Foster-Bell Paul: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoster-Bell Paul: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading[Sitting date: 24 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4769. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): It is a great pleasure to rise and take a call on this the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) which is in the name of my respected and learned colleague Alfred Ngaro the list MP and probable future constituency MP for the fine electorate of Te Atatū in Auckland. Mr Ngaro is a very hard-working member and he has done very well to pick up this bill which was originally entered into the members’ ballot in the name of the Hon Maggie Barry another very fine member of this House.This bill may be small but it is perfectly formed.Matt Doocey: A bit like Ron Mark.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: That is a very uncharitable suggestion from my colleague Mr Doocey. But I think really the nub of it comes down to clause 5 subclause (2) where the bill is very clear that a member “must not serve as a member on 2 or more local boards at the same time.” This could be characterised as the anti - double-dipping bill. I would as a Wellington list MP query whether it might be useful to prevent such double-dipping throughout the country including here in the Wellington region where we do have local community boards as well as the councils and the regional council. Actually there is a particular pertinence to Auckland with the Auckland super-city. This is not so much about the issue of people having multiple jobs within local government—and there would be nothing preventing someone standing for both a local board plus then the Auckland super-city itself—but this is more a question of conflicts of interest. As constituency MPs members in this House cannot represent the interests—often competing and sometimes contradictory interests—of more than one constituency. For that reason I think it is very proper and right that members of local boards should champion and prioritise the interests of one board that they are elected to represent rather than trying to juggle those competing interests.Another point that I would make is that with the complexity of the electoral process in some areas—and here in Wellington we have the single transferable vote system—if you have dozens of candidates in a district health board election for instance you will end up having literally 100 pages of candidates’ biographies to read through when that booklet gets posted through your letterbox.So one could say it is up to the electors and the ratepayers to make a decision as to whether they are happy with having a candidate represent them who is also representing another community with possibly diverse and competing interests but actually the reality is that as intelligent as the voters of this country are—and I have great respect for the judgment of the electors of Wellington and of Auckland and in fact of all New Zealand electors—the sheer volume of material that they may be expected to read and the fact that they may not necessarily look through and see who the candidates are for other wards other local bodies other local councils or other community boards within their region means that they may not be as fully informed as they could be and they may not be able to make that well-informed judgment as to whether they want someone who is also representing another area to represent them.So for these reasons I think this is a very good bill. It does come to the heart of democracy in New Zealand. I congratulate the sponsoring member Alfred Ngaro and also the Hon Maggie Barry on having formulated it in the first place. As a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee I do look forward to hearing submissions on this. I wonder whether any of the four particular individuals who are affected by this piece of legislation will be fronting up to the select committee to explain why they think this is not a good idea. I think it is a wonderful idea and I am sure that it will have the widespread support of the voting public in Auckland members of this House and other interested people who have an interest in democracy in New Zealand. Thank you.