Smith Nick: Local Government Law Reform Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Smith Nick: Local Government Law Reform Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14125] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 When the Government passed the Local Government Act of 2002 it created a bureaucratic nightmare for our home communities in terms of defining what a council organisation and a council-controlled organisation are and introduced a whole set of performance criteria and special consultative procedures which those organisations are required to do. What members are being asked to do now with these 20 clauses is patch up the mess for those organisations and make some additional amendments. Members on this side of the Chamber would simply say that the amendments do not resolve the problem because the problem is the very core of the legislation that was passed by that Minister in December 2002. 
What is particularly ironic in this part is that members will effectively make a special exemption for Northport. We do not have any bugbear with Northport nor with the fact that it will not be tied up in the bureaucratic provisions in those 20 clauses but we would ask the Minister how many other examples will come out of the woodwork where his Act will be unworkable and where the Act that was put through Parliament under urgency—as it is in urgency now—in December 2002 gets itself in trouble. 
The costs associated with all those extra bureaucratic requirements fall on ratepayers. Over the last 3 years there have been rate increases well above the rate of inflation. This Government is passing bureaucratic requirements down from central to local government without the funding and ratepayers get that bill in their rate demands. There is very little in those 20 clauses that will make any difference to the increasing costs that Labour and Chris Carter are imposing on ratepayers out there in our 84 district and regional councils. 
I also want to put to the Minister the increasing concern of local authorities about the costs of Audit New Zealand associated with those long-term council community plans. Now only a Minister such as Chris Carter could come up with a phrase as wonky as “long-term community plans”. 
Hon Chris Carter 
: No council community plans. You must get it right. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Oh I must get it right—long-term community council plans. 
Hon Chris Carter 
: Council community plans. You still haven’t got it right. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well it says something about the bureaucracy this Minister is imposing on the councils of New Zealand that the planning industry is booming out there as it develops those long-term council community plans and their district plans and their regional plans. There is an excessive amount of planning requirements on councils that is adding hugely to the rates bills that citizens out there have to pay. 
Hon Chris Carter 
: Not true! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The Minister says: “Not true.” Well looking at the information that is provided by Statistics New Zealand since this Minister has been in the chair rate increases have been three times the rate of inflation. Why is that? 
Hon Chris Carter 
: The member’s made it up. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well actually Statistics New Zealand for which this Government is responsible has been the provider of those rates figures which are well above the rate of inflation for every year that he has been Minister and he does not give a hoot. At none of the meetings that he participated in has he ever expressed any concern for those average citizens on fixed incomes facing another round of record rate increases. The responsibility for those rate increases falls right back on this Minister who continues to pass legislation that puts an extra bureaucratic burden on the councils of New Zealand which is then passed on to ratepayers. The special consultative procedures long-term council community plans etc. are just part of that bureaucracy.