Strange JamieJAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Madam Speaker thank you very much for the opportunity to take a call on this bill which is being shepherded through the House by my good friend Tangi Utikere—well done to the member.I'd like to begin by making a few acknowledgments and some thanks and then I'll move on to the specific aspects of the bill. So first of all my thanks to the Governance and Administration Committee and I see the chair of the committee on the opposite side Ian McKelvie—Hon Member: Excellent committee.JAMIE STRANGE: It is an excellent committee. I've actually just joined the committee myself so I should probably declare a conflict of interest on that. But no it's a very good committee and the committee did a good job hearing the submissions. I'd like to thank all of those who made submissions on this bill—also to thank the staff. Look we hear this quite a bit in speeches but I'd like to hear it even more in terms of the thanks for the staff around this place. And actually if I could digress just very slightly to also thank the sound engineers in the box up on our right or on the left for the people opposite because if we didn't have them we wouldn't have these microphones working to be able to have that debate. So just a brief digression to also thank them.This bill so far has been supported by all parties and it's certainly my hope that all parties will support it at the third reading to obviously bring it into law soon. The first thing I'm going to talk about is really a philosophical view about the importance of trust in leadership within our democracy. Now it's important that we don't take our democracy for granted. And living in you know a state of relative freedom here in New Zealand the democracy that we have plays a very key role in that. The philosopher John Donne once said: Mutual trust lies at the heart of all political processes." That's primarily what this bill is about. It's about trusting the elected members. And as the elected members declare their conflicts or potential conflicts in a pecuniary interest form that will raise the trust of those who have voted them into that position. I believe it will also increase voter turnout because one of the reasons why people don't vote is if they don't have trust in their elected officials.In the fifth century Greece—sorry to take us on a brief history lesson but the members will find it interesting—I don't know if any members—Matt Doocey: Hold on; Ian was there. I'll ask Ian!JAMIE STRANGE: There we go. One of the members has claimed another member or members that—it was certainly a long time ago. In fifth century Greece 500 people were chosen each year to serve in the Government for one year. So basically 500 people were randomly I believe chosen to be the elected representatives and after 12 months those people were removed from office and another 500 were chosen. I see some nods from the members who certainly know about this. It's interesting because our democratic philosophy comes from Greece and it's important that we don't take our democracy for granted. We must value it. We must continue to value it. We only have to look at other countries around the world who don't share our views to see what I'm sure most would agree is some of the negative side effects of not having a well-functioning democracy. So this bill will play a further role in strengthening and protecting our democracy. And just a second quote on that topic by G N Briggs quite a long time ago 1644 who said "Public office is a public trust created for the benefit of the whole people and not for the benefit of those who may fill them." Very accurate words and words for all of us who have been elected here to continue to reflect on as we serve the people of New Zealand. Some of the benefits of having that trust is obviously like I said before the willingness to vote promotion of public legitimacy support for bipartisan compromises and support for programmes. There are many benefits that we often take for granted. But if we lose that trust if the people of New Zealand lose trust whether they're taxpayers or whether they're ratepayers if they lose trust in those people that they've elected we're on a slope that will end in a very dark place for our country on pretty much every level that you can imagine. So it's important that we continue to uphold these principles and our knowledge again in the bill. So one of the reasons why we're supporting this bill on this side of the House is that it's important for ratepayers to understand any possible influences on those people elected to represent them. We've got a local body election coming up soon. You know we'll all sit down and we'll pick up a booklet. We'll work our way through the booklet and we'll see a number of candidates and within that booklet there will be 200-word blurbs within that booklet. And for people who haven't met all of the candidates they very much are relying on that 200-word blurb—there's probably a better word for it—candidate profile. So they'll be looking at that profile and then they'll be making a voting decision. You know they'll be talking to others and they'll be using their past experience but the reality is that 200-word candidate profile will in no way be able to outline all of the possible vested interests all of the interests of these people and try and give an accurate representation. So look this piece of legislation will support people making informed decisions about those people that are elected and subsequently re-elected. So transparency and trust and confidence.It also brings consistency across councils because some councils already have a form of something similar to what we have as MPs a register of pecuniary interests but some councils don't. So at the moment there's an ad hoc system. This piece of legislation will bring consistency to the councils which is a good thing. It also covers local boards—initially it didn't; it only covered the territorial councils but this now covers local boards which is a good change the select committee made. I'm thinking of the example up in Auckland where there are a number of local boards and those local boards make significant investments of ratepayers' money into their communities. So that was a practical important important change. This bill doesn't cover CEO staff CEOs or staff only elected members. Just an important point to raise there. It's for $500 but captures cumulative donations over $500. There were some personal safety concerns around too much information being disclosed that would then therefore—well let me put it another way: it was around information being disclosed that would impinge on the safety of elected members. Those have been addressed through the second reading which is good to see. So it's really more along the lines of general interest not listing every client the councillor has. So some useful useful changes there. I think one of the big points in this bill that impresses me is that it aligns local government with central government and I think that's a really good thing. There's often you know people saying out in the community that they can at various times feel like there's a disconnect between central and local government. But anything we can do to bring those two closer together is useful. I personally value that myself very much having recently been meeting with almost all of the elected members from the Hamilton City Council and it's something I will continue to do in terms of building that relationship.I'd like to touch on something briefly which I heard a previous member speak on and I'd like to touch on too and that's the remuneration for those in local government positions the local government elected members. In my opinion I would like to personally see that remuneration increase. I know that a number of councils find it very difficult to attract candidates who have governance experience to oversee large portfolios of both assets and income and spending making significant decisions for their communities because of that low pay. So that's just something I'd also like to put on record. It'd be interesting to see how things may or may not develop in that space. But I'd like to acknowledge all of those who do stand who are elected members and who will be standing again for those positions and I'd like to see that income increase. So we will see what happens here. I've just looked at the clock and seen that my time is finished. A very brief shout out to Ross Robertson a former member of Parliament and a local government politician who made an excellent submission on this. He highlighted the aspect of ensuring that citizens have trust in their elected members like I outlined before. So I'd like to thank Ross Robertson for his submission. A good piece of legislation."