Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Chair. I want to continue this line of questioning of the Minister because one of the most concerning aspects of this Schedule is the degree to which local councils can of their own volition seek to hear from the people by virtue of a referendum. The bill has been as articulated by the Minister promoted as an effective veto on a referendum request—that is the council has determined that a Māori ward is appropriate for their territorial authority; a petition has been signed by a minimum number of people triggering a referendum under the current Act; and therefore that referendum would be set aside under this legislation. What it also does is where the authority decides that they want to hear from the people that they have no strong view except to have the people determine the manner in which the council is established—that process too is extinguished by this Schedule. So my question to the Minister is quite simply this: if not by that process how will an authority get an appropriate legitimate gauge of what its ratepayers—its constituents—actually want to occur?We live in modern times; we hear a lot about how polls can be conducted—the ubiquitous influence of social media—but frankly the only way to test the will of the people is to ask them and the Schedule as I read it in clause 6 basically says if the territorial authority or regional council has resolved that that's the best way to address the question there is no possibility that that question can be answered by a referendum. So regardless of what one thinks about the merits or otherwise of the specific configuration of wards the bigger concern is that when a council wants to hear from its people in an objective measurable poll-able referendum how can it do that? So I want the Minister to address this very important issue because regardless of whether we believe that we're extinguishing the rights of the people to have their say when the referendum is requested by the people this is the reverse—this is the council going out to its ratepayers and saying We think this is something that you should tell us about" and they're now not going to be able to tell us. It's a fundamental principle of our democracy.Now there are a number of other concerns about the degree to which the majority might impose its will but there are a number of authorities around the country where the make-up of that constituency could have a very high proportion of Māori or Pasifika or Chinese or other ethnicities. There could be a number of elements that a council may wish to impose that it is legislatively statutorily prevented from doing. The manner of the election process is actually something that the people should have a say on as well whether it's the STV or first past the post. That's a discussion that's going on in the city of Dunedin right now about whether STV is actually the right process. There is a statutory process for determining that and clause 6 of this Schedule is now going to prevent as I read it an authority from being able to ask that very question of its people. Is that not the very essence of democracy? Yes OK let's debate the merits of whether—is it 15 percent or 5 percent of the authority is able to trigger the referendum on Māori wards?Christopher Luxon: 5 percent.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: 5 percent—thank you Mr Luxon. But when it's pushed out the other way when a council in its considerations of how best to re-elect its representatives wants to go and ask the people it's now being prevented from doing so.So I want to hear from the Minister. This is a really important constitutional question of how we engage with its people. There is a concern particularly in local councils that its ratepayer base is being increasingly disengaged. Voter turnout in local elections is low and dropping. This isn't going to make it any better. I want to hear from the Minister."