Kaye Nikki: Local Government Borrowing Bill — Second Reading 
Kaye Nikki: Local Government Borrowing Bill — Second Reading 
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NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
: 
 I am very pleased to speak on the Local Government Borrowing Bill. It is good to speak on legislation that has so much support across the Parliament. I acknowledge the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee and particularly the chair Chris Auchinvole who has done an outstanding job of chairing the committee’s consideration of this legislation. 
The purpose of this bill is to improve financial management within local government. When we look around the world and at what is happening we see that it is really important that this Parliament recognises that we are passing a bill that is designed to improve the management of ratepayers’ funds across New Zealand. Obviously the major purpose of this bill is to set up a new agency that will enable collective borrowing across local government in New Zealand. I think Ms Louise Upston raised the point that there are different borrowing needs right across the country and the Minister of Local Government mentioned that 35 local authorities have signed up to this bill. So it is good to see that it has a lot of support. 
We need also to acknowledge why at this time it is so important. We know that there are many people on fixed incomes and rates rises really hurt some of those people. So I think it is really important that this Parliament as I say takes a moment to acknowledge that we are doing everything we can to ensure either that we are freeing up greater funds for services in local government or that we are enabling local authorities to not have to spend so much on borrowing so that we actually reduce the chance of rates rises. I think it is significant that over $25 million is projected to be saved under this legislation. We also need to acknowledge that this idea came from the Job Summit and that it is voluntary. Local authorities can choose to borrow independently or they can choose to use this legislation. 
I really want to touch on the Auckland Council situation. As members know in this House throughout this term we engaged in a major reform of local government within Auckland. I think it is very important to acknowledge that we now have a wonderful situation in Auckland where we have one mayor and one council. The council is proceeding to make some pretty big changes across our city across public transport and right within the spatial plan. It is very important that the legislation we are passing today will give it much more flexibility in terms of its borrowing needs given that it now has $30 billion in assets and is dealing with billions of dollars in rates. It is also important to acknowledge that significant changes were made at the select committee particularly around council-controlled trading organisations. We had to ensure that there was some financial certainty around council-controlled trading organisations that may be disestablished to ensure that investors have certainty that transactions will be conducted. 
As I have said before I am very pleased to support a bill that has so much support across the Parliament that is focused on ensuring that we save ratepayers money that gives councils greater flexibility in terms of financial management and very important that gives the Auckland Council the ability to better manage its finances given that it is such a large organisation. It will enable Aucklanders to free up potentially $10 million—which is the figure I think I have seen—which could be spent on local government services or on ensuring that we keep rates down. I commend this bill to the House.