King Annette: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading[Sitting date: 03 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15150. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai): I stand to speak to the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) the next local government bill introduced by this Government and to say that the Labour Party will support this bill in its first reading and going to the Local Government and Environment Committee. That is not to say Minister Williamson that we do not have some concerns about the bill itself but we would like the public to have a say on the bill in the democratic way that they should. We will be looking first of all to make sure that a bill that is introduced in December just before Christmas has a considerable length of time for people to make submissions on it because we all know that there have been times when select committees have required submissions on bills that come in this late in the year to be made over the Christmas - new year period. That is incredibly difficult for New Zealanders who save their holidays for this time of year. They do not actually want to sit at the beach writing out a submission on a local government bill. So I—Hon Maurice Williamson: Oh you’re kidding me.Hon ANNETTE KING: Although I am sure Mr Williamson did that in his spare time I think most New Zealanders would want to have a barbie and a beer rather than to be writing out submissions. So I say to the Minister that I hope there is going to be considerable time given for submissions to be made on this bill.The next point I would make is to ask whether the Government is going to listen to the submissions because the Minister made a rather bad start in his presentation today when he complimented the Hon Nick Smith on his Better Local Government legislation and his approach to local government. Well Minister you may well have been asleep when Nick Smith made his speeches and when he introduced his Better Local Government legislation. His handling of it was disastrous. It was the first part of the major changes. Part one of Better Local Government was disastrously handled. In fact the regulatory impact statement that went with the first part of these changes was one of the worst I have ever seen. In fact it said that there was no justification for most of the changes that the Government wanted to make. Then the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research did a very good piece as well. It said that it could see no justification for change. We were then told by Minister Nick Smith that you did not have to believe everything that the institute said. Of course it put out a report last week saying how well the economy was going and the Government said: “Of course you must believe the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research.” So it—Hon Simon Bridges: They got that one right.Hon ANNETTE KING: Oh according to the junior Minister it got that wrong. Yes it did get that wrong about everything being better in economic terms in New Zealand. So I have to say that we have some doubts about the consultation that will take place on this bill. If it is going to be like the first bill we had absolutely no notice was taken of the many many submissions that were made on the bill. They came from all around New Zealand from Southland to the far north. They came from local government they came from NGOs they came from the community and they came from community boards. They said: “Do not take away the four well-beings that exist in the Act. Do not take them away.” And did the Government listen? No it did not. It bowled on ahead. It brushed aside all the submissions. It said: “Too bad. We don’t care what you think. We’re doing what we want anyway. Take that or leave it.” So we have concerns that even if submissions are made on this bill they will not in fact be listened to although it will not make any changes. Maybe the Minister would like to assure us that there is going to be some real consideration given to what local government says about this bill.There are some things in this bill that I think could potentially be very positive. Looking at the consultation that local government has to undertake and making that more transparent more open and streamlined—some of it is very onerous—I think that could be a good change but I would like to hear from local government as to exactly how it would work. I note that the Government had several options it could have chosen when it came to local government consulting with its community. It has taken quite a flexible approach but let us see whether local government thinks that that is going to work. At the end of the day these bills are all about control of local government. We have always seen local government as being very very important and making its own decisions within a framework within a community. We have seen the tightening of its ability to make those decisions under a Government that says that it believes in open government and that it likes businesses and communities to get on with things. We have not seen that in local government. So I will be interested in what local government has to say about consultation.Development levies is another area. We need some more information as to what the details are going to be about what development levies can be applied to. The Minister did not outline that in great detail. I assume Minister that that is because decisions are still to be made about what development levies can be applied to by local government. I think we need to know the detail. As they say the real issue will be the detail of what is being proposed.There are also in the bill some changes to the Local Government Commission. These are ones that do worry me because the Local Government Commission is not an elected organisation. Its members are Government appointments. There have been some very good people on the Local Government Commission. I have great faith in Basil Morrison in fact as the chair of that Local Government Commission. He is a very experienced man. He is not going to always be there. But under these changes the Local Government Commission is going to be able to create council-controlled organisations and joint committees as part of the reorganisation scheme. That means that the Local Government Commission can decide that there will be council-controlled organisations set up in local government. I do not agree with that. I think that is a decision that needs to be made by local government itself. I think the proliferation of council-controlled organisations in many councils has been to the detriment of local councils and local communities. There is a lack of accountability by council-controlled organisations. Often there is no elected representative at all. In fact there are only people appointed by councils and they do not have to account back to the public of New Zealand and the ratepayers as to how they spend their money. They do not have the accountability and the connection with the community that you would expect at a local government level.So I am concerned about allowing the Local Government Commission to decide that it can create council-controlled organisations. I am also concerned about the commission deciding on joint committees. Surely we want local government to look at how it is working and what joint committees it thinks it ought to have rather than having an unelected commission making these decisions.So there are some positive things in here but there are also some things in here that need to be looked at more carefully. I like the idea of long-term infrastructure plans. We know that local government controls a large amount of infrastructure—more than $79 billion of infrastructure assets—and also it has got an additional $12 billion in land and buildings. So it does need to have long-term plans. But can I say to Minister Williamson that perhaps it would be good if the Government had a similar approach to long-term infrastructure strategies in planning because that is something we do not have. In fact I think it was a National Government that got rid of the planning commission we used to have when we looked at long-term planning for infrastructure in New Zealand. In Government we very much go from one electoral cycle to the next. So although it is a good idea to impose long-term plans on councils perhaps the Government might like to look at itself to undertake something similar.In conclusion I think the Government also ought to look at allowing local government to make some of these decisions about how it can lift the bar in improving its own performance. After all it is the one that is going to carry out the work.