Beaumont Carol: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill(No 2) — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBeaumont Carol: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill(No 2) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13589. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): Can I also wish everybody a happy Women’s Suffrage Day including yourself Mr Deputy Speaker and start on this Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2) by—as another speaker has already done but I want to do as well—personally acknowledging the first woman mayor of the British Empire Elizabeth Yates who was the mayor of Onehunga. I work in that electorate. I am a list MP based in the Maungakiekie electorate where Elizabeth Yates was the first woman mayor of the British Empire. It is a great achievement and in fact it was in the same year that women won the right to vote in New Zealand that she was elected mayor—so 120 years ago. She is buried in St Peter’s Church graveyard in the middle of Onehunga. So I think that is an important thing to acknowledge here on Women’s Suffrage Day.As others have said this is a technical bill and we do support it. It was reported back unchanged from the Local Government and Environment Committee where only one submission was received and that was from the Auckland Council which sought the change. But I do want to reinforce what others have said: that the reason we are here is that the Government pushed through under urgency the Auckland Council legislation—and I remember it well; I debated it late into the night with many others—without having adequate consultation without getting it right and with many matters still left up in the air not least of which was the issue of the power of local boards.What this bill does is sort out a potential problem which is the very important matter of allowing local boards to be able to delegate responsibilities to individuals and to committees. This is important so they can go about their job because as others have noted what are called local boards in Auckland which are part of the Auckland Council are in fact organisations dealing with substantial numbers of people. They are the same size generally as the average district or city outside Auckland so they are large. Only two of the 21 Auckland local boards have populations of fewer than 45000 people. So these are not small organisations. They need the power to delegate to get on and do their job.The bill actually also identifies the things that they are not able to delegate which it should do particularly things like communicating the interests of people in the local boards’ areas in relation to strategies policies plans and by-laws and they are not allowed to delegate the ability to promote propose amend confirm modify or to revoke a by-law adopt a local board plan and so on. So we have no question about any of that. That is fine but it is a result of the process that created the Auckland Council which was the process around the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act.I just thought I would talk a little bit about the local board in my area because others have mentioned that there still remains some uncertainty and I think that is true. Boards were not given clear powers in the Auckland Council legislation and there has already been reference made to the work that Judy McGregor and others have done in looking at the state of local government in Auckland. It is fair to say that it is a work in progress that the local boards have been established and that they have gone about trying to do their job. The local residents have tried to figure out what their job is and slowly people are getting a better understanding of it but it is certainly not all sorted.In the area I work in there is a board that has two subdivisions. It is the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board. I want to acknowledge the work that it does. I think residents in the area are slowly getting a better understanding of that work. But the board has been involved with others in the community around the Onehunga foreshore project the Glen Innes Music and Arts Centre increased funding for community grants and community events the improved Onehunga Mall the carpeting of fields inWaikaraka Park the Mount Wellington War Memorial Reserve and a range of other things.So I want to acknowledge the board members: Simon Randall Bridget Graham Brett Clark Josephine Bartley ChrisMakoare AlanVerrall and until the elections Leila Boyle who is not standing again. They have done a good job. Housing is one issue that is important in our area and I just want to particularly acknowledge the work the board has done around a housing warrant of fitness. The local board has actually put up a proposal to improve the quality of rental housing in the board’s area and to look at getting better outcomes for tenants. It is an area of high deprivation or part of the area is. This warrant of fitness scheme will be the first of its kind in the country and I want to commend it for that work.