Smith Nick: Local Government Law Reform Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Smith Nick: Local Government Law Reform Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14132] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 This part deals with the issue of rating information. Again it highlights the problems with legislation that the Government passed in 2002. It has been a long-established custom and practice that when one goes to one’s local council office one can see a list of properties their ratings and the listed owners of each of those properties. That has been really important public information. For instance if I want to know who my neighbours are so that I can sort out a fencing problem then I need to know their address because there may be an issue about sharing the cost of that fence. Or I might want to put a drain through the adjoining property and I need to know who the owner is. It may be that I need to contact my neighbour in respect of changes I might be proposing to make under the Resource Management Act to the use of my own property. There are many quite legitimate reasons why people would want to know the names of the owners of particular properties. 
In 2002 the Government either deliberately or accidentally removed the capacity for the public to have access to that information. I have to say that it has been something of an over-reaction to issues of privacy whereby a whole lot of custom and practice that has worked very well for New Zealanders has resulted in all of this secrecy around information as basic as people’s ownership of land. The bill as drafted is intended to address that and National is supportive of the provisions as they have been rewritten by the Local Government and Environment Committee. 
I have to say that National has saved the ratepayer a fortune by defeating and changing some of the politically correct and bureaucratic proposals that came from the Government in dealing with that issue. There was going to be an opt-in system whereby every damn ratepayer had to get a letter from the council seeking permission as to whether their land would be allowed on a database. National thought that was foolish. We thought the presumption should be in favour of disclosure and of people knowing that. 
We think that a very low-level mechanism by which people can remove themselves from the list of ratepayers is the sort of approach we would favour and we think that the select committee has done a far better job than the Government to provide the proper balance between pragmatic provisions that allow the public to have access to information that is required for them to get on with life. Whereas if for reasons of domestic violence or for some other quite narrow reason people want their names removed they can do so. A person can register his or her property in the name of a trust company or some other identity so I am doubtful that we need to go even as far as this legislation goes but it is certainly a big step forward from what we have currently in terms of being able to provide this information to the public at large. 
So National would argue that this information should be available. It will be a huge relief to real estate agents and the general public to again be able to go to their council office and see the registered list of landowners in their particular area and to do so without great expense. I think that is appropriate and that is why National is supporting Part 6.