Beaumont Carol: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill(No 2) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBeaumont Carol: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill(No 2) — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13662. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2). I am sure others have mentioned this but really it is a very technical and short bill that Labour supports. It was reported back unchanged from the Local Government and Environment Committee and basically amends the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act to enable local boards to delegate responsibilities duties or powers conferred on them. In the bill the substantive bit is really the bit that says what they can delegate and the bit that says what they cannot delegate. The fact of the matter is that the reason we are here is the process used to get this legislation in the first place which rushed the legislation through under urgency. Many of us will always remember those debates that set up the so-called Auckland super-city and this is part of that.As others have mentioned tonight one of the issues around local boards was actually the absence of a clear outline of their responsibilities established in the Act itself. All Auckland-based MPs have seen a lot of work going on by our local boards and as others have said the boards have made a good fist of it. Most of them I think irrespective of their political persuasion have made a good fist of the job and tried hard to represent local communities. I am going to talk about my own board which has done some very very good things.I suppose one of the issues is that ultimately the local boards in most communities I think have still not been completely understood as to what their powers are and are not.There are still people who call them community boards for example. There is still a lot of confusion in that the governing body Auckland Council is called the council when in fact it is the governing body. Auckland Council is in fact made up of two parts: the governing body and the local boards. The local boards are a vital part of the decision-making process. There are still people in my area who fondly recall the One Tree Hill Borough Council or the Mount Wellington Borough Council or the Onehunga Borough Council. That is because people value the democracy that they had. They elected their councillors they elected their mayors and they did all of the things that they did whereas now you have got local boards that actually on the whole represent areas larger than many districts and cities in New Zealand. So there is still a need to work on what their role is and to clarify that.Auckland University of Technology has done a reportSuper City? State of Auckland that does talk about that and talks about the need for greater clarity around the role of the council both in terms of the governing body and the local boards. I think that that is a vital conversation that we need to have to strengthen the governance arrangements in Auckland our largest city. Another of the significant findings of that report is that there are too fewMāori Pacific and ethnic people and younger adults holding elected positions on the council. Also my colleague Denise Roche talked about the council-controlled organisations and specifically mentioned the need to have more women involved in the council-controlled organisations. So there are some issues there that the Auckland University of Technology has picked up.I want to talk about my own local board. It has done I think a very very good job. The Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board has two subdivisions. The Maungakiekie part is currently represented by three community independents. They have actually been elected unopposed so they are obviously well regarded in the local community: Simon Randall Bridget Graham and Brett Clark. And there is theTāmaki subdivision which is actually a Labour team—a very good team yes—Josephine Bartley ChrisMakoare Leila Boyle and AlanVerrall. Three of those people are standing for election again just to remind voters because of course voting in the local government elections is very very important. So AlanVerrall ChrisMakoare and Josephine Bartley are all standing for re-election.Getting back to what this local board has done the major thing that the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board has done is that it has delivered on the Onehunga foreshore project. It actually controls the funding of a substantial restoration of the Onehunga foreshore something that the community has fought for over many many years. It is delivering a music and arts centre in Glenn Innes. It has done a huge amount to fund community events. One thing I particularly want to look at is its focus on housing a big issue in the area. It has developed—