Roche Denise: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8325. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): It is my privilege to rise to take the first call on this the third reading of the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. I am very pleased to do so because I am a resident of Auckland and like all of the speakers on this side of the House we all have experienced local government in Auckland because we have actually lived there.As for myself I have actually been involved in local government in Auckland as well. Like Tracey Martin from New Zealand First I was a local board member after the amalgamation into the super-city; whereas from the three speakers that we have had so far from that side of the House National we have not yet had anybody from Auckland commenting on it. I guess for me—Pita Paraone: Other than to close it—seek closure.DENISE ROCHE: Other than to seek closure in previous parts of the bill.I guess for me that is sort of like a symbol of how the Government actually responds to Auckland. There is a whole bunch of people who do not necessarily live there and who do not necessarily understand it but who are attempting to make rules and to control the local government in that area and the Government has done that consistently since it first came into office in 2008.There have been 16 pieces of legislation since 2009 all of which have been a direct interference with local government in Auckland. It is because Auckland is the powerhouse of the country that this Government has—[Interruption] I am sorry if I have offended your sense of your own—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do not bring me from Whanganui into it.DENISE ROCHE: Ha ha! Whanganui is a mighty city indeed; however this is about Auckland and about 16 pieces of legislation about Auckland.The interesting thing is that when the amalgamation happened way back in 2010 when it was finalised there was this discussion about how it was going to be a saving for ratepayers. But actually if you look at the legislation and just what the legislation costs it has been a shambles and it has been a huge cost to taxpayers as well.This bill that we are currently discussing for its third reading which has gone through urgency over the last 6 hours—and that is how long it will take before it is finally through and that has been a truncated process—has actually cost the taxpayers in New Zealand just under $250000 and that is because for every hour that the House sits it costs $41384. So if you times that by you know another 15 pieces of legislation you are starting to get into millions—up to about $2.2 million just to meddle in the local government in Auckland.We have been opposed to this bill because we see it as another attack on the democratic rights of local government to control its own decision making. We were opposed to the original Act that this bill amends. We were opposed to it because it gave the Government the powers to determine who will be the hearings commissioners to hear the first Auckland Unitary Plan.We know that we need a unitary plan and we know it is groundbreaking to get a unitary plan for a city that size but we have also been very concerned at the truncated process that has been allowed for that very important piece of regulation that is being developed up in our biggest city in the country. Essentially this Government set in place time frames that were not achievable and it put that in the statutes.So we have had to come back under urgency to pass legislation that not only once more gives the Government the ability and right to appoint more hearings commissioners who will hear the submissions on the plan but also enables them to get through another 5000 site-specific submissions and report back by July next year. The July next year period is purely arbitrary and the fact that we went into urgency to do this is also completely unnecessary because as we have heard from other speakers there was the opportunity to have a truncated but democratic process to hear submissions on this bill to hear from the experts and to hear personally from Auckland Council. We could have done that if we had started the process at the time when the Minister actually announced that this was what was needed in the legislation in order for the recommendations to come back to the council.We are the only party in the House that is opposing this bill and we take on board the fact that Auckland Council actually supports it because it wants to get through the unitary plan process too. But there were solutions that we had offered right from the start. The development of the draft plan was a very democratic and consultative process run by Auckland Council. At the time we said like many others in the House that if we had adopted the draft plan then we could have gone on from there and we would have had more time. However that was rejected by that side of the House.We have taken a stand to oppose this bill because we are constantly concerned about the way this Government will frequently decide to shortcut democracy in local government. We have seen it time and time again in Auckland but we have seen it elsewhere across the country. I guess the classic one is the removal of the Environment Canterbury councillors and that was because they were not playing ball. They were not singing from the same song sheet as the National Government. What did the Government do there? It sacked the democratically elected representatives and it replaced them with its own hand-picked commissioners. We have had elections in Fiji before we have actually had elections for Environment Canterbury representatives. It has been this consistent meddling with local government that really does disturb us.One of the absolute founding principles for the Greens is around appropriate decision-making. Appropriate decision-making means that decisions get made by the people who are affected by them. In the case of Environment Canterbury that has not happened.Basically the people whom the Government wanted to make the decisions have been dumped and certainly with the appointment of hearings commissioners although it says in this bill that when appointing these extra hearings commissioners the Ministers will consult with the statutory Māori board and they will consult with Auckland Council it is a totally different thing from actually having the ability to make the decision or being part of the decision making about whom the council wants whom the elected representatives want and being able to hear the submissions that will be coming through that will be part of the framework and the documents that will set the rules for the development of Auckland for the next 30 years.We acknowledge the fact that those appointed commissioners have by all accounts been working incredibly hard and probably doing a really good job. But the process—we worry about the process. We worry about the fact that the changes in this bill will mean that there will be only two commissioners hearing submitters rather than three. We worry about the mistakes that this bill is actually fixing up validating stuff that has happened before.We worry about that because potentially we may make similar mistakes because we have been through this urgency process. All in all we are opposing this bill and we are the only ones in the House who will be. We are doing it absolutely on a point of principle about democracy for Aucklanders.