As described in the bill the purpose is to record members' interests so as to provide transparency and to strengthen public trust and confidence in the local government processes and decision-making." As I spoke in one of my earlier contributions before coming to Parliament I too was an elected member. I was first elected on to the Far North District Council in 2013 and then a second term in 2016 before coming into Parliament on the list in 2017. So doing one and a bit terms on council. I wasn't a member of the select committee so when I was listening to the contributions and understanding what this member's bill is proposing to do I was reflecting on the time that I was on the Far North District Council and I remember vividly that we had our interests listed on every agenda actually before every meeting. And so the issue there is I assumed—and found out I was wrong to assume this—that it was something that all councils in fact did. But as I was listening to the contributions in that debate it became clear to me in the House that that's not actually the case for all of our councils across the country. So while the Local Government Act requires all councils to have a code of conduct it doesn't require that code of conduct to have the requirement for a pecuniary interests register.So here I was sitting there going "Oh I remember having to declare all of my interests and in fact it was published on every agenda at every meeting." I quickly did a Google search of the Whangarei District Council the Northland Regional Council the Kaipara District Council all those councils that are in my Northland electorate and they too all declare their interests they have a register for that. But coming back to the point that this bill addresses is that there is no consistency across our 57 councils—is it?—across the country. So by having this legislation it will no longer be something that's done ad hoc but that is in fact required of every council. I think that that is important because you know you possibly have heard it in your electorates as well but I often hear people say "Oh those dodgy councillors and mayors they've got interests in these things" or "They're hooking up their mates." And that's not helpful to local democracy. That's not helpful to people who—as we heard the member Ian McKelvie say—might want to stand for local government and to have that perception or those things said about you. So I think that actually having the pecuniary interest register there that you can point to when accusations might be made is helpful and it will instil more trust and more confidence.I wanted to also mention the benefit of having the select committee processes that they picked up in that process that when the bill initially was introduced to the House it was only for elected members of the council. However the select committee discussed that elected members who are local board members and who are community board members undertake a very similar role. They often make decisions which have financial implications—and in the case of Auckland local boards it's quite significant sums of money. But even in the Far North while a lot of smaller sums of money our community board does make funding decisions and distributes a number of grants out into the community. So when I saw that the select committee had identified that as one of the gaps of the initial legislation that was proposed and made strong recommendations as to why it should be included I wholeheartedly support its inclusion.Not every council has community boards but in the Far North we do have community boards. They are members who are elected into those positions by their community and so therefore they will be captured by this legislation. So I just wanted to talk to a couple of things that the members are required to include the information they are required to include in their return: the names of any companies which they are directors of but also every other company or business or entity that they may gain a pecuniary interest from. The next one is if the member is employed. Now I do know that in the local government space while it is a very busy role it is not well remunerated and many elected members do undertake other work as well. So it is important that that is disclosed somewhere particularly if it's going to be the subject of any of the decisions that they are making. It also includes the name of any trust in to which the member has a beneficial interest or the name of any organisation or trust and a description of the main activities that the member is a member of the organisation or a member of the governing body of the organisation or a trustee of the trust.I'm just reflecting on my last marae trustees meeting where we're talking about the inclusion of a conflicts of interest register in our marae charter because this is an issue that has come up and we had a great debate about it. The reality is: New Zealand is a very small place. We all wear many hats. I don't know how many boards you've all been on in the past often in a voluntary capacity but those organisations that we are members of do in some cases make application to the councils to the community boards to the local boards and in the case we were debating at the marae also to Government departments. So I do think that this is an important one to capture because it was through that discussion that I saw that people—it's that trust and confidence again in the people who are making decisions on your behalf that the perceived conflicts of interests or any pecuniary interests are declared so that it's known they can remove themselves from the decision making. That can all be clarified and people can have more trust and confidence in those who are making those decisions. It also includes any organisation that you hold as a member as an appointment by virtue of being an elected member. I had one of those positions. I was on the Turner Centre who in turn applied to the council for funding for its operations—it essentially is the community hall. So it captures that as well.I've now come to the end of my contribution. I commend the member and I commend the bill to the House."