Ngaro Alfred: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading[Sitting date: 24 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4765. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): I move That the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) be now read a first time. It is an honour to be able to speak in the House on members’ day and particularly to speak on the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3). It is always a privilege to have a bill drawn out of the ballot. First of all I have to acknowledge thatin this case the bill was actually in the name of the Hon Maggie Barry—just to acknowledge that fact then to have been able to take that bill on. But still to be able to have a member’s bill in the House is quite an honour. Often when member’s bills are in the House and are given from one member to the other one looks for the connection. And so in this case in 2010 I was a candidate for Citizens and Ratepayers and stood in the first of the Auckland Council elections. At that time it was my first experience of actually standing for a local government position and it was at that time that I realised that actually the issue with the Auckland Council was the ability of seven territorial authorities to come together in the hope that a sense of unification would bring greater gains for Auckland as a whole. So I along with a number of others actually did that. For me the Auckland Council has been one of those situations where we have seen that there should be greater gains. The aspects around Auckland planning create one single strategic spatial plan for 20 to 30 years.There are a number of things that I think are important and that actually go to the heart of this bill. This bill—its purpose—is to improve fairness in the local electorate system by prohibiting candidates from serving on more than one local board at the same time. We know that local boards play an important role and so although we have the governing body the local boards are in a position where they are able to work with local communities to distribute funds that are much needed in a way that does make a difference. That is despite the executive the governing body as well. But in fairness one of the issues that has come up—and hence the reason for this bill—is the provision that allows for people to be able to be present on one or more local boards. I will draw to the attention of the Deputy Speaker and also of the House that the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009 starts off in its provisions by prohibiting a person from being a member of both a local board and the governing board. They can be a candidate for both but the governing body election has precedence if the person is elected to both. And here is the point of this bill which is to tighten that loophole: currently the legislation does not prohibit a person from being a member of more than one local board. So I think that is really important and that is the intent of this bill.Members will also see that there is Supplementary Order Paper 418 which is quite strange because when a bill is entered in the ballot it should actually contain all of the clauses that are important. But what actually happened is that there was an administrative error and so when the bill went in it was incorrect and did not have a clause that was important. Clause 6 which is actually in the Supplementary Order Paper provides a savings clause in order to ensure that the existing membership of two or more local boards is not affected by the commencement of this bill. In other words it could force a by-election. So that is why it is important that although the Supplementary Order Paper resulted from an administrative error we think that it is important however that it should be included as well.One of the things that are also important is that we know that this is a bill that has wide support as I have canvassed and talked to some of the members of Parliament. It has support because it is important that it goes to the select committee. We know that it will go to the Local Government and Environment Committee ably chaired by my colleague here Scott Simpson. There we will then be able to hear submissions and talk about what is important and how we can look at the bill—whether there are clauses that potentially need to be changed or added. But I think that it is also a great opportunity to look at and to review parts of that bill. I know that on 20 October 2010 there was a media statement put out by Mr Phil Twyford. In that press release in October of 2010 which was entitled “Labour proposes amendment to close Flaunty loophole”—quite a sort of provocative title—it really meant to talk about this loophole that is there. It states that the Labour Party will move an amendment to local government law to prevent local board members from sitting on more than one board in the Auckland super-city. Labour’s spokespersonon Auckland issues Phil Twyford said that the case of west Auckland pharmacist Warren Flaunty sitting on five boards showed that there was a loophole and that should be closed. So we know that there is support for this bill especially for it to go to the select committee for us then to be able to debate the issues that are important to this bill.This is not a bill that will save Auckland City; it is a bill that will actually address I think a concern that has been had. What is important is that the local body elections will then allow for a greater distribution for those to be representative on those local boards. We know it is a little unfair that people are in the situation where they are on two or more boards—in some cases they have been on three or more. It does not allow for wider representation throughout the city. So we think that that is really important. Even today in talking to David Seymour the leader of the ACT Party he said to me and did question whether this is something that we should be doing. Should we not just allow that where there is adequate information out there that people can see when they look at a person who is representing them on the local board and who maybe did not actually represent their concerns that they were not doing a good enough job—is that not enough? In our conversations though I did say that not only did we have challenges around participation in our general election but also we have noticed that there has been a decline in participationin the local bodies especially in postal voting. There are challenges with participation so in order for us to be able to ensure that we do not have a loophole where there is insufficient representation we should act accordingly; hence the reason for this bill.This bill does remedy the loophole in the current legislation; we think that that is important. In the Local Electoral Act 2001 it states that it prohibits a person from being a member of both a community board and a territorial authority. They can be a candidate but a council has precedence if they are elected to both. Further on down it says that in more than one ward—the same territorial authority—or in more than one constituency of the same regional council for a regional council territorial authority or community board within that region. However and again here is the point: although this could mean that out of this they could have further conversation around potential amendments to the Local Electoral Act 2001 it does not prohibit a person being a member of more than one community board. So we believe that there are not only loopholes in Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009 but also that potentially there could be other conversations around the Local Electoral Act 2001. This bill attempts to close that loophole and provide the opportunities that are really important for wider representation as well.I am really fortunate that we have got a number of members in our caucus who have had senior representation. In fact sitting right next to me is a previous mayor—should I call you ex-mayor or “Your Worship”?—Jono Naylor who was the Mayor of Palmerston North. He shared his experiences of the importance of representation on the local boards and community boards and also on the council. I know that he is going to add a great amount of knowledge and wisdom to the debate as well. Also further across over here is the honourable member and my colleague Nuk Korako who stood inChristchurch I think it was. He too has experience of wanting to stand and represent our communities on our local boards as well. We and I believe that this is a bill that is small in nature but provides us with the opportunity to have a conversation around some of the challenges with this loophole as well. This is a good bill and we look forward to the conversations as it heads to select committee. My understanding is that it will be supported across the House as it goes to select committee to hear submissions as well. I do commend this bill to the House.