Prime Willow-JeanWILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise to take a short call on this bill. First can I acknowledge the honourable member Jacqui Dean who was fortunate enough to have her bill drawn from the ballot. I reflect on my time prior to coming to Parliament. I was a local councillor for the Far North District Council for one and a half terms and then I was fortunate to come to Parliament yeah. So I looked at this bill with interest.I wasn't here for your first speech and the first debate on it so I went to the Hansard and had a look at what everybody was saying from all sides of the House. I think rightly so in the Minister Nanaia Mahuta's contribution she raised the point that it isn't actually defined within the bill what is meant by the customer" and it referred to a whole lot of legislation. That's one of the things that I found interesting when I was on the council—just how much legislation local government is responsible for administering. I tried to find the information Lawrence Yule; I thought it used to be on Local Government New Zealand but it's like over 70 Acts I think that are relevant to local government and they have a role in administering.So I think that that highlights what the challenge is when we say that we want to insert that it be customer focused because who is the customer when we're talking about local government and under which piece of legislation might they be performing a particular function? So that is the reason why Labour are not supporting this member's bill—it's because of that ambiguity and because of that challenge.So if I can just give a couple of examples. Councils have some responsibilities under the Building Act—and I know that the honourable member actually mentioned that one specifically in her speech—but also under the Resource Management Act; so a different customer again to those potentially that were referred to under the Building Act. I know that the Dog Control Act was mentioned as to whether the customer is the dog owner is it the neighbour or is it somebody of the general public? Civil defence is another Act that local government has a responsibility for so who is the customer then in the civil defence case? Fencing of swimming pools—is the customer simply the pool owner or is it the general public that we are trying to provide safety mechanisms for? There are the Forest and Rural Fires Act the Gambling Act the transport Act the Reserves Act and the list goes on.So I hope that that illustrates my point that the problem that we have on this side of the House is that when we want to insert something as fundamental as "the focus of local government needs to be on the customer" and then we see up to 70 pieces of legislation where potentially the customer is a different person in every single one of those that lack of definition and lack of specific guidance to local councils I think will create more of a challenge for local government and we certainly don't want to be giving them such ambiguity to work with.If I can come back to what is actually the purpose of local government—it's to enable democratic local decision-making and action by and on behalf of communities and to promote the social economic environmental and cultural wellbeing of communities in the present and for the future. I know that there are several consultative processes that councils must go through to ensure that they are getting the necessary support from the community from the public in terms of their annual plans in terms of their long-term plans and on some issues special consultative processes that are required. So I believe that in those processes and from experiencing them myself they are having to give due consideration to the people who are impacted by the proposals that are being put forward in those documents.So I believe that this bill doesn't make any substantive change to the functions of local government and the purposes that are set out in it that I just referred to that it doesn't provide any specific guidance to local authorities and exactly what is meant by "customers" is not defined and it is not a concept that will fit well within the regulatory roles of councils—like for example all of the Acts that I listed. So Labour does not support this bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): OK. We have got more speaking slots. We're not taking them?"