Sage Eugenie: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16096. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]EUGENIE SAGE (Green):Tēnā koe. I hope that we can get the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill through in a timely manner. I will be taking only a short call. Along with others I acknowledge the work of the bill’s promoter the Hon Damien O’Connor. Like everyone else who has spoken none of us likes retrospective legislation and it is a concern that both the Tasman District Council and the Kaipara District Council have had to ask Parliament in this term for retrospective legislation because of defective rating resolutions. The Christchurch City Council is suggesting that it may need to do the same. So it certainly might assist if the Department of Internal Affairs provided templates to councils on the form of their rating resolutions so that these are made correctly and we do not have to waste parliamentary time on such matters.The Green Party supports this bill because it corrects the procedural mistakes made by the district council and it is validating something that the council could not have done if it had got the process right. We agree with the council’s assessment that its mistakes did not deprive people of any significant rights. As others have explained these mistakes were administrative errors between 2003-04 and 2008-09 and a failure to include a map that adequately described theLigar Bay andTata Beach stormwater urban drainage area. None of the 14 people who made submissions argued that it was inappropriate for the stormwater rate to apply to their properties.If we did not pass this bill then the council would be faced with the cumbersome task of unwinding that urban drainage area forTata Beach andLigar Bay and finding a different mechanism to pay for the stormwater infrastructure.As the photograph provided by the council shows it is quite a comprehensive network of about 3 kilometres of pipe and some 50 sumps in a stunning area of New Zealand Golden Bay. We want to ensure that the stormwater treatment and discharge mechanisms there ensure that water quality is not downgraded. As Mr O’Connor has acknowledged it was MrSchmuke’s unhappiness with the proposal—his work and that of others—that brought the defects in the rating resolutions to the council’s attention which led to this bill.One of the other reasons we are supporting the bill is that all of the residents and ratepayers in theTata Beach andLigar Bay areas do receive a benefit from the stormwater services even if it is an indirect benefit. After heavy rain the fact that the stormwater system exists potentially reduces the likelihood of flooding on their properties. It is because the council uses quite a progressive approach to funding the stormwater system where it charges all ratepayers the same rate per dollar capital value of their properties that you have the cost spread across everybody equitably. If the council had to unravel that then potentially it would require a much more difficult way of funding the stormwater system and the capital infrastructure improvements.But it is puzzling that because of the quite rapid growth in theTata Beach andLigar Bay areas because of their coastal location the council has not required a development contribution from subdividers and land developers to help fund improvements in the stormwater system. It has relied just on rates. This is where I take issue with the speakers from the National benches and their comments about Better Local Government. A major attack on development contributions which will have ratepayers feeling the burden that some National speakers said they were concerned about is the way in which the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) seeks to restrict the ability of councils to levy development contributions for community infrastructure. That bill has a very narrow definition of community infrastructure and will restrict development contributions from being levied for anything much beyond things likepublic toilets and planned infrastructure on council reserve land. It means that the council would not be able to levy development contributions for things like libraries or swimming pools. And that means the cost of these community facilities where you have got growth in coastal communities in Golden Bay and in towns and cities around the country potentially falls on ratepayers.So the Government members are weeping crocodile tears when they talk about protecting ratepayers because their changes to the Local Government Act by narrowing the scope of development contributions for community infrastructure will put those costs on to ratepayers or mean that infrastructure like swimming pools and like libraries is not provided by councils because it is not affordable when areas grow. So it is crocodile tears from Government members to talk about their concerns for the impact on ratepayers because councils would then have to turn to them.This bill is an unfortunate one but it is one that we will support because it does remedy these procedural errors by the Tasman District Council. But we think that the Department of Internal Affairs should be doing much more to make sure that councils have a template so that there are fewer councils making these procedural mistakes. Thank you.