Hutchison Paul: Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Hutchison Paul: Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) 
: 
 I move  
That the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. I firstly pay tribute to my colleague Colin King for making an excellent speech in his last contribution. He certainly saved my skin. I note that the Local Government and Environment Committee has advised against passing this bill due to the restructure of the councils in the Auckland region. It is not often that a bill such as this is enthusiastically and unanimously supported in Parliament in its first reading but due to a twist of circumstances is likely to be voted down today. 
Grant Robertson 
: No reflection on the member. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: There is no reflection whatsoever. The purpose of the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill is to amend the Auckland War Memorial Museum Act 1996 and the Museum of Transport and Technology Act 2000 to ensure that the levies for the museums are calculated only on the basis of the population of the Franklin District that is contained within the boundaries of the Auckland region and not that contained within the boundaries of the Waikato region. 
Undoubtedly this bill was initiated to right a wrong whereby people living in that area were inappropriately being given a double levy—firstly from the Auckland museums and secondly from Environment Waikato. In other words it was a double whammy. Those people are very fine people; they come from a wonderful part of New Zealand: Glen Murray Port Waikato Limestone Downs Onewhero and the Waikaretu Valley. They are all magnificent parts of our fine country and it is indeed right and proper that this anomaly is righted. 
It is also interesting to note that the Franklin District Council by land mass is two-thirds in the Waikato area but by population two-thirds live across the river in the Auckland area. 
The main provision of the bill amends both Acts by inserting a new definition of “district”. Clauses 5 and 7 insert into both Acts the following definition of “district”: “district in relation to the Franklin District Council excludes any part of the district of the Council that is not within the boundaries of the region of the Auckland Regional Council.” 
In terms of background as I said before this bill was to right an anomaly. I must emphasise that both of those two museums—the Museum of Transport and Technology and the Auckland War Memorial Museum—are iconic institutions and deserve support but those living in the Waikato part of the Franklin District were perhaps being unfairly treated. The computation of the levies is based on the population living in the Auckland region. 
In terms of the Auckland governance reforms the Local Government and Environment Committee considered that because they were going to happen anyway the bill would be put aside until it could be sorted out. In some ways it is a bit of a shame that the bill did not go straight through because as I said it was enthusiastically and unanimously embraced by this House. I think there were certainly a lot of unknowns about how long it would take to put the royal commission’s recommendations into law and as we all know the new Auckland Council will come into being on 1 November of this year. 
I remind the Opposition that it was really interesting when Phil Twyford and a team from Labour came to Pukekohe and pointed out that they supported splitting Franklin at the river as was recommended by the royal commission. 
The provisions in the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act 2010 make the intent of this bill redundant because the Act repeals the definition of contributing authorities and replaces it with a definition of Auckland Council. This means that from 1 November the boards of the two museums may levy the Auckland Council only for 2011 and subsequent years. Those levies will be subject to maximum values calculated on the basis of capital value and population within the territory of the new Auckland Council. Local authorities and ratepayers outside the boundaries of account of the Auckland region cannot be liable for those levies. 
It is important to point out that the Franklin District Council acknowledges that the intent of the bill is met by the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act. However it had interpreted that the relevant provisions would come into effect on 1 July rather than 1 November. Therefore the Franklin District Council had not raised the necessary levies from properties within the Environment Waikato part of its district from 1 July this year. The council told the committee that as a result there will be a deficit of approximately $280000—about $198000 for the Auckland War Memorial Museum and $82000 for the Museum of Transport and Technology—once its assets are transferred to the new Auckland Council. In a convoluted sort of way that seems a little bit equitable because at least this year people in the Waikato part were not rated. However the rates have been taken out of a reserve fund that the Franklin District Council has and that will mean that its contribution at the wash-up of the new Auckland Council will be less than it would be otherwise. 
As I mentioned the Franklin District Council requested that the committee recommend that the bill be enacted with a retrospective commencement date and then repealed when the provision in the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act came into effect. The committee was advised that the Acts pertaining to the two museums required their boards to fix the amount to be levied against each of the contributing councils for the 2010-11 financial year by 30 April. So enacting the bill with a commencement date of 1 July would therefore not resolve the matter. The committee said furthermore that it was greatly concerned that this problem has arisen and that the ratepayers and the museums could be affected but that it did not believe it was Parliament’s role to resolve the issue. It also said that retrospective legislation of this kind in a local bill could set an undesirable precedent so therefore it recommended that the bill not be passed. 
This afternoon I spoke to Sally Davis the chief executive of the Franklin District Council and she expressed her concern that the residents of Franklin have not been treated well. I think a message for the new mayor and the council of the Auckland City is that they should ensure that the rural parts of the new Auckland super-city are promoted and not forgotten. I hope that message will be supported throughout this House because the rural parts of the new Auckland region mainly composing Franklin and Rodney are about 75 percent of the land mass of the new city but will have only two representatives on the new council of 21. So it is vital that the new council supports both Franklin and Rodney and the rural sector in terms of its action over the years ahead. So thank you Mr Speaker for the opportunity to speak on this bill. It is appropriate that it be discharged.