Ngaro Alfred: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee[Sitting date: 06 April 2016. Volume:712;Page:10306. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): I would just like to make a couple of responses to that member Denis O’Rourke. I know it is unfortunate that the member was not able to be part of the Local Government and Environment Committee to hear the 17 submissions to read those submissions and to also go through the deliberations the departmental report and the regulatory impact statement as well. I do understand that.Denis O’Rourke: How does the member know I didn’t read them?ALFRED NGARO: What I would like to do is address the issue and if the member would like to listen—he did challenge me to address this issue around the conflict of interest. I would like to read to the member—he can access this. This is from the submission to the Local Government and Environment Committee by the Auckland Council itself Mr O’Rourke. In its submission on page 3 paragraph 11 it clearly states this: “Membership of more than one local board at a time has the potential to create the perception of conflicts of interest as local boards are required to represent local interests in their area. Experience has shown that board members have heavy workloads particularly the full time chairperson role. It is currently possible for a successful candidate to chair one local board and sit as a member of another. Membership of multiple boards potentially reduces the ability of the person concerned to effectively represent the views and preferences of their different local communities.” I know the member may not like it down south in the Mainland but up in Auckland which this bill actually affects—the Auckland Council right—this is from the council itself directly stating this from its submission as well. So I think that goes some way towards addressing the issues that were raised there.I just want to do a couple of things in my closing remarks and hopefully in the closing of this debate. As the member Su’a William Sio talked about I suppose there is this whole issue around the aspect of becoming this big super-city with the seven or eight territorial authorities becoming one. There are some key reasons for that. Particularly for instance the One Auckland Plan creates one single strategic plan—the member will know this; he was previously a councillor for the Manukau City Council—for the region over the next 20 to 30 years. The member will also know—Jenny Salesa: Deputy mayor.ALFRED NGARO: Sorry he was deputy mayor. The member will also remember for instance that there were contentious bidding issues. Let us take the Auckland-Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative for instance. The Manukau City Council and the Auckland Council were trying to build two parts of a road to connect them together and this became a critical issue of concern. So moving to the one super-city was to address issues like this. I hope this is not going to raise an issue for the member. He may want to speak on it. I am only responding just to some of the comments that the member has made. But what it does is it also harmonises—and the member knows—168 current by-laws down to 30 by-laws. So there is a reason around streamlining this in order to be able to have a super-city. It is what we have at the moment but there is a particular reason for that purpose. I know that was raised by the member as well.The member Phil Twyford talked about the fact of why it is just Auckland. I want to remind him of his press release on 21 October 2010. This is how it reads: “Labour proposes amendment to close Flaunty loophole: The Labour Party will move an amendment to the local government law to prevent local board members from sitting on more than one board in the Auckland super city. Labour’s Auckland Issues Spokesperson Phil Twyford said that the case of the West Auckland pharmacist Warren Flaunty sitting on five boards showed that there was a loophole” in their system. I agree with the member; he is absolutely right. The focus is on Auckland in particular—I suppose in Auckland at the moment—and we know the tracking of this. We have got the local body elections coming up. They are happening in October of this year. That was part of the reason for us doing that.The last comment I want to make is to Mr O’Rourke. I hope this does not stir him to stand up again because I think he has made some good contributions that are full and final. [Bell rung] Mr Chair.Denis O’Rourke: Mr Chairman.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Mr Ngaro has called.ALFRED NGARO: He just wants to keep going. My final remark is to Mr O’Rourke who talked about the reason for this bill. He turned round and said: “Let the people choose—let the people choose.” The reality is that Mr O’Rourke and I are here because of a system that was adopted. In 1996 we had the first MMP election. Why? Because first past the post did not give us greater representation inside a House of 121 MPs. So there was a shift in the mood around there. Sometimes we need to change the system to ensure that we have greater representation in the places where we need to have the voices of people around the table of influence so that we can make those decisions. I know that Mr O’Rourke may not like that but that is the reality. I believe that what this bill does—it is only a small bill—is fix a small loophole where we do allow for that representation to exist on those local boards in those local communities that truly make a difference.I conclude with those final remarks. I hope that they are the final remarks anyway that I would like to make to this bill. I do want to thank all the members by the way for their contributions. They have been great. I am happy to take conversations outside in the lobbies if they would like to—maybe not so in the Chamber. But I do want to acknowledge and thank also the chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee the fine member Mr Scott Simpson and all the members who were there as well for their contributions when hearing the submissions. I do commend this bill to the Committee.