Twyford Phil: Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 12 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11092. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū):So what is this bill the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill about? The bill seeks to address illegalities in the setting of rates by the Kaipara District Council. The context for this is that the Kaipara District Council entered into loans to pay for a waste-water treatment plant at Mangawhai which was worth substantially less than what was paid for it. In doing that the Kaipara District Council incurred an $80 million debt for its ratepayers and the consequence of that is that the ratepayers of Kaipara District Council and particularly the ratepayers of Mangawhai have been saddled with an unsupportable debt. The upshot for everyone here who am I sure pays their rates bill every month or every quarter is that ratepayers in Mangawhai who were paying say $2000 a year for their rates are now paying up to $6000 a year for their rates. That is the impact on the ratepayers of Mangawhai. Is it any wonder that they are ropeable about this situation?What this bill does this validation bill is set out to regularise to validate decisions that were made by the Kaipara District Council that I would submit based on the speech of the member sponsoring this bill Mike Sabin were variously illegal mismanaged incompetent and negligent if not corrupt. It should not surprise this House that the people of Mangawhai are ropeable about this situation. So what is to be done? The previous speaker Nicky Wagner talked about how difficult it is for the commissioners and how difficult it is for the current Kaipara District Council.I think that the underlying sense in much of this debate is that someone has to pay this debt. If it is not going to be the people of Mangawhai and the people of Kaipara District Council is it to be the rest of the taxpayers in New Zealand? Is that what should happen? I think most people would say: “Well I’m not sure that the rest of the taxpayers in New Zealand should be bailing out the people of Kaipara because the elected councillors and officials of Kaipara District Council made a series of appalling decisions on their behalf.”The Mangawhai Residents and Ratepayers Association has carried out a rates strike. That is what has brought this bill to the House. That is why the commissioners are unable to go about their business and achieve their task of sorting the finances out and getting the council back on track. The reason that the Mangawhai Residents and Ratepayers Association opposes this bill the reason it does not want to see a validation is that that will completely undermine any leverage it has in trying to engineer another kind of solution. What would it like to see? It would like to see a deal brokered that involved extracting payment from the auditors Audit New Zealand as Mike Sabin was saying which inexplicably repeatedly signed off the most bizarre decisions and financial commitments and claims made against the former councillors and against the chief executive and staff of the council.It is the view of the Mangawhai Residents and Ratepayers Association that its leverage to get some kind of burden-sharing solution will be undermined by this validation bill and I think that is a reasonable position to take. I think it is incumbent on this House and on the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider from a public policy sense what a fair and reasonable solution to this problem is regardless of whether as Nicky Wagner just told the House those matters are outside the scope of this bill. This bill has been brought to the House by the commissioners so that they can do the job they were tasked to do by the Government but I think there is a moral obligation on the House to consider what a fair ethical and enduring solution is for the people of Kaipara district and particularly the people of Mangawhai.I question whether or not it is fair that this solution should proceed before the Auditor-General has reported and before the High Court action has been allowed to run its course. I think those are reasonable questions to ask. So there are many questions surrounding this bill. Labour supports the bill’s referral to the Local Government and Environment Committee but we do so with reservations.