Roche Denise: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Roche Denise: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 12 June 2012. Volume:680;Page:2860. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENISE ROCHE (Green) 
: 
 I rise to take the Green Party call to oppose the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill. I was going to list everything I could think of that was wrong with it but actually I do not have time. But I will go into some of the problems that we see with it. This bill seeks to emasculate local government. Its overall intention is to reduce the ability of councils to respond to their communities. It seeks to wrest away the power they currently hold and give it to someone else. It seeks to force amalgamations of local authorities enhance the powers of the Local Government Commission and remove the democratic right of the people most affected by local government to have a say on it.  
I can give you firsthand experience of what this feels like. I am a survivor of the forced amalgamation in Auckland and actually— 
Paul Goldsmith 
: Me too. 
DENISE ROCHE 
: There are several others in the room. I acknowledge former city councillor Paul Goldsmith. I acknowledge former North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams. I acknowledge Sam Lotu-Iiga and I also acknowledge the former mayor John Banks.  
My community Waiheke Island was absolutely livid about the removal of our right to choose whether we wanted to be part of the super-city amalgamation. I do not care what the Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye said about empowering. That is not what happened. We were disempowered in Auckland. Our rights were taken away from us and it was her Government that did it.  
We know from an experience like Waiheke’s that local government or any type of democracy really works best when the people know their local representatives when they can eyeball them in the supermarket and chew their ear off and make them accountable. That is how they get to be engaged in their communities. When people do that they are actively participating in local decision-making and that is when we get real democracy. We need that to happen more not less.  
Nearly a third of all New Zealand voters did not bother to vote at the last general election. Contrast that with the fact that about a quarter of the submissions on the super-city amalgamation legislation came from 0.8 percent of the 1.4 million people in Auckland—they came from the Hauraki Gulf that 0.8 percent. They are active and engaged. Their concern and the concern we share about this bill is that the “local” is being removed from local government.  
We are concerned that this bill is going to steal the heart out of local government. It wants to remove from the Act the four well-beings. It wants to remove the requirement for councils to provide for the “social economic environmental and cultural well-being” of communities. Those words were a huge breakthrough in 2002. They underpinned a whole bunch of things that councils with heart do and they do it in a very cost-effective manner. They recognise that local government has a role to create and support safe vibrant and healthy communities. 
 To use the words of David Hay Mr Goldsmith’s good friend and the leader of the Citizens and Ratepayers cabal that was in the former Auckland City Council—and he was the deputy mayor then too—he says that he has “always maintained that councils should focus on rates roads and rubbish”. That is what this bill wants to do. It wants to take everything else away and just focus on that. He was really outraged about libraries because he did not see that councils had a role in educating—like Maggie Barry I guess—or inspiring the people who live in our communities.  
I feel for our local councillors. I am heartened by Local Government New Zealand because its research is accurate research. It can show that over the last 3 years the rates increase has been steady at 2.8 percent of household income; that is all that is being spent on rates. We are prudent financial governors in the local sector and for this Government to disembowel democracy in local government is beyond the pale. It is another move that should be resisted.