Twyford Phil: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Twyford Phil: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
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PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 I thank my colleagues Su’a William Sio and others who have raised the issue of community outcomes. I will make some comments about clauses 4 and 12 of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill. 
Clause 4 restricts the definition of “community outcomes” the high-level goals that are set in the long-term plans of local authorities. It restricts them to things that only the council itself can deliver. The Government justifies this move by saying it is part of its streamlining efforts. The problem is that it is important to many of our communities to be able to call on their councils and their local authorities to take leadership in tackling some of the most important issues in their communities even if the council itself cannot deliver the whole solution. In many cases—and I will give a few examples—councils can through leadership advocacy and coordination help the community respond to community demand to tackle some of these big problems. 
One example I can think of is the failure of infrastructure. In Auckland we have had an ongoing series of problems with infrastructure failure in the electricity network. Most recently in the summer of 2008 we had a problem with the Otahuhu substation. The cable went down and the city was without electricity for some time. This is a major issue that affects the economic viability of our city. The people of Auckland expect their local authorities to help to sort that problem out. It is not a problem just for central government; people expect councils to take a leadership role on questions of infrastructure which is so important to the success of the city and those communities. People expect councils to ensure there is a timely and adequate response to that problem. 
One of the other issues that many councils take up is the issue of community safety. I think there is a real mood of concern at the moment about things like binge drinking crime on our streets and the social impacts of gambling and boy racers. These are all matters of concern to our communities. Councils do not necessarily have the ability to solve the problem and deliver the solutions but people expect their elected representatives to provide leadership respond to their concerns and take up those matters. 
There is no reason that the community cannot require that those pressing problems be identified as the high-level goals or community outcomes in the long-term plan. That is an entirely reasonable part of our democratic process but unfortunately this bill will take that part away and apply an unduly narrow approach by saying that community outcomes must be things that only the council itself can deliver. That is a real shame and a real problem with this bill. Labour has tabled a Supplementary Order Paper in my name to omit that provision and continue to allow communities to identify their high-level goals and not be restricted in this way. 
The other thing that I want to say about the community outcomes relates to clause 12. We acknowledge that the current process in the legislation is a little too prescriptive in setting out the process by which councils identify their community outcomes. We agree that the process is too heavy and it could be lightened up. But the effect of clause 12 is to completely remove any principle-based approach to saying how councils should identify their community outcomes. 
Under this bill a council could just sit down around a table themselves and pull community outcomes out of the air and say that the high-level goals for the long-term plan will be whatever pops into their head on the day. There is no requirement in here that councils have a consultation process with their community or that they give their citizens the right to be part of a transparent and open discussion in identifying community outcomes. Although we acknowledge that the current law is too prescriptive we believe that there should be some principle-based requirement that citizens be involved in the development of the process of community outcomes. Otherwise there are plenty of councils who could just say what they think or what someone said to a member in the supermarket the other day or in a dairy— 
Moana Mackey 
: Or one of their funders. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: Yes—or what one of their funders donors mates fellow board directors or whoever said to them. Councils could basically make it up and set the community outcomes in a way that would be undemocratic and would shut people out of the democratic process.