Twyford Phil: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee[Sitting date: 06 April 2016. Volume:712;Page:10304. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I want to thank Denis O’Rourke the member for New Zealand First for injecting a bit of spirit into this debate. I hope the member sponsoring this bill Alfred Ngaro will get up and respond to some of Mr O’Rourke’s arguments because I think that they are worth taking seriously. I regret actually myself in my earlier comments not raising the very obvious question for the member to answer and that is: why does this bill apply only to Auckland? It is not very long ago that we stood in this House and passed legislation that applied all of the provisions around local boards to the rest of the country. That was Government legislation that did that. It basically said: “OK the Auckland model—we’re going to make that available for councils all around the country.” It does seem to be really cementing a strange anomaly into the law books to only make this little tweak to the Auckland Council around elected members serving on multiple boards. So I think that is a strange inconsistency and I would invite the member to get up and take a call and explain his thinking on that or in fact whether or not the Local Government and Environment Committee in scrutinising this bill took advice or came to a view on that.I do want to respond to Denis O’Rourke’s analogy that somehow serving on multiple boards in the commercial world or on statutory boards is perfectly fine and therefore there is no reason it should be a problem in relation to local boards and Auckland Council. Denis O’Rourke overlooks the fact that local boards are not commercial boards. They are not just a governance mechanism. Yes they are called a board but they are made up of elected representatives. They are politicians Mr O’Rourke just like you and me. They are elected members who compete for the privilege of representing their communities and standing up for those communities serving them speaking for them and raising issues. They are not members of commercial boards.Members who sit on commercial boards may only attend a quarterly meeting and read a few board papers and take part in the occasional email exchange. Most local board members whom I know—certainly the Labour local board members in west Auckland and other parts of Auckland—are very very hard-working. I know that not all local board members are as hard-working as the Labour ones but certainly it is a far cry from the role and the contribution that members of commercial boards make.Mr O’Rourke questioned whether or not there is a conflict of interest to be found in people serving on multiple boards. I will just say this to Mr O’Rourke: many of these boards are competing for the same pool of funds. They are financial competitors in bidding for funds that will finance new projects new libraries upgrades and roading and transport projects. They are in direct competition with each other in many many cases. They may in fact be pitching different development projects and seeking funding for transport infrastructure. New Lynn may be competing with Henderson which may be competing with Westgate in west Auckland—three different local boards in direct competition with each other. I think it is pretty self-evident that there is a potential conflict of interest in relation to members serving on multiple boards.I do think Mr O’Rourke raises a good argument that this legislation does set out to restrict the democratic process and from a purist democracy point of view it is quite legitimate to argue that we should just let the voters choose—let anybody stand and then let the voters choose. However I am surprised to hear this coming from New Zealand First which is not a party that I am used to associating with that kind of purist philosophical viewpoint.Denis O’Rourke: Oh yes we are pure—pure as the driven snow!PHIL TWYFORD: We live and learn Mr O’Rourke. But it is not a perfect world. The world of local board elections is not a perfect market. There is not perfect information. We know that turnout is very low so in a local government election we might end up with a 30 percent turnout for example. There is quite a low level of engagement and a low level of information available to local board members and my worry—