Woodhouse Michael: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill(No 2) — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoodhouse Michael: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill(No 2) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13577. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration)on behalf of theMinister of Local Government: I moveThat the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time. The Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2) will amend the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009 to provide powers for local boards to delegate responsibilities allocated to them under that Act. Such powers were initially provided for through transitional regulations. These will expire on 31 October 2013. This bill replicates the expiring provisions and places them into the principal Act.This bill provides a permanent and necessary solution to the issue of local board delegations in Auckland. There are 21 local boards throughout the Auckland region. They have a significant and wide-ranging role that spans most local government services and activities including making decisions about non-regulatory local matters such as negotiating service delivery standards; developing monitoring and implementing local board plans every 3 years and negotiating local board agreements with the governing body; providing local leadership and maintaining effective relationships with the governing body the community and special interest groups; and identifying and communicating the views of their communities on regional strategies policies plans and bylaws to the governing body and the council-controlled organisations.Local boards provide local communities with an important say in how the services and facilities that make their places unique are delivered. They also provide an important opportunity for local concerns and views to have input into the regional decision-making made by the Auckland Council’s governing body. Only two of Auckland’s 21 local board areas have populations fewer than 45000 people. This figure is around the average number of people who live in cities and districts outside of Auckland. Elected bodies serving populations of this size need flexibility in how they structure their decision making. They need to be able to create committees and subcommittees and to delegate appropriate responsibilities to them.Auckland’s local boards are working well. They are contributing effectively to the governance of the whole region and the communities within it. Members of local boards feel empowered and effective in their roles with 88 percent of existing local board members standing again in the 2013 local elections. The success of the local boardmodel has prompted this Government to make it available in a modified form in other parts of New Zealand. Last year’s Local Government Act legislation allowed for the Auckland two-tier model of governance to be copied exactly in some circumstances—that is where a proposed metropolitan unitary authority has a population of more than 400000 but it did not enable this for smaller populations. Further amendments to the Local Government Act this year will provide the ability for local boards to be established more widely where unitary authorities are established through reorganisation or amalgamation.The Local Government and Environment Committee received only one submission on this bill. That submission came from the Auckland Council and supports the legislation as drafted. The submission represents the views of both the governing body and local board chairs and reiterates that local boards need to be able to delegate their powers in order to function effectively. All local boards have made delegations to council officers and most local boards have delegated responsibilities to individual local board members and/or to committees. The unworkable alternative is that all decisions must be taken by a full business meeting of the local board. The select committee reported back that the bill should proceed unamended and I thank the committee for its prompt consideration of the bill.Transitional regulations currently covering local board delegation powers will expire on 31 October 2013. Auckland Council requested that in order for smooth and efficient local board decision-making to continue there should be no time delay in the passing of the bill. It is concerned that without the ability to alter existing delegations after this year’s local elections it is likely that relatively minor decisions will need to be referred to full business meetings. This will cause delay and will impact on service delivery. Given the agreement of all involved and in order to maintain efficient and effective local government in Auckland it is both practical and desirable that the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2) be enacted by 1 November this year. I commend the bill to the House.