Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. It is not a surprise that this Labour Government brings another bill to the House under urgency where a problem that's been identified—Hon Members: We're not under urgency.SIMON COURT: Well you want it resolved urgently with a truncated select committee referral so that's what you're asking for.It's not a surprise to the ACT Party or to the New Zealand voters that this Government seeks an urgent response to a piece of legislation to fix a problem that it's known about for a very long time. That is the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill which gives candidates in the upcoming local body elections the right to withhold their residential address and instead provide an email address or a business address or some other way of being contacted. And that's fair enough.The reasons that have been given by both Labour and other parties is that the Government believes it's important to do this to actually reduce the threshold for candidates who might want to stand but are afraid of sharing their personal information like their residential address. And I understand why a lot of people might feel like that because only a few short months ago there were many many people protesting in front of this Parliament who were making threats against elected members. So it's a visceral and emotional issue to many of the members of Parliament here who understand very clearly what that feels like—the thought that somebody would attack your electoral office or make threats against elected members. So we understand why the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill has been proposed and that is to give candidates in the local body elections the privacy of withholding their residential address.But there's one thing I want to point out to the Government members in the Chamber today and to the Minister who sponsored this bill: anybody who's on the electoral roll has to provide their name and address and that is available for anybody to look up right now. So if I was a candidate standing not for the ACT Party in the local body elections but say for the Cat Party" the party that loves cats—and if you've ever picked up who my candidates are in the local body elections you would be able to find a candidate who swears that they love cats more than people and that's why they're campaigning for representation in local government: they're standing up for the cats. So if I was standing for the "Cat Party" and my name was Simon "Miaow-Court" I wouldn't have to give my residential address I wouldn't have to on my advertising but anybody who wanted to know where I lived could simply look me up—Simon "Miaow-Court"—on the electoral roll and they would find my address.So like so many of the pieces of legislation that this Labour Party has brought to Parliament in the 18 months I've been a member of Parliament it doesn't really fix the problem of encouraging better quality candidates to stand for office. In fact it was only a few short weeks ago that another Labour Party member—Tangi Utikere a former deputy mayor of Palmerston North council—brought his Local Government (Pecuniary Interests Register) Amendment Bill to Parliament and that was intended so that people who are standing as candidates or who are elected to local government have to list all of their pecuniary interests.DEPUTY SPEAKER: And that bill has already been through the House.SIMON COURT: That's right Mr Speaker.DEPUTY SPEAKER: No no. You come to this bill or your call will be over.SIMON COURT: So coming back to the bill if we want better candidates to stand for office of course allowing them to preserve the privacy of where they live may be one matter that helps although there are many many other things that may encourage better people to stand for local government. If we think what kind of candidates we might want there are people who employ people people who run local businesses—landlords for example; people who house others in their local community. We might want them to stand and to be represented in local government. And I can guarantee to the Labour members in this House this evening that it wouldn't be withholding their residential address that would prevent them from seeking an election in the local body elections. It would be more likely that all of their pecuniary interests would have to be listed and that that might well be a barrier to them wanting to stand.And we also need to consider that actually the objectives that central government has set for local government are so conflicting that if you were to stand for election as a local candidate to a local board to a community board or to your city council or district council you would find on day one having been elected on a particular platform—unless you were a member of the Labour Party and you had signed up to support every single policy that the Labour Party proposed—in other words you weren't really a candidate for your local constituents; you were simply a vehicle or a voice for Labour policy which is what we found out about so many local elected members mayors and councillors over the past year or so. They haven't said boo about the policies that this Government has introduced that are wrecking their communities whether it's the Government policy statement on transport which is encouraging local councils to take up parking and paint streets blue if you want—better candidates it's not good to ask them to sign up to stuff like wrecking town centres and wrecking local businesses.If we want healthy local economies and thriving communities we actually need to set better policy at a central government level that local people can actually deliver when they're elected. So conflicting objectives like taking out parking and pursuing climate change goals that are really only the preserve of central government through the emissions trading scheme don't help foster better candidates; they only cause confusion for people voting in local body elections and definitely lead to a whole lot of extremely confused candidates whether they're supporting cats' rights or claiming that they're going to solve climate change by taking out parking outside local businesses in favour of cycleways for example.So look the ACT Party will support this bill. We will support this bill because we think it's important that people who are nervous or unsure about campaigning to become a candidate in their local body elections and didn't realise that their name and address is already available on the electoral roll—if this is the only threshold the only thing that's going to stand in their way of overcoming their internal emotional concerns about whether they should stand for the "Cat Party" or maybe become a Labour candidate in local government then you know we would say that look if this is the one thing that stands in your way then that's fine ACT won't oppose it. We'll support it at first reading. But let's be honest this is yet another piece of legislation that the Labour Government has brought to this House that won't really have much of an effect—except around the margins if at all; you'll never be able to prove it—but makes them feel good. So we'll let the Labour Party and the Labour Government feel good today. ACT will support this piece of legislation."