Wagner Nicky: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWagner Nicky: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 09 April 2014. Volume:697;Page:17067. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central):I am very pleased to be speaking to the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill at its third reading. I would really like to commend the work of Damien O’Connor who is the sponsor of this bill because he makes a very good point. This bill came to the House because of the disputes between the ratepayers and the Tasman District Council and those things could have been dealt with earlier if those parties had been more sympathetic to each other. In the Local Government and Environment Committee we did try. We actually had the council and the ratepayers to the select committee on two occasions and we tried to mediate something because of course again as Damien O’Connor has said Parliament does not like validation legislation. It does not like anything that looks backwards. We like to be positive and look forwards. We have had a rash of validation legislation recently. Unfortunately those bills do come before us and I think really that in this case it was because of errors. There was no malicious intent that led to this situation. In the long term Parliament has to pass this legislation for the public good.What this bill actually does is validate the rates that were set by the Tasman District Council in the period from 2003-04 to 2008-09 and that was a while ago. That was because during that time the council did not follow the correct procedure in setting rates. The bill also validates the rates and penalties paid over that period and authorises the council to recover any unpaid rates. Furthermore it ratifies the Tata Beach and Ligar Bay stormwater rate and that is really the most controversial part of this bill. From 2003-04 to 2008-09 the Tasman District Council passed rates attached to its annual plan rather than ratifying each rate individually and the council set the rates before it had adopted the annual plan. This was a breach of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002. There was also the debate over the consultation and the documentation pertaining to the Tata Beach and Ligar Bay stormwater rate.The Local Government (Rating) Act does provide an avenue for councils to amend incorrectly set rates such as in this case but the window for that time had passed. So unless you do it immediately you have to go through validation legislation. This validation is required in order to allow the council to recover unpaid rates and penalties. Without the validation the council remains vulnerable to legal challenges from ratepayers over incorrectly set rates.As I have said the Tata Beach and Ligar Bay stormwater rate was probably the most controversial area in this bill and it boiled down to a debate between the ratepayers and the council. There was a debate over how the ratepayers should have been rated but that was not the legal situation that led to this bill. Basically what happened was that there was a mistake in the documentation. The process was not followed correctly and when the ratepayers complained they did not get a sympathetic hearing from the council. That escalated. It escalated till they went to the Ombudsman and actually dealt with the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman came back and said that yes the council had made a mistake and then it had to go through all its documentation from the past and all these other areas again came to light. So it was because of the ratepayers and because of this dispute between the ratepayers and the council that this situation came to pass.In this legislation clause 9 is the clause that deals with this rate and the select committee was very sympathetic to the proposals to perhaps delete clause 9 simply because that was what uncovered all the errors. But we found that it was outside the scope of the bill and that it was impossible for us to do. That is why we persevered with trying to come to some arrangement between the council and the ratepayers.One of the key issues that we need to think about in terms of this type of legislation—and I echo the concern of Damien O’Connor about councils working more closely with their ratepayers—is that when you really think about it councils and ratepayers want the same outcomes for themselves. They want to have the same thing. We need good infrastructure and we need good efficient services and that is to underpin a quality of lifestyle in their area. Ratepayers and councils should be working together because after all they are mostly reasonable sensible people and together they can get a better outcome.The Local Government and Environment Committee worked hard on this bill. As I say we have been looking at validation legislation and this was another case that came through. We reflected on the fact that councils do need to be very careful with their documentation and we think that going forward legislation needs to be simpler so that it can be understood. National is very keen to make local government more efficient more responsive and better focused.The other thing that I think is important for this bill is that it will highlight to other councils how important it is that they get their documentation correct. When you look at the errors that were made in this case I am sure there are other councils throughout New Zealand that have probably made similar errors. They need to be very careful about how they do that. I have also heard that there are more validation bills to come to the House.Finally I would like to thank Damien O’Connor for his work. I think this is a very good example of a council that perhaps should have been more careful with its documentation but also should have been more careful with its relationship with its ratepayers. In the end this validation legislation has to be passed so that the council can collect the rates and penalties from during that time and also so that it is not vulnerable to legislation in the future. So I support this bill to the House.