Mark Ron: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMark Ron: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8319. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I really do appreciate the opportunity to take a second call on this small part so that I might finish off the point that I was trying to make earlier on. The point I had got to in my earlier call was around the questions that still hang in our heads as we deliberate on the bill before us right now which we would have put at a select committee hearing and would have been able to have obtained answers to summarised and incorporated into our report and which might then have become the reference material for this debate. But we do not have that. And I am really pleased with the last call that was just taken because it touches very much into the area of what I have just been deliberating on for myself here in the Committee.So some of those questions that would have arisen at the select committee are: did the hearings start in September last year? Exactly how many submissions were received? When did the chairperson start acting outside the Act? What was the Office of the Auditor-General’s view of this? Was the Audit Office aware of it?I know having been a mayor that when the Audit Office comes into a council it does not just go through the books and trace every dollar that the council has spent for the appropriateness of that dollar spent; it traces the processes and the adherence to the statutory obligations and to the legislation of the Local Government Act. So then clearly the Auckland Council has been operating outside the Act and that was known hence the reason we are here today retrospectively making legal its illegal actions.So the questions we would have asked are: what was the Audit Office’s view of this? Could we have a copy of its report? Could we hear its views? What flexibility will be shown to other councils that fail to meet their statutory obligations in such a way or is Auckland to be considered to be a different case and therefore to be treated differently as we are seeing here today? I mean if Carterton was not to meet its obligations and to not take its submissions within the time line or to have confused dates and be telling people “Sorry the closing date was 14 January. Oops sorry we’re wrong. It was actually 28 February.” would that be acceptable?There is a fundamental question that arises around the two closing dates and it is this: how many people who thought the closure date was 14 January 2014 and not 28 February 2014 did not put in a submission when they could have but did not know they could have because they had no knowledge on 14 January 2014 that Parliament would be sitting in urgency on 19 November 2015 to amend the legislation to make their late submission legal and therefore that they could have and should have put it in last January and had it legally accepted?The next question is: what recourse is there for those people who followed the rule realised and said “Hello it’s 14 January. I can’t put a submission in.” and did not put it in? What recourse is there in this part to allow them to appeal and to have their submission accepted now?I have just had a quick glance at the right of appeals under section 155 of the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act. It refers me further to sections 156 and 157 and nowhere in there is there any opportunity for those people who acted in compliance with the law and realised on 14 January they could not put a submission in and did not put one in. Nowhere in this legislation is there an ability for them to get an appeal and in fact the appeals part of the legislation specifically rules them out because you cannot have an appeal on a submission that was never lodged. It is a catch-22 nasty situation that was brought about by fundamentally flawed legislation which is being amended retrospectively now. I think that is unfair and I think at the very least those people deserve the right to have a select committee analyse and scrutinise this bill so there could have been even a minority view putting a different view back to the House.I wait for the debate on the third reading. I think we have canvassed enough through Part 2 to make it very clear that we think this is sloppy we think it is shoddy and we think Auckland has been treated a little bit differently. We would hope the same leniency would be shown by the Office of the Auditor-General and by Parliament to any other territorial authority that is found to be operating its submissions processes outside the law.