Nash Stuart: Local Government Act 2002 (Greater Local Democracy) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Local Government Act 2002 (Greater Local Democracy) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 12 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5765. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): A number of National MPs have spoken on this bill and I am unsure from their rhetoric whether they are for or against it. The last National speaker Nuk Korako missed the point completely. This is about getting a majority in each local government jurisdiction for any amalgamation to occur. It is not about the original 10 percent. It is about a majority in Napier a majority in Hastings a majority in Wairoa and a majority in Central Hawke’s Bay not across the region.One of the National members stood up and he said that I was doing this for cynical reasons and that I was doing this because it is local politics. I can inform that member that my family has been living in Napier for 150 years and I am hopeful they are going to be there for another 150 years. I would never ever do anything that I thought was not in the best interests of Napier and I would certainly not play cynical politics with my constituents.Matt Doocey really hit the nail on the head. He said that the people of “Waimak” would be dead against amalgamation. But what Mr Doocey does not understand is that under this law as it stands “Waimak” would get subsumed into a whole Christchurch super-city anyway. If your constituents Mr Doocey were against amalgamation it would not make a blind bit of difference. Under my bill if they voted against amalgamation then they could preserve the unique character of their town.I want to just give five quick points as to why I think that this bill must progress through the House. The first and most importantone is that I believe that local communities deserve the right to determine their own futures and not have a situation forced upon them that they do not want. Secondly Scott Simpson the National MP for Coromandel said that a small community could overrule the whole process and that that is not democracy. My contention is that if a small community does not see value in an amalgamation and a super-city then it should not go ahead.Ron Mark: That’s right.STUART NASH: And Mr Ron Mark used Carterton as the classic case. Carterton is an exceptionally well-run city. It did not want to be part of Wellington so why should that be forced to happen? It should not.The third point is that the Nats said that their definition of democracy was different from ours. That is a shame. For me democracy is about the right of communities to determine their own futures. I cannot see how you can dress up democracy differently and say that this bill is not about democracy because it is so much about democracy that it is in its title. It is why I have put this bill forward because I passionately believe that communities deserve the democratic right to determine their own futures through a poll and if the communities vote 50.1 percent in favour then the democratic system says that it will go ahead but if there is not a majority in that jurisdiction then it should not go ahead. That is democracy.The fourth point is that this bill is actually the policy of Local Government New Zealand. Local Government New Zealand is the representative body of all the councils across New Zealand. It is clear that this bill is the will of those who represent those who are in charge of the governance of our communities. This bill represents the will of the mayors and the councillors right across the country.By not supporting this bill is the Government saying that the mayors and the councillors—whom a number of speakers purport to have such a great relationship with—are wrong? I very much doubt judging by the speeches that any one of those National MPs went to their local city councils or district councils or their mayors and said “How would you like me to vote on this bill?” because if they had the mayors and the councillors would have said: “I would like you to support that.” I know this and the reason I know this is that I wrote to every single mayor in this country. And every single mayor who wrote back to me said: “We need this bill to go through. We need this bill to go through because what this bill does is it takes the legislation back to how it was in 2012.” So we are not doing anything revolutionary here. All we are doing is taking it back to how it was.Someone mentioned the Minister of Local Government and how engaged she was with local communities. Well I can tell you that during the election campaign the Hon Paula Bennett came down to Napier. At a public meeting on this the Deputy Mayor of Napier stood up and she was told by the Minister: “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Whoa whoa—that was fantastic!The last point I would make is that if this was not the right thing to do—if this bill was not the right thing to do—then believe me I would not be so passionate about it. I would not be championing it in this House. But the Local Government Act 2002 (Greater Local Democracy) Amendment Bill is quite simply the right thing to do for our communities and for our constituencies. The reason I know that is our mayors and our councillors have told me that this is the case. I urge the House to support this bill to the select committee. Thank you.