Sage Eugenie: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 12 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16611. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]EUGENIE SAGE (Green):I commend Mr Heatley for his detailed reading of the preamble of the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. There are eight and half pages that set out the errors that the Tasman District Council made in its rating resolutions in relation to the urban drainage areas in Tata Beach and Ligar Bay. I will not go through any more of them because I think we would be here all night. The Green Party is supporting this bill which the Hon Damien O’Connor has reluctantly brought to the House as retrospective legislation because stormwater infrastructure is important. The council was trying to ensure that those growing settlements in Ligar Bay and Tata Beach had an adequate stormwater infrastructure. It made a number of mistakes which are itemised in some detail in the preamble in failing to ensure that the rating resolutions were separate from the annual plan and in failing to include a map of the area that the rates would apply to. It was the detective work of Mr Schmuke and other residents of those communities who brought this to the council’s attention.As the Hon Damien O’Connor said the council really failed “Rating 101” in terms of the stormwater infrastructure and the rates but there was a very concerning and quite dismissive attitude by the former chief executive officer of the council whom Maryan Street quoted in her second reading speech that it was cheaper to come to Parliament to get these errors fixed than it was to be involved in legal action. I think subsequently the council has realised—with a number of trips to appear in front of the Local Government and Environment Committee a lot of meetings with the affected ratepayers and the time that this House has had to spend on the legislation—that this is not a cheaper way of doing things. Certainly the council has promised that it will improve and it has improved its processes so that it will not be guilty of making errors in the form and content of rating resolutions again and will ensure that they are in the correct form.Stormwater infrastructure is essential for healthy communities and the stormwater club approach that the council operates in all 16 communities in the Tasman District where it spreads the cost of providing and maintaining this infrastructure over everyone and rates against the capital value of properties is a fair system so it is really unfortunate that the council made these errors in the way the rates were levied or resolved. We certainly agree with the National member for Waitaki Jacqui Dean that we do not want to see many more bills like this one because they are retrospective. But we disagree with her claims that the Government’s changes to the Local Government Act will improve the way councils operate and enhance their decision-making capability because the Local Government and Environment Committee which considered this bill is also considering the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) and that legislation will make councils much less democratic and much more reliant on rates to fund community infrastructure as well as three waters infrastructure which this bill largely deals with and it will reduce the opportunities for public participation which tends to then alienate ratepayers from their councils. It was only last week that we had quite a prominent National Party supporter and former Christchurch councillor Margaret Murray telling the select committee that the Government’s changes were tearing the very heart out of local government for no good reason.This bill is something that the Green Party supports—reluctantly like everyone else—but the changes to the local government legislation are anti-democratic in rolling out the Auckland super-city model of a big unitary council with local boards with quite limited powers. So we support this bill but we will certainly be strongly opposing the major changes to the Local Government Act unless the select committee is able to recommend changes there. Thank you.