Chadwick Steve: Local Government Borrowing Bill — Second Reading 
Chadwick Steve: Local Government Borrowing Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:675;Page:20995] 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
: 
 I will take only a short call mainly because the ACT members sat here in humility and did not take their call. Mr Hide will be surprised to hear me say that Labour is fully behind the Local Government Borrowing Bill. This is a much better bill than National’s position of a borrow-and-hope bill because this bill will have concrete and tangible benefits for the local government sector. I congratulate Minister Hide. When I think about his rate-capping legislation I realise he always had concerns about expenditure at the local authority level. 
But I want to put it on the record that the establishment of the Local Government Funding Agency is not actually a new idea. I remember that when the previous Prime Minister met with mayors of the country and chairs of regional councils this sort of mechanism was discussed by Labour— 
Hon Nathan Guy 
: Had 9 long years. 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: Hang on a minute though. In response to that meeting Labour set up the Capital Market Development Taskforce and it reported back to the Government at the end of 2009. We set that task force up in 2008 in response to a call from mayors and chairs of regional councils to look at the sort of funding mechanism that we could put into the local government sector. So it was on the back-burner and moving along. I agree with Mr Auchinvole that at the time it was not as imperative as it has become since the recession. So I would not really say that the funding agency was a new idea; it was one that was moved a little bit forward by the Job Summit led by John Key but it was an idea that Labour instigated. I just want to own a bit of that back at the same time as congratulating Rodney Hide on getting it moving. 
When we think of local authority legislation we think of the Auckland super-city legislation. Those of us who have not worked at Auckland governance level have often thought about what would come out for local authorities around the country. I think that this mechanism is a fantastic idea. It will get Kiwi investors excited about investing back into something; perhaps they will be able to say they played a part in an investment and a part in a development. We much prefer it to other proposals that were floated a little earlier. It is a win-win for everybody. The community will love it. I like the $25 million of savings. Of course we can borrow more cheaply for infrastructure from a bank like this to help to meet the needs of local authorities. 
I also put it on record that in Rotorua we have had all but one of our lakes brought into a sewerage subsidy scheme and that helps with reticulation and the treatment of lakes water in Rotorua. Unfortunately the subsidised scheme that was provided by the Ministry of Health has finished and there is no more funding. That one lake is Lake Tarawera. When this bill is passed I will encourage our local authority to put its hand up to this new agency to say that Rotorua knows exactly what it costs to get a good reticulated sewerage scheme in order to protect the lake’s water and we will put our dibs in. Then we will really test the effectiveness of this funding agency to make sure that every local authority around New Zealand can get access to the funding and that it will not all go to the higher needs of the Canterbury region at the moment or all be eaten up by the Auckland super-city. There are infrastructure needs all around the country. I think the canning of the wonderful little drinking-water subsidy schemes and sewerage subsidy schemes run by the Ministry of Health is shameful. It is a public health issue and I think it will have a long-term detrimental effect on public health and well-being. 
I also acknowledge today the death of Colin Hammond a former mayor of the Whakatane District Council. I remember Mayor Hammond taking me out to a very deprived community—Te Whaiti—who were looking at managing a mountain of waste leachate that was going into a stream where trout fishers just a kilometre away were catching prize trout. He was concerned about the health impacts on people from this waste leachate. If only there had been a scheme like this—because Te Whaiti was a community that in no way could afford to raise the rates paid by its people; there were something like 40 residents. In acknowledgment of Colin Hammond’s contribution to Whakatane and that wider region it is very fitting that today we are debating this bill. I think he would have been really thrilled to see that at last something that he put before the Prime Minister of the country in about 2004 has now led to a mechanism for those small deprived communities to access. 
There is one little element of cynicism and it is that when this Government came in it talked about a brighter future. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: You said this was going to be only a short speech. 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: Well no I have a bit to say. This is a short speech. When we came into Government Rodney Hide was harping on about spending by local authorities and their debt being out of control. In Rodney Hide’s last act before the House I want to get it on the record that the Auditor-General looked at local government and showed that although debt was increasing it was not increasing nearly as fast as Rodney Hide had pumped it up to be as he tried to introduce rate-capping legislation. That was a bit like this Government’s approach to ACC when it said costs were out of control and therefore the Government would privatise it. In fact in June 2010 the councils had borrowings of $1.9 billion as did city councils and that was less than the $347 million for district councils and $136 million for city councils. The point is that the Government rarked up the exercise in order to look at the privatisation of community assets. Labour would never have supported that so it is lovely to be in the House today to say Labour fulsomely supports this bill. It is fitting for Rodney Hide; he will go out on a high. 
Bill read a second time.