Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Labour): It is my pleasure to take a call in the first reading of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2). For me one of the most significant parts of this legislation relates to the possibility of using council-controlled organisations (CCOs) for shared services across different district or regional councils. I am personally glad that we seem to be passing the point where we are going to force amalgamations of councils down the throats of populations that do not want them. I have always thought that local government should be local and the more local it can be the better.Indeed if I think back to some of the local government reorganisations that we have had over recent decades down in the region that I come from originally which is Otago I am not sure that we have actually got the balance right by going for ever-larger geographic conglomerations of formerly small councils into one bigger council. Councils used to be effectively organised relative to geographic barriers—hills and ranges—and they were small enough so that the job of running a council was normally taken on by the most capable people or some of the most capable people from within those societies who were willing to pay back their debt to the community by doing some civic service effectively working part-time for close to free as mayors or councillors. Once those jobs became larger because those councils were forced to amalgamate into larger bodies I think in some ways we actually ended up with a subset of people who were willing to put in that longer period of time because some of those who were willing to do something part-time for civil service were not willing to take on the bigger job which just about turned into a medium-paid full-time job but not a particularly well-paid full-time job relative to the skill sets that those people had to bring to bear. So I am quite pleased that we might as a country be ending the phase where we bring to an end the amalgamation of councils in large geographic areas.I think it is a different case when it comes to amalgamation of councils within a conurbation a larger metropolitan area. I can see why it was wise to bring together the councils of Auckland which the prior Labour Government started a royal commission on and the current Government finished off but in respect of rural areas I do not think we need to have more amalgamations.Having said that there are also efficiencies that can be attained sometimes if there is sharing of services between more than one council. That is already starting to happen in some areas. In some areas of the North Island we are already starting to see the sharing of some services be those waste disposal services or waste collection services. I think at some time in the future other services like water reticulation and maybe sewage treatment will maybe have more cooperation between councils. If in order to facilitate that we need some changes to the Local Government Act 2002 in order to have councils cooperating across boundaries I think that is a good thing. So I am interested to support this to the select committee and hear submissions from councils to that effect.I would say that we need to be careful we do not force councils to use CCOs because one of the disadvantages of CCOs is that there is less political accountability for their decisions. Given that through local democracy we are voting for councillors to—on behalf of their voting population and their ratepayers—exercise democratic power for the benefit of those areas I do not think we should be so paternalistic or maternalistic as to tell those councils that they must use CCOs because on occasion they might want to have services delivered by the council itself rather than by a corporate that is running a purely commercial model that the council may not as directly control because there is a board of directors who sit between the council-controlled organisation and the council. I can see why if things are not going well sometimes councillors would want to say: I'm sick of this. I want to take control of this as the local elected politician." And in those situations if that is what the mayor and councillors decide—that it would be better if it actually for a while came back within the council organisation rather than being in a council-controlled corporate organisation a little bit further out from the council—I think councils should be able to do that too.I will be interested to check in the select committee that with this legislation we are not imposing through a codified approach the obligation or the ability of a Minister to impose council-controlled organisations by regulation because of course that is what the current Government did in regard to the Auckland Council. It did legislate that some services had to be delivered through CCOs rather than just that they could be and I think that was a step too far.For me that is the most important issue that is raised by this bill. I look forward to hearing submissions from the many stakeholders be they councils be they infrastructure providers be they ratepayers be they environmental groups or be they business groups. I think they will all have valid perspectives that will aid the select committee in its deliberations. I do not think I have much to add to that. I look forward to the progression of this bill through the House."