Twyford Phil: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18507. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—TeAtatū): Let me follow on from Eugenie Sage in discussing Part 2 which includes some of the schedules that relate to provisions that are about facilitating—as my colleague Su’a William Sio described it—National’s forced amalgamation agenda. The one I want to point to particularly is the amendment to clause 43 in schedule 3 of the Local Government Act 2002 set out in schedule 2 of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3). It sets out the powers of the Local Government Commission in implementing a reorganisation proposal and gives to the Local Government Commission the extraordinary power to impose council-controlled organisations on a newly reorganised local authority. We find that offensive. There is no reason that I have heard—certainly not from Government members—why the hand-picked bureaucrats on the Local Government Commission should be given the power to corporatise the assets services and affairs of a local government authority. Why should they? Why should they have the power to override the democratic will of the people in a local authority area and corporatise them?This is basically the Rodney Hide Auckland model. What Rodney Hide did on behalf of the National Government was to corporatise a good three-quarters of the new Auckland Council and constitute those activities and assets into council-controlled organisations which do most of their business behind closed doors. They are unaccountable and it is a mystery to me why the National Government thinks this is a good idea.I want to speak in support of the Supplementary Order Paper from Su’a William Sio Supplementary Order Paper 460 which would remove this ability from the bill. It makes no sense. There is no justification for it. Why not trust the people of that area? If they choose to corporatise some of their assets and activities into council-controlled organisations—that is a misnomer if ever I have heard one—why not let them do it? Let the elected representatives decide. But no National knows best.Andrew Little: The National Party doesn’t trust them.PHIL TWYFORD: It does not trust the people. It always knows best and as it did in Auckland it steamrollers over the wishes of the local people and it decides. In fact in Auckland Steven Joyce went as far as actually legislating that Auckland Transport must be a council-controlled organisation. He does not trust future generations of elected councillors in Auckland to decide whether they want that particular part of local government activities in the main body of the council or whether they would prefer to see it run as a council-controlled organisation. So we are utterly opposed to that provision. We think it makes no sense at all. In fact it is a retrograde step.I support what William Sio said about the provisions in this bill that essentially reflect a rolling out of the Auckland model such as it is around the rest of New Zealand. Although there is a certain logic to the way local boards fit within the new Auckland Council it is highly questionable whether they are suited to the rest of New Zealand where you have got dispersed and often isolated communities which this National Government wants to forcibly amalgamate into bigger local government units. Those local boards are simply not suited. They have very very constrained powers. When the communities around New Zealand that now enjoy democracy—being able to elect their local representatives and having full decision-making power over the affairs of their communities—are forcibly amalgamated into bigger governance units under this Government and under the provisions of the earlier local government reform bill they will find it unsatisfactory that all they can rely on to express the views of their local community is through having a say on these boards. We are critical of that.I want to come back to the development contributions provisions—various transitional provisions are included in Part 2—to just make the final point that this is classic kicking-the-can-down-the-road National. It pretends to be doing something about development contributions but really it is just kicking the can down the road. With National it is all about managing the politics and the optics of this issue. It is trying to look like it is doing something but it is not doing anything substantial about the problem. It could have done a much more fundamental and thoughtful review—