King Annette: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
King Annette: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8064. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 First of all can I commend the very good local member for West Coast - Tasman for bringing this bill to the House. He is a member who works very hard in his constituency and is very close to the issues of concern in his electorate and he has secured himself in the wonderful seat of West Coast - Tasman for as long as he wishes to be there. 
But he is reluctant I have to say to bring this retrospective legislation to the House. We all understand why. As politicians we do not particularly like retrospective legislation but every now and then there is a need for us to examine an issue and make a decision on it. That is what is going to happen with this bill the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. 
I can assure Damien O’Connor that we will give his constituents who appear before the select committee a very good hearing. The Local Government and Environment Committee is very used to such matters in terms of dealing with local government and giving constituents a good hearing. So Mr O’Connor I am sure the chair will give your constituents plenty of time to express their views. Maybe we could even take the select committee over to Ligar Bay or Tata Beach. I think it would probably be very good to go where the locals are and really get amongst the grassroots—the sand the sun the beautiful scenery a bit of kayaking and so on. Like Damien O’Connor I am very familiar with this part of New Zealand and it is a superb area. 
But there is a problem. There is a problem that means we need to validate specified rates that cannot otherwise be validated in the Tasman District Council area. We acknowledge that there are issues with the bill and we will be looking to ensure that any changes we make are ones that are appropriate. 
I think if you look at the problem that came to the council’s attention—Damien O’Connor made a good point—the councils themselves in good faith believed that they were doing the right thing but a number of irregularities have occurred in the setting and the assessing of rates in the financial years of 2003-04 to 2008-09 inclusive. Questions have been raised around the validity of those rates. Damien O’Connor did set out what they related to. They were things like a failure to resolve to set and assess rates in accordance with section 23 of the Local Government (Rating) Act and that happened for a number of years; resolving to adopt rates before the council had adopted its annual plan and funding impact statement; a failure to state in accordance with section 24 of the Act the financial year to which the rates had applied that the rates were payable by instalments and the dates by which the specified amounts were to be paid for some of the years; and also a failure to resolve to authorise the penalties that were to be added to the rates that were not paid by the due date. These irregularities can be fixed only by legislation in this Parliament. 
This bill will go to the select committee. We will hear the reasons why. I do have to respond to Nicky Wagner who raised at the end of her speech how Better Local Government is going to ensure that this sort of thing does not happen. Perhaps I could point out that up until around 1992 Tasman was a district council that had a regional council which dealt with many of the issues that it is having to validate but it was the former Minister of Local Government who pushed and fought to turn the Tasman District Council into a unitary authority and to abolish the district council— 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: The regional council. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: —the regional council—which has led to a change in the way it operates. 
Perhaps we should not be too sure about any local government changes that have been suggested by Nick Smith. I have to say I have some grave doubts about the changes that are coming about by Better Local Government. I would not be surprised if in the future we are not back here passing legislation to fix up yet another Nick Smith mistake including the removal of the four well-beings which councils up and down New Zealand oppose. 
So we will give the bill a good hearing and ensure that what needs to be fixed can be fixed.