Mark RonRON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call and in doing so I need to acknowledge a wonderful contribution from the member across the other side of the House—a man whom Matt Doocey said this evening should be on only half his wages because he was a list MP. So Nuk Korako I think you need to talk to your man over there and maybe explain to him that you are just as hard-working as he is. Speaking of hard-working the piece of this legislation that annoys some of us more than anything is what I would describe as the PNS"—something that the National Government seems to suffer from—which is patronising nanny State syndrome. That is all over this bill. If I look at the legislation—let us go to paragraph 2 of the explanatory note: "New Zealand's local authorities need to adapt their governance arrangements and structures to lift performance and respond to emerging challenges." Really? Is that true? Where is the evidence of that? It continues: "Councils need more options to co-ordinate and combine networks and scarce resources across regions and towns especially for large-scale infrastructure." Really? Is every council—and I have attended quite a few Local Government New Zealand conferences over the years and I do not hear and I have never heard Local Government New Zealand—[Interruption] I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think you know what I am referring to. It is just a little distracting.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Well I am not sure what you are referring to but I certainly know what I am. There is too much noise over here because I cannot hear the speaker. So I would ask members to quieten down. Your point of order Ron Mark?RON MARK: That was exactly it Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much. I do not recall Local Government New Zealand standing up and chorusing those words. What worries New Zealand First is that this piece of legislation which supposedly has all been put together for the benefit of local government to enhance local government has not actually been put together by local government. This is another attempt by the National Government—which simply hates local government. I do not understand why it has this syndrome. It has had MPs like Mark Blumsky here it has three former mayors sitting in its ranks but it seems to have this view that Local Government New Zealand forever needs to be told what to do and how to do it. So if we want to talk about council-controlled organisations (CCOs) and providing the capability for councils to come together and work together maybe this Government should have taken time out itself to read the combined Wairarapa councils' report and their own proposal for amalgamating the three councils in the Wairarapa—something that the Government and the Local Government Commission rejected.The funny thing about certain councils around the country is that they are already doing this. Wairarapa—Masterton South Wairarapa and Carterton—is still the only region in New Zealand where you have a combined district plan. Do we need new legislation to make it possible to have a combined plan? No. In fact the Wairarapa district councils—Masterton Carterton and South Wairarapa—were given an award for their innovative approach to producing a combined district plan. Do we need new legislation? No because it has already happened. It has been done. Do we need to be interfering at central government level on shared services arrangements? Well actually—and it is interesting that we have got so many National Party MPs sitting here blabbering and chattering away to themselves and not listening; if they listened they might learn something—there are right now a number of shared service contracts in the Wairarapa. If the Government members would care to get off their lazy backsides drive across the Rimutaka hill and sit down with Mayor Booth Mayor Patterson and Mayor Staples they would learn that already the three councils in the Wairarapa are doing this. One they do not need to be told and two they do not need to be told they are useless and that they should be doing this sort of thing. They have already done it.If one listens to Local Government New Zealand carefully—a skill that this National Government seems to have lost; a skill it seems to have abandoned—one will find out that local governments are already working together in shared services. The Watercare Services contract here in Wellington—did it need this legislation? No. Did it manage to put together a joint venture involving all of the councils under the regional councils? Did the regional councils manage to do this without giving away the asset to a CCO that subsequently then denied the ratepayers the opportunity to have a say in how that asset should be managed? No they did not. So what is this piece of legislation? This piece of legislation appears to New Zealand First to be just another underhand dirty way of trying to force through the corporatisation of local government. It is about removing the word "local" out of local government removing local democracy out of local government taking away decision making from duly elected people who are given a mandate by their ratepayers to get on and do the job and giving it to a bunch of appointed corporate suits who then run their asset like a business and dare I say if they choose to do so decide to sell it off. The thing that stands out as glaringly obvious and you do not have to look too far—I mean look at Ports of Auckland and the controversy that arose as a result of its decision to ignore the ratepayers' wishes in Auckland and set about its plan to change the way in which the Auckland ports are run the way in which that real estate is managed. If we go back to—when was that? 2015—March 2015? Had we ever seen a situation where corporates highly respected yachtsmen sports people and ordinary ratepayers came together as one to protest about the way that that CCO was managing that asset? No we had never seen anything like that before.New Zealand First is highly suspicious of this piece of legislation. We have not seen any sign of sincerity in the Government in the way in which it has handled local government up until now. In fact we have seen derision and scorn heaped upon local government year after year after year Minister after Minister. We might accept that there need to be some changes in the way that the Local Government Commission (LGC) operates because over in the Wairarapa we were frustrated by the fact that the LGC would not listen to our proposal. We have heard countless times how supposedly the Auckland super-city model was going to deliver lower rates reduce rates increases and better its performance and thus far none of the evidence suggests that at all. This piece of legislation worries New Zealand First. We see it as the thin edge in a drive towards the corporatisation of local governance. We see the removal of local democracy the removal of the ratepayers having a say in how their assets will be held and managed and we will not be supporting this legislation to the select committee. We know that it will go to a select committee but at this point we are simply saying to the Government: prove it—prove that this legislation is required prove that it is going to achieve what you say it is going to achieve and prove to us that this is not just another underhanded way of "nanny Stating" and taking over and directing local government which actually should be left as the duly elected people to determine their own future. If there is a need for any more changes to the Local Government Act 2002 they should be the people who should be writing that legislation because quite frankly if we applied the same standards that this Government is applying to local government to this Government itself this Government would get a fail at every turn."