Twyford Phil: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Twyford Phil: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 27 November 2012. Volume:686;Page:6824. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 I would like to talk a little bit about clause 3 “Principal Act” of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill because I think this is an opportunity to reflect a little bit about the Local Government Act 2002 which in its time was quite an ambitious experiment. It was an initiative to modernise our legislative framework for local government. There is no doubt that it introduced a much more expansive role for local government and at the same time it imposed some pretty rigorous and pretty heavy accountabilities on local government. 
I think that if we look back over the last decade you would have to agree that local government has changed the way it works in our country. Local government has become much more engaged with the community and much more consultative and I think most people would agree that that is a good thing. The introduction of the four well-beings into local government really gave councils up and down this country the mandate to seriously try to ascertain the aspirations and the needs of their communities and to address them. On this side of the Chamber we would argue that that was a good and a progressive thing. 
We do not hold to the view even though it was a Labour piece of legislation that the Local Government Act was perfect. In fact it is our policy that it is time for a review of that Act and that in fact some of the requirements for planning and consultation are actually pretty heavy and bureaucratic. It is our policy that it would be a good time now to do a review of the legislation to see how it could be streamlined—some of those bureaucratic demands on councils reduced and councils freed up to do what they should do in the interests of their communities. But what this bill does is nothing of the sort. It is an attack on communities it is an attack on their democratic rights and it fundamentally undermines a very important part of our system of government and that is the local authorities. 
I think this is the time really to reflect on what is good and useful about the Local Government Act 2002. You know I think back to when Rodney Hide was the Minister of Local Government in the previous term. He set out with great ambitions. In fact he used much of the political rhetoric that the Hon Nick Smith has used over the last year or so but Rodney Hide was at least honest enough having spent a year in the portfolio travelled around the country and spent time with mayors councillors and chief executives to acknowledge that he had not understood local government properly. He acknowledged a lot of the worth of local government and what it does. His ill-conceived Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill really got wound right back until finally the main thing in it was that it made it easier for councils to privatise their water supply for up to 35 years. But in fact all the great ambitions that he had to take a knife to local government and go down the agenda of rates capping in core services came to nothing partly because many of the Tory mayors all around New Zealand actually beat a path to the National Cabinet and said “This is ridiculous. What are you trying to do?”. 
Andrew Little 
: Those were the days when they listened. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: That is right. This second-term National Government has none of Rodney Hide’s intellectual honesty. All that it is left with is Nick Smith’s craven populism and unfortunately the bill that we have got in front of us today reflects that. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Raven or craven? 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: Craven. Last week I was with a large group of mayors and chief executives from councils around New Zealand—provincial and rural mayors and chief executives. They told me that they had been following the debate on this bill in the House and they were disgusted by the speeches and by the interventions of the National Party members. They thought that not only had National not bothered to have the Minister in the House to front the bill—it put up the C-team—but the speeches were all slogans all superficial populism and really were just mounting ill-founded attacks on local government and failing to justify this bill. 
This debate is also about the title clause. There are a number of options that I think we should consider for this bill. One of them I think is a title that came from one of the submitters who came along to the Local Government and Environment Committee who said “This is a fantastic example of policy-based evidence-making.” I think that really sums up Nick Smith’s approach to governance and leadership. There is a lot of talk in this whole process about the evidence base but in fact this reform process and this bill is a classic example—it is a howler—of policy-based evidence-making. That former Minister makes it up as he goes along. He is the “Minister of Shonky Numbers” and this bill should be called the “Local Government (Policy-based Evidence-making) Bill”. 
It also could be the “Stripping Democratic Rights From Local Communities Bill”. We said it in the first reading and we will say it again now. This bill takes away not only the democratic rights of local communities to have their say—to be consulted or to have their views ascertained by unelected public servants—but also the right that they enjoy as New Zealand citizens right now to have a say in a binding referendum about whether their elected council should be amalgamated with a neighbour or taken out of existence. That is a fundamental democratic right that this bill takes away and no matter how many times Jacqui Dean and the other members on the National benches say that this bill enhances grassroots democracy it is clear that it does nothing of the sort. 
It could also be called the “Rats Roads and Rubbish Bill” because that old cliché about local government basically sums up the National Party’s philosophy on local government. The National Party is 40 years behind all of the international thinking about what makes successful cities and successful communities. Where an elected Government should have an expansive role and a joined-up approach to economic development to social cohesion— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Expansive sounds expensive. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: —and to social well-being it wants to strip back local government to its bare essentials. Nick Smith sits there and he continues to witter away about rates and local council debt. He obviously has not been listening to all the commentators and all the submitters who came along and demolished his claim that somehow local government is out of control. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: What about Business New Zealand? What about Federated Farmers? 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: Well how about the Minster’s own regulatory impact statement by Department of Internal Affairs officials? How about the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research report saying that the councils are fiscally responsible? There are so many commentators and so many thinktanks that actually laid the data on the table at the select committee that made a nonsense of Nick Smith’s claims. I am amazed that the member has the gall to come to the House and show his face when this bill is being debated. 
It should also be called I think—if there is one last candidate for the name of this bill—the “Cheap Populism Bill” because this is not good governance. This is not quality legislation. This is a sham by the Hon Nick Smith who is trying to project the idea to ratepayers around New Zealand that he is their knight in shining armour. 
 Not only is this bill based on a lie which has been conclusively proved at the select committee and in the public debate but also there is nothing in this bill that will make a blind bit of difference to rates. It is based on a completely false promise. Not only is it based on a lie in the suggestion that councils are out of control and doing all these non-core activities and that is the cause of the increased spending and increased council debt but actually even if you accept that there is increased council debt for whatever reason this bill will do nothing about it. There is nothing in here—changing the purpose statement introducing graduated ministerial intervention or taking away the democratic rights of local communities in a situation where councils are being reorganised or amalgamated—that will make a difference to the rates burden. I believe that this Government will live to regret an ill-advised local government reform agenda that will do damage—serious damage—to the ability of councils to serve their communities and meet their aspirations.