Heatley Phil: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHeatley Phil: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 09 April 2014. Volume:697;Page:17076. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei):I too rise to support Damien O’Connor’s Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill in its third reading. Although Andrew Williams gave a reasonable address it was a little bit simplistic and I would like to lay out a bit more detail as to what we are doing here in this legislation. So I am back by popular demand and the House has asked me whether I would do this.I will just lay out a bit more of the detail and undercurrent that are happening in this legislation for the general public. Essentially though in summary this bill is needed to validate certain rates set incorrectly during the period 2003 through to 2009. It was not just a physical map being sent out to ratepayers as part of the consultation period or lack of a map that brought about the incorrect setting of rates in the district although that I acknowledge was part of it. In fact over those annual periods between 2003 and 2009 there was a large number of rates set incorrectly not just those ones in relation to that smaller area in the Tasman region.Without validation without this legislation the council remains very vulnerable to legal challenge from ratepayers over the incorrectly set rates. Court action would of course result in further ratepayers’ money being spent by the council in its defence. Individual ratepayers taking the council to court would of course again end up adding to the financial burden of those individuals who rightly bring a challenge because even this Parliament has established that those rates were set incorrectly. So validation is also required in order to allow the council to recover all unpaid rates and penalties something we considered in depth.Some residents have objected to details of the stormwater rate. They were not properly consulted on the urban drainage area and are being charged for stormwater services they are not using. That is what Andrew Williams was directly referring to when he talked about the map not being sent out. But Damien O’Connor the bill’s sponsor has discussed their concerns and is himself convinced that the Local Government and Environment Committee will provide residents with an opportunity to express their views and for any appropriate changes to be made. That is what he himself assured would happen. It is what happened. The select committee did consider the concerns of residents and we landed in a place—although not ideal because this Parliament as a general rule does not like retrospective legislation—where we believe that the right decisions have been made. So Damien O’Connor can be assured that the select committee did listen to ratepayers in the electorate that he represents. We heard from them. They put through sound arguments. We took on board many of their suggestions but unfortunately not all of them.National does want to give affected ratepayers and residents the opportunity to engage. We did and we supported this bill to select committee and took it through that process and we are now on the third reading. It should be noted that at a higher level a key part of National’s Better Local Government reforms is the monitoring and improving of council performance. Publicity about the bill will show other councils that their own processes may come under greater scrutiny and so they should. The reality is that far too often we see across New Zealand rate increases or increases in development levies or whatever the charges may be and the decision makers not being held to account. The need for this legislation just goes to show what can go wrong if councillors decision makers within a council are not held to account.The bill will validate rates set by the Tasman District Council from the period 2003 through to 2009. One of the big issues here of course is that in each of those years individual rates were passed through council processes and the rate charges were set out on that annual rate demand. By way of example in the 2003-04 year—and this is where I get down into the detail which I am so familiar with; I share it with the House—the Tasman District Council resolved that the general rate and the uniform annual general charge be adopted that the Motueka business rate be approved that the Richmond business rate be increased and that the council adopt a community facilities rate for that year as well.As it so happened the resolutions did not comply with certain sections of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002. The council had to state clearly that it was setting rates as required by the relevant section; it did not. It had to refer to all of the rates that were purported to be set when it did that. It actually referred specifically to only those ones that I read out and a couple of others. The council did not set the rates before it had resolved to adopt the annual plan and it failed to state the financial year to which the rates applied which is an unusual oversight I must say. It failed to say that the rates could be paid by instalments—which of course is usual right across New Zealand—and it failed to resolve that it could authorise penalties to be added to rates that were not paid by the due date. That was just the 2003-04 year.As members here are clamouring to hear about what happened in other years I will go over—members in the House do not worry; I will come to it—how the 2004-05 rates were set. Well in that year the special council meeting did in fact resolve that the charges including the uniform annual general charge and targeted rates be adopted and that the Tasman District Council set rates under the Act for the financial year. It did a detailed impact statement. The council said that except for metered water rates it would invoice rates quarterly so that is good and that the council would adopt its long-term council community plan. The council did all those things but unfortunately the council did not comply with section 23 of the Act by purporting to set the rates before the council again had resolved to adopt the long-term community plan. So it made that mistake again. It failed to resolve to authorise that penalties be added. Again it made that error.That of course leads me to the 2005-06 year which I think members are most interested in if I can gauge the interest of the House here. Members are most interested in what happened in 2005-06. Well at the council meeting that resolved issues around rates in 2005-06—and incidentally that occurred on 24 June 2005 for those members who want to take a note of that. It was on 24 June 2005. The council said that the refuse recycling rate would be adopted that the general rate would increase that the uniform annual general charge for that financial year would be set at incidentally $160 that targeted rates would be set and so on.But unfortunately once again it did not state clearly that the council was setting rates as required by the Act. It did not refer to all of the rates that it meant to set but just cherry-picked if you like and it did not resolve to adopt the annual plan before it set the rates. Once again—once again—it did not name the financial year to which the rates applied and it did not say that they could be paid in instalments and once again it did not include the provisions around penalties. That is very disappointing. It brings us to a point in the third reading where we simply have to as a Parliament support the passing of this bill to resolve what were serious mistakes by the council at that time.