Parker David: Local Government (Rating Cap) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Parker David: Local Government (Rating Cap) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:12685] 
DAVID PARKER (Labour—Otago) 
: 
 From the Opposition benches we have heard from the two greatest self-promoting populists they have—Rodney Hide and Nick Smith. Everyone knows they are self-promoters and this bill is no exception. What nonsense! The suggestion that central government should step in and by writ of Act of Parliament control the budgets of local government would I think find no support anywhere in Western countries. I have recently been to Russia and the members would have had trouble poking it through even there. It is just nonsense. 
What is being said in the press? I will read out a few extracts from the press. They come from all over the country. In Gore it was reported that the council has kept rates increases under the rate of inflation for a number of years but that it got into trouble and is now facing an infrastructure upgrade it cannot afford. It has therefore had to increase its rates beyond the rate of inflation. The article says that this legislation would not work and is nonsense. What are they saying in Southland? A senior Invercargill city councillor said that linking local rates to inflation threatens to fill New Zealand with Third World centres. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: What do ratepayers say? 
DAVID PARKER 
: Ratepayers exercise their rights to say something when they go out to vote for their councillors every 3 years. That is why they have elections. What are they saying up north? Hastings’ mayor Lawrence Yule blamed most of the rates increases on people’s growing expectations of higher standards in council services. Central Hawke’s Bay mayor Tim Gilbertson slammed Mr Hide’s proposals as ludicrous and stupid. Mr Gilbertson said he was annoyed at a proposal driven by politicians parading their egos and trying to score political points. He is on to it. He is right. That is totally consistent with what the public knows of both Mr Hide and Dr Smith. 
What do the editors say? Let us move away from the elected councillors and mayors the people who have a mandate from their people to exercise decisions for them and to levy rates through the councils and see what editors say. I will read from the  
Timaru Herald 
: “Yes ratepayers are entitled to be angry”—about rate increases—“and to seek to overturn the council’s decision first by weight of submissions and second at the ballot box. That is called democracy. But it is a quantum leap from there for Parliament to limit the rate increases local bodies can apply. Mr Hide and the supporters of his bill—already National and the Business Roundtable are with him—appear to forget the key word in regional city and district councils is ‘local’. The councils are made up of local people elected locally and accountable to locals. If locals want to address major local issues using local money surely it is their affair and nothing to do with Parliament.” The newspaper is quite right. It is appropriate that Parliament exercise some sort of guidance in the way councils run their business and levy rates and that is one of the reasons that this very good Government in the last amendment to the Local Government Act required more long-term budget forecasts to be set out by councils. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: More bureaucracy. 
DAVID PARKER 
: Well on this occasion that additional bureaucracy is necessary. There have been occasions in the past where councils have in very quick order thrown over their old budget estimates and embarked upon some very expensive additional capital expenditure that has been forced through rather hurriedly. The new Local Government Act would make that more difficult. It is still possible because in the end it is the right for councils to do what they say they want to do but they would have to go through a slightly longer process and make it clear what the financial ramifications would be on rates in the longer term. So in closing I think this bill ought not to be given even the decency of a referral to a select committee. It is nonsense to suggest that rates should be controlled at central government level. Those are local government decisions made by elected local members who have a mandate from their population to make them.