O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): It gives me pleasure to speak. I'd just like to compliment the previous speaker from across the floor Lawrence Yule who I know was personally involved. He spoke of local government amalgamation—or attempted—and having watched very keenly during attempts to amalgamate in the Hawke's Bay I think it was a learning experience for many other organisations or many other local bodies around the country. But I'd like to particularly go to proposed new section 24AA in clause 8 which is around the purpose of local government reorganisation provisions: The purpose of the local government organisation provisions of this Act is to promote good local government by enabling and facilitating improvements to local governance." Well what a lofty ideal and anything that starts any piece of legislation should have a core principle a first principle similar to that that we should be aligning and templating against any other decisions that are made. After that of course it comes to proposed new section 24 itself in clause 9 which really discusses the scope of local government reorganisation and it goes through there: "Local the reorganisation may provide for 1 or more of the following matters:". I think if you go through those matters going through to paragraphs (g) and (n) from the union of districts and regions—now I think I'm very fortunate to be the member of Parliament for Ōhāriu which only has one territorial local authority one council and one mayor for that whole area—Kieran McAnulty: One good MP. GREG O'CONNOR: —and—thank you—as Mr McAnulty very kindly pointed out one fine MP. So I thank you for that Mr McAnulty. But "the constitution of a new district or region including the constitution of a new local authority"—these are all things that have to be taken into account. It is good that they are laid out there because I think we all know that in New Zealand from the time it was settled communication wasn't what it was transport wasn't what it was and very small communities communities now that we look at and we think "Was that really an organisation that had its own CEO—had its own council?" They were very small and we don't have to go far from here. Look at Pētone. It was a place at the bottom of the Hutt Valley and not only did it have its own council but it had its own traffic force as did many of these local councils because they were actually a very good source of revenue. Now looking historically back at it it's very important when we're looking at clauses like section 24 that as we go through these provisions we have some context for them. As I read through this is one of the contexts I think is a good one to compare as we go through as to why you would ever have thought that the local body—you go through an area that literally you can drive through now in five minutes as one heads up the valley. In less than five minutes you're through that area that did have to take into account all these things: its own water its own sewerage and not at some small expense—all those things. So now as we look at all those small councils long forgotten I'd hope that in archives somewhere people can go back and look at some fine people that worked very hard to keep them. But logic said that they should at some stage move into a much bigger body and this is where we're going back to section 24. We go through paragraph (c): "the abolition of a district including the dissolution or abolition of the local authority for that district or region:". I think I'm reminded of the phrase "turkeys voting for Christmas" because often when these things have had to be done and we've had to abolish local bodies it has meant that those who have actually put them through have gone without a job. Someone's had to step back and leave the running of their area to a much bigger organisation. That is something we can look at in Auckland to see the provision up there of the single authority produced in Auckland. I know there is still some debate about whether that has worked and I'm sure it's a debate that will go on until perhaps Auckland may become even bigger than it is now. I would not imagine that I will ever see the day when it would actually become smaller and narrower—as I see you are requesting that I do in relation to this speech Madam Chair. So I will actually continue down the alphabet until I get to paragraph (g) which is: "the performance and exercise by a local [body] of both—(i) the responsibilities duties and powers of a regional council in respect of a region;"—and of course again the roles of the region and moving towards whether we'd ever have a unitary authority. Isn't that a word that is entering our lexicon now—"unitary authority"?"