White Helen; Dean JacquiHELEN WHITE (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise in support of this bill especially since it comes from my friend and colleague Tangi Utikere. He is a new member of Parliament and to watch him handle the debate that he did in the time in committee stage of this was actually just a wonderful thing for our entire intake of MPs I think to see how accomplished he was. That probably wasn't an accident; that was because he's come from a role as a deputy mayor and that has informed what he has decided is an important thing to bring to this House. So he's taken this on from another MP who has become a Minister. Both of those people have their feet on the ground about this matter. They know what it's like being in local government and where the catches are.What I appreciate about this bill is it's taught me a few things. It's made me think about transparency and about conflict and about perceived conflict. And yes as my colleague Jamie Strange said it's made me think about what is very important in New Zealand in terms of reinforcing open transparent and democratic processes.So I want to talk a little bit about that for a minute because New Zealand is a place where I think no matter what you do you see that it is vulnerable to corruption. It's a place where we all know each other and sometimes that's a really good thing; it means that we have a strong sense of community and it probably helped us recently in COVID. But the downside of that is it can be quite a lot of pressure on people. If your mate wants you to do something it can be a situation where you can have corruption grow pretty quickly. You can be an open and good place to live and you can turn into somewhere where those things are happening in an insidious way really quickly if you don't guard against it. I think that's probably something that we all share as something that we're watching all the time because we all come to Parliament wanting to do the right thing. People who come to local body also come wanting to do the right thing. But sometimes actually they need guidance. This kind of Act will allow people to know exactly where the rules are.So what the Act will do is it will actually reinforce trust and confidence in that process. I think it's particularly important because I see a great value a lot of what we do into local government where it is possible because in local government there can be a real responsiveness. I really like that idea. But we can't do that if actually by doing it we're taking a risk. So this is one of the things that will keep everyone safe. It will keep the public safe because they will know what they are dealing with and who they are dealing with. It will keep the people who are brave enough to stand for local body politics safe too because they will be declaring their interests constantly and they will habitually understand where those lines are.So what they will be showing is they will be every year indicating what has happened in the last 12 months in their lives that might actually provide a conflict. They will declare when they've got more than 10 percent interest in a company. They will declare when they're a director of the company. They will declare which companies they're involved with even beyond that. For ones that they've got a significant stake they'll describe what the activities of that company are and that's really important for a public who really probably often get baffled by the amount of information that is in the local body process and if you write a company name they don't really know what that indicates without an indication of activity. So the activities themselves are the things that are going to be the red flags to whether there's a conflict whether people really need to worry about that. That information is going to be provided on a 12-monthly basis and it will be the entire 12 months and there are probably lessons to be learnt there because in Parliament we actually declare them once a year which actually isn't as thorough as this. So I absolutely congratulate you on providing something that's even more robust than what we have here because anything somebody does in that time is reflected upon.Then they will declare gifts of over $500. That's a pretty important thing to do because those things can motivate. They'll declare travel that they do where somebody else has contributed. We always have in mind in the Labour Party a concern about that insidious interest that sometimes come in from a lobby group that you get groups that come in and they have money they have power and it's very important that actually we always always keep an eyes on those things and it's very important that we distinguish between actually listening to people and actually having shared interests and thoughts and being won over by things like sweet deals travel and gifts. So that's a really important thing for us to put right up there and this bill does that.It's going to also mean that people declare their beneficial interests. Now I thought that was a really interesting point that had been brought up and dealt with. It's not just beneficial interests you know about; it's ones that you should know about. So there's a little bit more cover than usual.And then there is the actual declaration of what real property you own. So I think in society we've used things like trusts as a form of shelter in many ways but they come with a terrible price in transparency. Now those things become just known to the public and that's a good thing. It means that people know if somebody has got them. We can perhaps keep some of those mechanisms that we've had but people aren't actually going to be tricked by them. It is actually information that is key to us actually making an informed decision about who we vote for.I'd really like to see more people from local government come into the Parliament. I think what is interesting about this is that the rules that are being developed around that area are ones that are actually becoming almost universal across our culture. Where we see a conflict we now expect people to actually declare it. It's true in professions that they need those kinds of rules it's true in here that we need these kinds of rules and it's true for our colleagues in local government. Actually having a set of rules across all structures which are of a similar ilk is actually a really good good place to be as a country because it's a healthy place to be as a country. It might be uncomfortable at times but it is actually going to serve us well in the long term.Recently I've been listening to a lot of interesting podcasts about the UK and how many of these factors of lobbying have been problematic in one of our role models in terms of democracy. I think we are very lucky that we have not actually had that degree of conflict in our system. This puts our first and foremost call for citizens their local government on that same footing.I take the point made by Jamie Strange that it also makes sure that one council is actually being given the same benchmark as another council So it isn't up to each council; everybody is up for the same standard. So we can all get used to the rules. There will be mistakes made there always are. These things are not actually as easy as they seem. What you have to do under this Act if you don't declare something is you have to do it as soon as you possibly can. I think it's really important these systems are sensitive to the fact that the people who stand in these positions are brave they're vulnerable in lots of ways and it's really important that they're actually treated with respect and that we all actually live under a scheme that is one of good faith one of best transparency. That is what this Act does.I would like to thank my colleague again—Tangi Utikere—for bringing it to this House and I think it will mean a real difference to our society. So thank you and congratulations.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Harete Hipango—five minutes.