Dean JacquiHon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's with pleasure that I lend my thoughts to the COVID-19 Response (Further Management Measures) Legislation Bill. In particular I want to focus on the clauses as they relate to local government. But first before I do that I would like to thank and acknowledge the work that the Government has done over the past nearly six weeks and that's all encompassing for all Ministers and also to widen out my acknowledgment to all members of this House who from their homes in isolation and their bubbles in isolation have kept up particularly the pastoral care work which is an important part of an MP's role. It seems that just reaching out at the end of a telephone line to an individual somewhere in the electorate or in New Zealand is a really good way of connecting at the moment. If we can do anything more than provide information and reassurance then I would say that we have all been gainfully occupied in this time and will continue to do so for some time.So this COVID-19 Response (Further Management Measures) Legislation Bill does make a number of amendments to a number of bills. I want to focus my attention as I said on local government. To add context to that I want to say that on 24 March this year as I was going into the fruit and vege shop for the last time in what will probably be more than a month or so I got a phone call from a former parliamentary colleague now Mayor of Northland the Hon John Carter who alerted to me and raised the issue with me the future of local government within COVID and after the COVID epidemic has been brought under control and that is the impact on local government funding.What the Hon John Carter raised with me is that he knew the day before we went into lockdown—as no doubt a number of mayors and CEs knew—that local government revenue would be badly impacted. John Carter raised with me commercial rates that businesses would be struggling and unable to honour their rents sometimes and that therefore the commercial landlord would then be unable in some instances to honour their rate obligations. John Carter had done some calculations about the impact that would potentially have on his district council and I imagine that district councils all throughout New Zealand were doing the same sort of calculations about the impact on revenue—not only from rates revenue but also fees and charges development contributions and so on. And such has come to pass. The conversation very quickly turned to the issue of rate increases. Should it be a zero rate increase—very attractive in some quarters? Should it be a managed rate increase? Should that expenditure be more targeted towards recovery—more targeted towards infrastructure? So there's been a lot of thinking in local government all around New Zealand on just how they were going to respond to the COVID-19 epidemic and what their response was going to be.This legislation makes several amendments to the Local Government (Rating) Act to the Local Electoral Act and to the Local Government Act which are set out in the bill. I'm not going to go through every one. Some of them are practical and sensible. Jan Logie the previous speaker mentioned a few of them. Timing milestones which are set in statute for by-elections have been given greater flexibility for carrying out their by-elections. There is one current by-election currently under way. There will be allowance to fill extraordinary vacancies on councils as they arise from time to time. I think what is probably quite undervalued but a very useful amendment is that there is a clause which removes the requirement to publish a notice in the newspaper. Those of us who have been around legislation for a while know that there have been amendments in a number of statutes where public notices are required to widen out that requirement to wider than just a notice in the newspaper. As we know a number of newspapers still cannot publish and particularly in smaller communities. Those small community newspapers are the very place where people do see public notices but now due to this bill those local authorities can use other forums. I think a happy consequence of that is that people who do take notice of public announcements will get used to perhaps following councils websites as a good source of information for them.The only clauses that give National members a little cause for concern are those that allow for consultation to be limited on current long-term plan changes. Normally there is a prescribed consultation process for LTPs long-term plan change processes and due to the nature of timing and the limitations on consultation we find ourselves in now there are clauses in this bill to limit that consultation provided that the Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) provides a report on the changes within the LTP proposed changes. That is a good measure. But there is a concern that there are clauses where because of the timing—where waiting for a report from the OAG would prevent a change in an LTP if it had to take effect before 30 June this year which is not a long way away; it's something like seven weeks away—it will then be acceptable for the LTP to go through without an Auditor-General report but the report must state that there has been no OAG oversight and state the reason why. I understand that fail-safe. I understand the reason for it but as my colleague and spokesperson for Auckland local government Denise Lee pointed out in a conversation to me last evening Auckland Council for example is dealing with a very large annual budget. For scrutiny of any changes of any kind where in legislation consultation is prescribed any change to that should be done rarely and reasonably. So that is one of the clauses—the only clause to be fair in the local government part of this bill—where National does have some concerns.So I will just about conclude my contribution by just saying to the local government sector that the local government sector may be at home in their bubbles mayors and chief executives may be zooming their meetings instead of having them in person and councils may be meeting with or without their pants on—David Benson-Pope Dunedin City Council today; most unusual—but none the less business is still being done communities are still being minded and I commend and congratulate them for that.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Ginny Andersen. Well it is a split call. This is the next split call.