Dean Jacqui: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16094. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): In speaking on the second reading of the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill I want to first commend Damien O’Connor for the way that he has worked with the Local Government and Environment Committee over what has been a very careful consideration of the matters raised in this bill.Members from across the House are expressing their reluctant support for the objective of the bill. I think that is the correct position to take on this bill because although Parliament is here to enact legislation I think we all feel uncomfortable with enacting retrospective legislation that picks up the pieces from a lack of due process in local government. It is important that our select committee consideration of this bill our readings in the House and the comments we are all making on this bill reflect that but also acknowledge that although you can point the finger as much as you like and point out the deficiencies what matters actually in Parliament and in the bill that Damien O’Connor has brought to the House is that we find a solution for the ratepayers. It is the ratepayers who are the ones who are feeling the impacts of deficiencies in the decision making of their local authority.I do hear the comments of the previous speaker Su’a William Sio about capability and capacity building within the local government sector and he is quite right. That is why this Government has brought in a broad programme of Better Local Government reforms to ensure that the kind of situation we see in this bill does not arise again. It is germane also to recognise that local authorities throughout New Zealand come in many different forms and many different sizes.We do know that as a result of the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance after a process of a commission and then council organisation we now have I think what is becoming an effective Auckland Council. It is not perfect. Of course it is not perfect but we have a much more efficient large urban local authority—still with the same powers. It does have its own Act—yes it does—but essentially it still has the same powers as the Tasman District Council just on a vastly different scale.The Tasman District Council’s activities are Tasman’s activities; they are not Auckland activities and probably do not want to be. Those people live in a very nice rural corner of provincial New Zealand on the West Coast and none of them I imagine is going to argue that they would want their council to be any different. The reason I am talking about the differences between local authorities is that although we might have Tasman we might have McKenzie and we might have Waimate and other local authorities that are effectively tiny—there might be one full-time planner and one full-time finance officer—when the finance person for example goes away on maternity leave has to be away or goes on a course there is simply not anybody to fill the gap.So I think we need to recognise that although local governments are very very different in terms of their capacities we expect them to have the same capability in setting their rates. Why is that important? It is important because we are taking money—tax-paid money—from ratepayers to provide them with council services such as in this instance stormwater drainage and other rating matters.So we have to have every sympathy with the ratepayers of the Tasman District Council and they have to have the confidence and should have the confidence that their elected members the chief executive officer and the people who work for the chief executive officer have the capability of correctly striking the rates. In this instance they have not done so and the Local Government and Environment Committee has also dealt with other councils where that has not been done properly.I want to just talk a little further about the ratepayer. We call them ratepayers but they include our elderly citizens. We are all I guess ratepayers in this House and everybody who works here is a ratepayer. We all expect our local authorities to provide us with good services in turn for that cheque that we write out every quarter or that direct debit that we provide every quarter. We expect as ratepayers to get good value from rates—it does not matter whether we are politicians or whether we are retired and on a fixed income like my mum-in-law. She is a superannuitant so she is on a fixed income. She has got to pay rates too and it has a big impact on her life—arguably more so perhaps than on a politician’s life. But we all expect to get good value from rates and we expect absolutely that if people are going to be taking money out of our wages—our tax-paid wages—that it is done fairly it is done for a good purpose and it is done correctly.The Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill puts right those deficiencies in the decision making of the Tasman District Council. I imagine that there has been an election between now and the time when this bill was lodged and Damien O’Connor was working with the council to find a solution. So there might have been a number of changes in personnel but I can guarantee that from the mayor and the chief executive officer down they will be having a pretty close look at their rate-setting mechanisms. It is all set out for them. It is all set out in the Local Government Act and the Local Government (Rating) Act. It is all set out for them. It is incumbent on them to set the rates correctly.The Better Local Government reform package which this National Government has been working on since we came into Government 5 years ago has been introduced to provide clarity around the role of local government. I cannot help wondering whether that focus on providing good services and good infrastructure for ratepayers is long overdue. So we have done a piece of work the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act 2012—was it in 2012 Minister Tremain?Hon Chris Tremain: The first one was in 2012.JACQUI DEAN: We are considering an amendment bill from 2013. That is before the Local Government and Environment Committee now. They are all part of that drive to provide better public services to ratepayers. It does not matter whether they are in Tasman—we are dealing with the Tasman bill at the moment but we have dealt with other similar bills. I hope that we do not have to do so in the future but we may.So the Better Local Government reforms that this National Government is working hard on—and the Hon Chris Tremain has played an important part in that work—are aimed at stronger governance in the local government sector. They are aimed at providing greater efficiencies for ratepayers more clarity for ratepayers and more responsible financial management for ratepayers—and perhaps this comes to the nub of this issue for local government. We also have a really strong desire—and let me just talk about my dear mum-in-law—to keep rates affordable for everybody in our communities.I acknowledge that it is OK for politicians—all of us politicians—because we can afford our rates. Of course we can afford our rates. We are privileged in all sorts of ways and we must not forget those people on fixed incomes. For them the rates bill is a big portion of their expenditure and they expect—and they should expect—good performance clarity and a real purpose of local government that is there to provide good service for them.I support the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. I do commend the local member Damien O’Connor for bringing it to the House. And I do hope that we can get this bill through in a timely manner so that the ratepayersof the Tasman District Council can move forward with some certainty and confidence in their local authority.