Robertson Grant: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Robertson Grant: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10714] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 The speech made by Nikki Kaye the member who has just resumed her seat was a fascinating insight into the way she approaches issues. There are 53 clauses in this bill and Nikki Kaye chose to focus her speech on the elements that everybody agrees on—but in a strident tone of anger at members on the other side of the House; how dare we agree with the Government about those clauses—whilst proceeding to completely ignore the clauses that have the greatest degree of controversy which obviously are the clauses that deal with water privatisation. Nikki Kaye’s approach was quite extraordinary. 
I want to talk mainly about the water privatisation issue and to make absolutely clear that on this side of the House we of course support improved transparency and putting out good financial statements but we cannot support a further erosion of democratic rights in the local government sector. Time and time again in the 18 months I have been in this House we have seen National bring forward measures that diminish our democracy at a local level. 
Some of the first speeches I made in this House were about the early Auckland governance reforms which took away some fundamental elements of democracy from the royal commission’s recommendations. We have seen ongoing programmes in Auckland in relation to the council-controlled organisations where people’s ability to have a say has been removed. The ability of people to have a say at the most basic level of democracy has been removed and I think that is an appalling thing to do. 
Then there was the situation with Environment Canterbury. That was a remarkable move. Not only did the process get rid of an elected council but also it cancelled an election that would have enabled over 350000 Cantabrians to elect their regional council. Around the world there are names for countries that cancel elections. “Banana republic” is one of those names. Yet in this House the National Government blithely cancelled an election. It cancelled part of the democratic process in this country. Nick Smith actually told the  
Timaru Herald 
 that one of the reasons the National Government did that was that he was worried about the outcome of the election. He was worried about the outcome of the election so he cancelled it! He got rid of it. That is the kind of approach to local democracy that we have seen consistently from this National Government. 
Now today we have the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill which despite Nikki Kaye’s protestations is not really about transparency. It is about freeing up the privatisation of water—the ability to let a 35-year contract for private water services. In 35 years Mr Hide will be 89. My good friend Phil Twyford whose birthday is today will be 82 in 35 years. It will be that long before they will be able to have a say and we know that Mr Twyford will be a very grumpy 82-year-old if he has not been able to have a say in respect of the way water services are changed in Auckland. But that is what this bill will do. It will push out the ability of people to have a say about the way in which a core part of our infrastructure is delivered for 35 years and that is privatisation no matter what language is put around it. 
We know what the ACT Party’s agenda is here. We know that Mr Hide would get rid of anything that would prevent the privatisation of water and National is now complicit in the de facto privatisation of water services for 35 years. I want to refer to a particular part of this bill that I think shows how this anti-democratic agenda is taking place at a local level. This bill repeals section 88 of the Local Government Act 2002. Currently when a local authority wants to change the delivery of a service it is required to use the special consultative provisions of the Act. That means that when a major change is in place the council is obliged to go out and talk to people but that provision is now gone. The 2002 Act recognised that the way a core service like water is delivered is pretty important and needed a special consultative process. That is gone with this bill. That important check and balance in the democratic process is gone with this bill. 
How much clearer can it be that the agenda of this bill is to reduce participation reduce democratic rights and put in place a process whereby privatisation can be bulldozed through for 35 years at a time? That is anti-democratic. It is against the core principles that New Zealanders hold dear. New Zealanders want to have a say in the way services are run and they want to know that if they want to stand up for publicly run services they can. That will go under this bill. 
As Mr Twyford said earlier Labour is not opposed to public-private partnerships in principle but we need to take a careful approach. Public-private partnerships lock Governments into all kinds of things. They are the “Hotel California” of Government arrangements—“You can check out any time you like but you can never leave.” If there is a debt it will be with ratepayers forever. Ratepayers will not be able to get away from that debt; it will be with them forever. The experience internationally is that when things go wrong ratepayers and taxpayers will have to pick up the debt. 
Public-private partnerships should be approached with caution but this bill goes in exactly the opposite direction. It opens the floodgates. It puts at risk assets that have been built up by ratepayers for years and years and it puts them in a basket so that they are up for grabs by the private sector and taken away from the democratic process. I think that is completely wrong. 
Some other aspects of this bill need to be analysed closely by the select committee. What are services and why are economic and social development not mentioned within core services? Those are important questions that the select committee needs to give its attention to. The bill also reduces community consultation processes. There is a useful debate to be had about where and when consultation best takes place but it should not be an exercise in simply throwing the baby out with the bathwater and saying that community consultation is not important. 
Of course members on this side of the House support the things that will make processes more streamlined and give more transparency in financial statements but we will not support the taking away of democratic rights and the further erosion of local government and keeping decisions close to local people. We oppose the privatisation of water and that is what this bill is designed to do.