Brewer Cameron; Salesa JennyCAMERON BREWER (National—Upper Harbour): Madam Speaker thank you so much. We here in the National Party are standing against this. It's another overreach—an unnecessary overreach—by this Labour Party and in fact—Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Giving them the ability.CAMERON BREWER: Oh giving them the ability she says to be able to do this. Well they have the ability. Through their standing orders councils have their ability through their standing orders to allow for remote participation. In fact I was just consulting with my colleague here the MP for the Bay of Plenty Tom Rutherford and he produced—he always has these documents on him—two standing orders one for the Western Bay of Plenty District Council and one for the Bay of Plenty Regional Council just two examples out of the mighty bay.These standing orders make it very clear what a member can do. As long as they give two days' written notice they can attend by audio or audiovisual link where the member is at a place that makes their physical presence at the meeting impractical or impossible when a member is unwell and where a member is unable to attend due to an emergency.So these amongst our 60-odd territorial local authorities' (TLA) standing orders are in practice. I would call this electronic entrenchment. It's not required it's already in practice and in fact we on this side of the House would argue and many of us have some experience in local government—of course Tom Rutherford has been in and around in senior roles in local government; Ryan Hamilton a long-serving Hamilton city councillor. We here on this side of the House believe that when you put your hand up for local election the responsibilities and the rules and the expectations are very clear—are very clear—and that is that you have to front up. It's particularly important when we're asking as a House here to get our public servants back into the city post-COVID. When the Chamber of Commerce and business associations here in Wellington city are telling people to get back to work to support the auxiliary businesses the cafes the sandwich bars and the restaurants and the likes then we just make ourselves and make our colleagues and local government exempt from turning up; it is totally unnecessary given the standing orders that most territorial authorities have. Frankly if you haven't got a good enough excuse if there's not an emergency or if you're not unwell then you should be there and that is the expectation. You can't say Well my house is too far away." or "I live on a metal road." or "It takes too long." You put your hand up knowing the parameters and expectations of local government.Again Labour had six years—six long long years during COVID—and a lot of these measures post-COVID they're trying to continue to carry them on. It's not required when it's within the Local Government Act which was amended I understand Carl Bates in 2023 to allow standing orders to give councils the discretion to allow for remote participation. Listen to this busy-body bossy Labour Government. I think Local Government New Zealand's going around talking to MPs and senior staff in Parliament as we speak promoting localism promoting that they have the ability to make the decisions for their communities. They are not wanting Government to throw more stuff on to them. They don't want that Wellington overreach; they want to make their decisions inside their own chambers. Yet this explanatory note—if I can read that—"The Bill will amend the Local Government Act 2002 to permanently"—to permanently—"allow local authority members"—i.e. forget the public; let's just worry about the elected representatives here—"to participate in local authority meetings remotely and be counted toward [a] quorum for those meetings." "To permanently allow". Well we don't need that. Frankly people like the general public—those kind of people the general public—they are fronting up in huge numbers to long-term plan submissions and the likes as we speak 10-year plans 10-year budgets and they want their local representatives there.We don't want a situation that Wellington City Council has got themselves into over the years where half of them are sitting there in their pyjamas. We don't want a situation where the Wellington City Council was taking submissions for their long-term plan last and an American prankster with 150000 YouTube followers got on as a submitter and said a whole lot of rubbish and eventually the Wellington city councillors woke up about five minutes later and realised they were being pranked. Why is that? Because there's such a distance between elected members in the flesh and those who are teleporting themselves electronically in.The public deserves better. The local representatives deserve their colleagues to do better. Frankly allowing them potentially to sit up in bed with a cup of coffee and their dressing gown on to participate in a local government meeting as an absolute right of that person is not necessary.As we've said the standing orders of most of the TLAs if not all of them by now post-COVID allow for remote participation with good reason and with notice. That is working a treat.We on this side of the House do not believe that this needs to be mandated. This is another example isn't it? We thought we got rid of it on 14 October but it's now coming back in members' bills Tom—it's coming back in members' bills one at a time. It's "Wellington knows best!" That was not what Local Government New Zealand wants to hear. That's why they're not meeting with their members of Parliament. They say local decisions is where they want it at. They support local decisions local control of water assets and water control as well—they want it local and it's all going back. There's a global movement away from centralisation—and man we saw a lot of it over six years didn't we? Geez let's not go through the list because I've only got two minutes left. But we saw a lot of busybody "Wellington knows best" centralisation that's now being repealed at speed—at speed. Forty nine action points in 100 days. How are we going? It finishes up on 8 March I think. That's why this Government is pushing through on urgency.But despite that and despite a record—a record—electoral swing a rejection of the busybody big government model of the last administration they are now coming out. They're coming back out. It's like the last throes of the orchestra on the ship. They're just coming back out via members' bills trying to entrench us on different things and including allowing some of their friends in and around local government as a matter of right to be able to sit there in their pyjamas and participate when ratepayers are trying to make submissions. As representatives—Shanan Halbert: Far too experienced for such a bad speech!CAMERON BREWER: —we need to expect more of our colleagues that put their hands up for local government. That member over there might have sat watching Parliament TV in his pyjamas for the last few months but we need to expect more and frankly the public expects more of their representatives. They put a lot into submissions and we are united in the fact that the local government amendments of 2023—the fact that these guys had six years—and the Green Party could have helped them out. How many seats did they have for six years? Did they have 70-odd seats with the Green Party? They could have pushed all this thing through. But no no no no; they didn't. They didn't; they just amended the local government to put it back on the councils but now they've changed their mind six months later. So we do not support this and nor do the good people of New Zealand.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Jenny Salesa): This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Pō marie.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 9.58 p.m."