Lee DeniseDENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a call on the first reading here of the Local Government (Community Well-being) Amendment Bill. The primary objective of this bill is to redefine the purpose of local government so as to promote the social economic environmental and cultural well-being of communities. These principles are referred to—and some would know them as—the four well-beings and anyone who has experience with local government would know that up until 2012 the purpose of local government as defined by legislation back then was actually the promotion of these well-beings.Amongst other things this was changed under the last Government as part of their wider local government reform. So what this bill is doing here tonight is actually just undoing the work of the last National Government and going back to the old system. The issue with using these four well-beings is not about their intentions. And I say this deliberately. I can understand that the recognition of the four well-beings is important and that councils are likely to be supportive of the change but the issue is that they appear to many people to be unfocused and untargeted. That's the perception problem. So I urge the Government to seriously reconsider whether these changes tonight will actually lead to better results for local councils and the people that they represent instead of the system that we have and I'm going to explain why.What we have at the moment is a system that is essentially breaking down the purpose of local government into three major functions. One is providing local infrastructure second is local public services and the third is the performance of regulatory functions—so very key and concise and very committed functions. They're relatively simple and it may seem to restrict councils at first glance from considering the wider issues or the services that do contribute to the general well-being of a community. However we have seen that since these changes were made in 2012 there has not been a massive shift in the behaviour or the direction of local government bodies. These new directives back in 2012 have not been the handcuffs on councils that the Government is portraying them as.So what the current definition actually does is keep councils grounded. It gives clarity as to what their core role is what their core services should be and prioritising and it gives them accountability to their ratepayers who expect these services to be delivered to a high expectation. So if we lined up ratepayers tonight and asked for their opinions where they'd land in regard to the purpose of local government I'd say the words core" and "cost-effective" would come to mind. So too do the words "If it ain't broke don't fix it."I wasn't around in 2012; I wasn't a councillor then either. But there seems to be a fascination with wording and terminology. I've been told that there were concerns by territorial local authorities over the years that there'd be consequences should they stray out of the 2012 definition but to the best of my knowledge there have been no transgressions no hiccups—in fact it's been business as usual for local government. So what is the problem that's trying to be solved here?The purpose of local government as proposed by this bill does have one glaring omission that I want to pay attention to and that is the explicit removal of any reference to cost-effectiveness or value for money. The local government sector is responsible for such a massive sum of money that it's quite often overlooked and so I first want to give a proper context of the scale involved. In 2017 the combined national rates bill—the total paid by households and businesses up and down the country—was more than $5.5 billion in 2017. Local government has the obligation to the people that fund it to make sure that they use funds in the most cost-effective way. The tax burden on families and businesses for council spending has increased at a rate close to four times the rate of inflation and now represents a massive 3 percent of New Zealand's GDP. The national rates bill has more than doubled since 2002 going from $2.6 billion to $5.5 billion. That's a 141 percent increase. Delivery of core services has a big price tag to it and so the public of New Zealand should easily be able to see why the last Government was trying to get accountability in place.Another key part of this bill that we're opposing is the relaxing of requirements on how councils can use development contributions. Development contributions go to the council and under the current system must be used to pay for costs of infrastructure directly related to development: the waste-water system roading networks and other infrastructure that facilitates and contributes to a growing housing supply. What this bill does is turn the important funding tool a levy on housing developers and has them as contributors to community infrastructure: swimming pools libraries and museums. The bill will let councils pass on the costs of community assets to the housing developers but in reality it's not going to be the developers that actually pay for these. All it's going to do is drive up the cost of housing when these costs are passed on to the first-home buyer the renters and the entire housing market. So despite all the talk that we've heard from this Government about a housing crisis and KiwiBuild and about their grand plan to build thousands of affordable homes they've put together a piece of legislation that will actively make the housing market more restrictive.We are opposed to this bill and I know from experience in the local government space that local government lives in an age of quite severe public scrutiny and scrutiny of its processes and it's a difficult space for many councils. Auckland Council—and that's where I was before I came to this role here—has by its own admission trust ratings that have plummeted. Independent surveys very much quantify that. So what local government does not need at this point in time is accusations that it's getting away the perception that it's getting away from core roles of providing local infrastructure local public service and local regulatory functions and that if they do the cost will end up being borne by the ratepayer. This is not what local government needs at this point in time.So the Government should be very careful about messaging in the local government space right now. The regional fuel tax issue has gone down like a lead balloon and the lending of weight to this kind of legislation will not win over ratepayers. For that reason we are opposed to this bill and we caution the Government for some very sensitive local government messaging at this point in time."