Eagle PaulPAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. First of all can I start with an apology. I was just talking with my colleague here the Labour list MP based in Hamilton about how great local government was and we were totally fixated; so I apologise. But look we are here now. I am always proud to come into the House and talk about local government. I can see some former colleagues over there. I'm sure they too will give this a resounding thumbs up. It's been a night of thumbs up and I'm really happy that we got to this before we closed for the evening.This is a bill that you usually do at a time when you think What else can we do to make things better?" I want to praise the local government Minister the Hon Nanaia Mahuta for taking the time out to say "Look let's fix those things that local government have been asking to be fixed for many many years." I'd say "nine long years" but that might be a bit mean. Anyway can I say that this takes care of those inconsistencies—the gaps the errors the maintenance stuff of at least seven Acts related to local government. And I just want to talk about a few of them.One is the Local Electoral Act 2001. We know that there's a bill going through the House now but what this will do is make the facilitation of participation mandated. It's important we do that. Some of you may not know that unlike in central government where the orange person comes out it's a centralised campaign and the promotions go out in local government it's localised. Every council does their own thing. Some councils do better than others but I know in this city the great city of Wellington you get roughly 40 percent of people voting. I don't know how that compares with other parts of New Zealand but that's not good enough. I think that to get facilitation mandated to get more people participating is a great thing.There's another small but important thing too and this relates to that modernisation that this Government wants to do. It's making sure that public notices are not placed only in newspapers. It's a bit of a pain when you go through a newspaper and all the public notices are bunged at the back but what this piece of work this bill says is that they must be published on the internet too. So you still retain the printing in the newspaper but you'll put it on the internet as well. That also connects to the future which won't see local governments having to be lumbered with big documents. The long-term plan the annual reports the annual plans—some are probably about this thick or that thick. Now it can all just go on the internet. So I'm really proud that councils are not going to have to be lumbered with producing these documents many because they have to now they can go online and they can produce just enough for what they need.There's also going to be some clarity around the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987. That's really around the notification of extraordinary or emergency meetings. In the past these meetings have been held without the need to notify properly. They can have them; councils can make decisions quickly. The concern here is and the feedback's been let's make sure we get communities notified that these are going to happen. So there will be a requirement that those too will have to go up on the internet as well. As I said small changes but very very important. Likewise the Rates Rebate Act 1973—we've already made some of those changes but inadvertently it's come to light that there have been some changes which exclude residents with a particular or previously unknown occupation agreement. This corrects that and I want to say that what we have here is just a range of small but very important things.One of the more interesting things is the Dog Control Act 1996 also. What this will do is make sure—I mean really it's just some wording changes to say "Look here's a list of organisations that are authorised to certify disability assistance dogs." Those will simply be updated and added to the list. So the schedule may be amended by an Order in Council approved by the local government Minister in consultation with the disability issues Minister but now there'll be one list of approved organisations ensuring that that list stays up to date.I just want to applaud the Minister as I said at the start for taking the time and going through a whole range of Acts. This is part of this Government's commitment to giving local government more powers modernising the way they do things and ensuring that when they carry out their business it's a whole lot easier to do the things that they need to do. I'm really proud that what we'll see with some of these changes is that they will enable the work that's going through or has already gone through this House to make some real changes. When we look at the Local Electoral Act you can already do online voting now but what the changes that come through in a different bill are to give effect to will enable trials to take place online. I'm really happy that some of the things that were started by the previous Government—that yes this Government will actually make sure they happen. And they will happen with the protections in place so that local authorities know that if they want to carry out a trial online or if they want to do something it's not going to come at a reputational risk for that city that district or that region. So a real thumbs up there.I want to go back to some of the work that local government also does around just producing publications. I've said that what you'll see is that no longer will they have to submit the work but what this gives is an indication to local government that they can carry out their work knowing that the cost to ratepayers won't be going in to all that printing or that unnecessary cost around distribution. For those smaller councils that find this a necessity it will mean that they won't need to pay the money or be lumbered with the costs of doing some of this work. I think notification of things like the extraordinary meetings is key also. And I can say to that: in a previous life being able to easily do things because the law allows you to do that but without carrying out that "requirement" I guess is the word to engage with your citizens and do that properly—that can now no longer be done. What that does is set up the transparency and democratic processes a whole lot better.I'm really proud that we've got this to the House. I'm also proud that I think we'll get a unanimous vote on this. So I commend this to the House."