Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It is a privilege to stand and speak on the Local Government (Community Well-being) Amendment Bill because I am incredibly excited about local government. I don't know if the tone of the debate thus far as heard by members in this Chamber or by members of the public who may be so fortunate as to tune in would hear that same level of excitement resounding across the Chamber but I hope to bring some of that excitement and passion in my contribution to the debate today. I just wanted to say first and foremost that it is frequent in this Chamber that we hear members of Parliament stand and speak about the character of their local communities: what makes their local communities so special; what makes their cities their towns or their regional areas so wonderful.I want to ask members of Parliament—because it was a point raised by Ian McKelvie—about the balance between what local government and central government should do. That there should be greater centralisation he believed or he proposed of funding or rather of the decisions that are made on the allocation of funding for what are essentially local government projects.For example I'm from Auckland—Tāmaki-makau-rau proud—and things like lantern festival or pride parade simply would not be funded at a central government level. So if we are to really follow the line of logic that has been proposed thus far by National Party speakers are we to completely erode any of those cultural or social well-beings that are provided by that form of local government spending? So too are things that we take almost for granted quite frequently in our local communities—the likes of public art which are maintained I would note by local governments.It was raised by a former National Party speaker as well the issue of how we rank or how we establish some form of accountability for local governments with regard to these four well-beings that this bill seeks to reinstate. I would ask the member that addressed or rather raised these questions: the same question applies to central government—how is it that we rank the performance of our elected members in central government? It's through elections. If we are not seeking to apply that same standard to our colleagues in local government then we may as well be upfront about it in that we intend to astroturf over them and remove local democracy but I do not think that that is the intention of any member of Parliament perhaps—although my colleague frequently in yellow but that's a side point.So also the point was raised by National Party members who were worried about the impact on ratepayers when councils take up these four well-beings when they look at social economic environmental and cultural well-beings of communities. If that's the case—if they're worried about the impact on ratepayers if they're worried about the impact of rates and rate rises—then I would perhaps like to suggest to my colleagues in the National Party that they may very well support diversification of income for local governments. If we are to compare New Zealand's performance to other OECD countries when it comes to expenditure at a local government level internationally the benchmark of Government revenue that is spent at a local government level is 30 percent. In New Zealand it is less than half of that at 11 percent. So perhaps that's where the National Party the Opposition should be focusing their energies.But finally in my points raised on this Part 1 of the Local Government (Community Well-being) Amendment Bill—that being to restore the four well-beings to the Local Government Act—I just really want to raise the question of why people live where they live to end where I started off. We all decide to live in our towns and cities and neighbourhoods and communities because of the things that make those places special. I can tell every member in this Chamber and every member in this Chamber actually probably knows for a matter of fact that the reason that they decide to live where they live is not simply solely an economic decision. They take into account the best form of life that they can have for themselves and for their families and that is at the core of the restoration of social economic environmental and cultural well-beings in the Local Government Act. Kia ora.