Twyford Phil: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8291. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I want to encourage the Minister in the chair Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga to take a call for a couple of reasons. One is that the House is not giving this bill the benefit of a select committee process and there are certain questions—a number have already been raised—that I think deserve an answer from the Minister. I know this is not his bill. He is not the Minister of Local Government; he is not the Minister for the Environment. We heard a bit of a pitch last night in his opening speech which I think was an audition for the role of local government Minister—and he knows about local government. I mean he is a former councillor on the old Auckland City Council. He might even be considering a new career in local government—that is quite possible. I think that it would be good for this debate if the Minister would as H V Ross Robertson used to say get up on his hind legs—Sue Moroney: And “courtesy is contagious.”PHIL TWYFORD: —and “courtesy is contagious”—and answer one or two questions that have been put to him. So I look forward to the Minister taking a call.I want to speak to my tabled amendment to clause 7 but first let me just provide the context. On the question of the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel and appointments to the hearings panel section 161(1) of the principal Act provides that the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Conservation are to establish a hearings panel comprising the chairperson and three to seven members. That section also provides that “Ministers may appoint additional members after the initial appointment of members so long as the total number is no more than 7 members and a chairperson.” So that is the status quo—that is as things stand.What this bill does is it increases the maximum number of members who can be appointed to the panel. Members have already rehearsed the reasons why: we need more flexibility we need more concurrent hearings and therefore a bigger pool of members is going to aid that outcome. But what the bill does through clause 7 is it allows the Ministers to appoint the additional members to a maximum of 10 plus the chairperson only after consulting a number of other people. This is I think where it gets interesting. It says they have got to consult the Auckland Council whose plan it is—the democratically elected representatives of the people of Auckland who have to live with the consequences of this plan—the Independent Māori Statutory Board and the chairperson of the hearings panel.So the first question that I want to ask of the Minister the Hon Sam Lotu-Iiga is: why the Minister of Conservation? Why—why? I mean Maggie Barry has a lot of opinions on a lot of things but is she an expert on urban development? Is she an expert on town planning? Is she an expert on environmental law and the Resource Management Act? I suspect the answer is no.I will just give you a little insight into how much the Minister of Conservation understands about matters of local government and planning. This is the Minister who was recently quoted in the North Shore Times her local rag complaining about the level of spending on public transport by Auckland Council. She was asked whether she uses public transport and she said that well she would but she can never find a car-park at the park-and-ride by the Bayswater ferry—just cannot find a car-park. That is her excuse for not using public transport.Well Heather du Plessis-Allan from TV3’s Story programme went and stepped out the distance between Maggie Barry’s house and the ferry terminal the Bayswater ferry and the distance is fewer than 500 metres. So Maggie Barry the Minister of Conservation whom this bill lays down as one of the two decision makers to appoint the panel—that really shows her affinity with and understanding of local government matters because obviously public transport is a critical factor. So Minister why the Minister of Conservation? I would really appreciate that explanation.If we were running this bill through the normal select committee process we would have the opportunity to ask these questions and the officials would—[Bell rung]The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Oh Phil Twyford.PHIL TWYFORD: So—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): But let us come back to the bill rather than to Ministers walking to ferries.PHIL TWYFORD: Rather than Maggie Barry?The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Rather than Ministers walking to ferries.PHIL TWYFORD: Yes OK. So that was my first question: why is the Minister of Conservation one of the decision makers? I mean I can understand why you would have the Minister for the Environment being a decision maker. What my tabled amendment does is it would require the decision to be made jointly by the Minister for the Environment representing the executive central government and the Mayor of Auckland who is someone who has arguably the biggest electorate of voters in the country and who is elected at large across the entire region and is accountable to the people of Auckland. Why not make it a joint decision and reflect the spirit of partnership that we have heard in some of the brief contributions from Government members in this debate?It was interesting to hear Joanne Hayes say: “Oh this is a good bill. Basically it allows local councils to get on with their job.” Well that is not a philosophy we have heard articulated from Government members any time in the last 7 years. What we have seen—and Ron Mark spoke about this earlier in this debate—is that local government has been the sort of whipping boy of choice for the National Government for the entire last 7 years. The decision in the principal legislation to have central government appointing all of the members of the panel typified the kind of “Government knows best”—running Auckland from its luxury offices in Wellington because the Government knows best and it does not really care even though it is the people of Auckland who have to live with this plan and live with the consequences.So you can see it actually when you look back through the local government agenda of this Government over 7 years. We had Rodney Hide right through to the way this bespoke planning process for the unitary plan was put in place. The appointment of the commissioners I think is emblematic of this Government’s attitude and I think that it would be if the members opposite are true to their rhetoric about working with Government—and we have already said in this debate that they have been dragged kicking and screaming over the last 7 years finally to some kind of acknowledgment that they have to work with Auckland.The reason that we are supporting this bill is that it is practical. The Auckland Council has asked for these provisions because it wants to get the unitary plan put to bed before the local government elections next year. So this bill is worth supporting for that reason notwithstanding the objections raised by our Green Party colleagues but I would urge the Government to think seriously about this tabled amendment and consider allowing the appointment of the panel members to be made jointly by the Mayor of Auckland and the Minister for the Environment who I think is probably the logical person to do that.It is interesting. In Richard Harman’s blog post this morning he points out that David Seymour who made a contribution earlier this morning in this debate is talking about reopening and reviewing the super-city legislation which really is the platform for any kind of consideration of this debate. The unitary plan is the big kahuna that basically flows on from the establishment of the super-city. It was a bespoke process. They had never really attempted something on this scale—a spatial plan on the scale of the Auckland Unitary Plan—and it would be unkind to say that they are making it up as they along but—Hon Ruth Dyson: They’re making it up as they go along.PHIL TWYFORD: —they are in fact making it up as they go along. And this bill rectifying drafting errors from the earlier legislation validating—and we will talk some more about the retrospective validation clauses later in this debate. It is a kind of a Heath Robinson contraption this whole bespoke process.So I would ask the Committee and particularly the Government members—and I see we have got a new Minister in the chair now the Hon Louise Upston. I would ask her to take a call. We did not hear once from the Minister who preceded her in the chair the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga but I assume she has been briefed. We have not had the benefit of a select committee process. We have not had any substantive—