Hide Rodney: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Hide Rodney: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:657;Page:6575] 
Hon RODNEY HIDE (Minister of Local Government) 
: 
 I thank everyone for the contributions to the debate. I think it has been a worthwhile debate on such important legislation. Let me walk through as many of the amendments that we will be voting on as I can. 
First of all I will explain what the Government’s Supplementary Order Paper 62 involves. The amendment to clause 17C is a technical consequential amendment to the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill. The amendments to clauses 18 and 19 and the schedule will as we have announced extend the northern boundary to include the whole of the Rodney District with a single-member ward based on the rural area of that district. 
There are also amendments to the Local Government (Tamaki Makaurau Reorganisation) Act that relate to annual reports. There currently is a requirement that each council prepares an annual report after 12 months. If we think about it we realise it is silly for them to be doing that when they will have only 4 months to go. It will also be impossible for them to do their final 12-month wrap-ups. The amendment to clause 23 and the new clause 23B oblige the Auckland Transition Agency to prepare a planning document for the Auckland Council that will apply until the end of the 2010-11 financial year. New clause 23C fixes up a drafting error. New clause 23D requires that the existing local authorities prepare annual reports for the remaining 4 months only but it also clarifies that they must set rates for a 12-month period in order to provide income for the new council. It also removes the obligation for the local authorities to prepare and adopt an annual report for the 2009-10 financial year and for the 2010-11 financial year; instead they must prepare one report for the period 1 July 2009 to 31 October 2010 which is just a wrap-up report. 
That is the Government Supplementary Order Paper that we will be voting on. There is also a range of amendments from members. Several in Hone Harawira’s name cover various options for having Maori seats: having Maori seats voted out of the general wards having the Local Government Commission decide on Maori seats and indeed having mana whenua seats with candidates signing statutory declarations that they are mana whenua. 
There is also a variety of amendments from the Labour Party. They are interesting because they go beyond the issue of Maori seats to picking up on the idea that there should be legislated advisory boards. This issue would be properly considered in the debate on the third Auckland Council bill if Parliament was of such a mind. For example Raymond Huo’s amendment includes the insertion of a new clause 12B which would establish a statutory Asian Advisory Board. That option could be looked at in the debate on the third bill because it does not relate to electing anyone so that debate can be had again. Likewise with Su’a William Sio’s amendment to establish a statutory Pacific Advisory Board. Yes he can raise that issue now but it would be better raised in the debate on the third bill. Likewise with Jacinda Ardern’s amendment to establish a statutory Auckland Youth Council. That can be relitigated when we debate the third bill which will be introduced into Parliament towards the end of this year and debated early next year. 
I make the point that those amendments undermine local government to the extent that they involve our deciding through legislation how it will structure its advisory boards and how it will have its youth councils. One will find that local government bodies are doing those things all around New Zealand but they are doing it in their own way uniquely and they can evolve it over time. They have an obligation to do it under the Local Government Act and they do it. The danger we have is that if we make it statutory we freeze how it should be done and how the relationship should be managed. If we think about it we realise that this legislation may exist for 50 years. Of course it will be amended over that time. But the proposed amendments would mean that Parliament was setting in place how the Auckland Council would interact with the community throughout the Auckland region. We might do better to give it a broad steer that it should have that interaction then leave it up to the people of Auckland and the council itself to decide how it does it. Mr Prasad is shaking his head; he thinks we cannot do that. I just signal caution. It is something for Parliament to decide but it may well be wiser to allow it to evolve because all the wisdom does not exist in this place. 
I also make the point that Parliament in that way would be establishing a category of citizens and interaction. We would be saying that a certain group is special that mana whenua or Maori will have a certain number of seats that Pacific Islanders and Asians are special enough to have advisory boards but not special enough to have their own seats. Again we would be freezing that; the only way that it could be changed would be by coming to Wellington. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: Only a mechanism to change laws. 
Hon RODNEY HIDE 
: No it is not only a mechanism; it is actually a legislative device. It is making the law. We have not done that for local government. We have had mechanisms evolve and they are working quite well whether in Manukau Porirua City or anywhere else. They are not legislated for. 
In conclusion I would like to thank everyone. I think the debate has been good. There is plenty of debate to be had because we have the third bill still to come when we will reconsider the whole issue of advisory boards. Thank you very much to everyone. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The time for this debate has concluded. Members may wish to note that there have been 202 speeches by my calculation from 49 different members. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 62 in the name of the Hon Rodney Hide be agreed to.