Yule LawrenceLAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): Thank you Mr Chair and thank you to Minister Twyford for his last explanation. Yes he's correct. I do have some knowledge of the Local Government Act and consultation. I also have some knowledge as to how councils work. I want to make a couple of observations right at the beginning of this contribution. First of all it is very easy to look at Auckland. Auckland is a unitary authority where all the councils were put together under an amalgamation. They have one process. But this bill actually covers every other regional council in New Zealand. There are a number of other unitary authorities like Auckland: Tasman Nelson Gisborne and Marlborough from memory. All the rest are a conglomerate of territorial authorities within a regional council boundary. How local government works in those other areas which are also subject to this legislation is very different to Auckland because they don't always agree.So the regional council has the pre-eminent role of setting up a regional fuel tax but I happen to know—the Hon Stuart Nash also will know this—that territorial authorities don't always agree. Sometimes they actually fight each other. So when you impose a regional fuel tax and you go through consultation as the Minister has said under this special consultative process at the beginning of this you are assuming that for the next 10 years everybody will agree on the priorities and the projects and how it's going to happen.To be honest I think that's naive for the rest of New Zealand. We actually have local body elections every three years. In many cases there are new mayors who come in every three years with mandates to do things differently. I give an example: the Kapiti Expressway. Depending on which person is the mayor they would've made a different decision about where that's going to be and how they support it. So in year one that project is set up on a 10-year plan of funding but in year three a new mayor comes along populates the regional transport committee and seeks to undermine the decision that was made three years ago.Why that's important Minister is that under section 15 of the Local Government Act there is a thing in there called the triennial agreement. It requires every three years for all the councils in an area to agree by 31 May post the local government elections on a whole series of things. I'll go through them: (a) protocols for communication and co-ordination amongst the local authorities; and (b) a statement on the process by which the local authorities will comply with section 16 in respect of proposals for new regional council activities;"—that probably won't apply in this case—"(c) processes and protocols through which all local authorities can participate in identifying delivering and funding facilities and services of significance to more than 1 district." This is clearly that.So my suggestion—and it's tabled in an amendment in my name—is that clause 10(2) be amended and an amendment to the Local Government Act 2002 be made that adds a new section section 15(8) which says that "Local authorities that concurrently exist in a single region (such as territorial and regional authorities) must include a section in the triennial agreement on the management operation and cost sharing of a regional fuel tax scheme under subpart 3 of the Land Management Act 2003."I say that because of my significant years in local government when most people look at the triennial agreement as a piece of paper that is never looked at again that is compliant with the Local Government Act. Up until recently that's all that's been done. How do we apply with the Local Government Act? We will sign the triennial agreement. There is nothing of substance in it. But I believe this is actually significant—10 years of funding commitment on major projects across a region actually requires agreement in the triennial agreement to force every part of that region to comply."