Penk Chris; McAnulty KieranCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much Mr Chair. Just going back to the Minister's previous response of a few minutes ago I was heartened by his willingness to have a conversation about these matters in relation to cyclone recovery. I look forward to taking him up on his offer to have a yarn—as he would have it. So we'll arrange that offline; I don't need to take the committee's time to ask him to open his diary and see how 3.30 next Friday might be. But in principle I'm very pleased to have that offer and I look forward to doing that.I think the point in relation to cyclone recovery—and I hear the Minister's point that that portfolio is not in direct alignment with the local government one but I do think nevertheless in an Estimates hearing the points I'm about to make Mr Chair you will regard as reasonable for this context which is to talk about what's set out in the Estimates and in Budget and annual review documents and all those ones that are relevant to the funding of the sector. Because the demands on the sector are as set out in the first instance in the Local Government Act and various other items on the statute book and for now at least the Resource Management Act and soon-to-be albeit temporarily Spatial Planning Act and the other one Natural and Built Environment Act. But also there are miscellaneous and occasional and irregular demands that are put on the sector and it's reasonable to ask in this context how the Government of the day and local government more particularly will respond to these challenges including by way of resourcing and so on.So if I can use an example in the Tiniroto community on the East Coast there's a Bluff road that has been closed; the bypass one—Parikanapa Road—is effectively a bypass. Now by the way I'm not asking the Minister to be an expert on these particulars. That wouldn't be fair wouldn't be reasonable and I'm not about to ask a question particularly on the matter. But just to point out to the committee more generally that these demands on local government are a good illustration of the demands that are on councils and territorial authorities whereby if there is a small ratepayer base but a large geographical area or a large problem in infrastructure terms that needs to be addressed then that's an issue that needs to be taken into account by central government in determining what level of support is needed. That's an issue incidentally on which I would be grateful to meet with the Minister if he has time and certainly that community has reached out hoping to be able to meet with a Minister—and in fact your name specifically was mentioned Mr McAnulty. So again not to put you on the spot in terms of making that particular arrangement now but just to flag these are the kinds of demands that the local government sector is facing. There's the business as usual—and there's the business very much not as usual in response to events such as Cyclone Gabrielle of course.I have some unrelated questions and comments to make which perhaps for the sake of neatness I should seek in a separate call. But I'd be remiss if I didn't add in to this contribution that we have good people involved in local government. We have elected representatives up and down this country who work hard who represent their communities. Some of their decisions that I'm aware of whether it's my own patch or elsewhere I'd agree with; others not so. But these are people who put themselves forward to serve their community and they deserve our commendation for that. They're part of a democratic process through local government elections—and as recently as last year of course that was their fate to go through and they were putting up billboards and we were not; 12 months later of course it's our time—those of us in central government. But in a way we are engaged in the same act of we hope representation in public service. So I think it's worth acknowledging that. And again just to use by way of example the Cyclone Gabrielle recovery context there are people who have been very deeply affected in their own households or businesses nevertheless trying to deliver the goods and services and the leadership that their local communities need. Where central government can support them to do that recognising the difficulty of their circumstances that's a positive thing.So again I would encourage the Government to do everything in its power to provide that support noting the circumstances noting the good intentions but sometimes more limited resources in terms of staffing expert knowledge ability to communicate and so forth. So I'll conclude my remarks on the local government point as it relates to Cyclone Gabrielle there and if no other—the Minister or other—wish to take a call I'll pop up and perhaps make some other local government - related remarks.Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Minister of Local Government): I thank the member for those comments. He might remember back when the Auckland floods first hit that I contacted him directly and invited him to stay in touch with me and work as a conduit between his caucus and me and my office to try and give him the information that he needed. I would extend that again. If he needs to have a yarn specifically around where it's relevant to my portfolios I invite him to do that.I certainly recognise the issues that he's raised: that councils are constrained financially and that's having an impact on them to do their day-to-day activities—in particular roads. I think of the Tararua District Council in my electorate; it has 12000 ratepayers the fourth-largest roading network in the country. They simply are struggling to afford to do that which is why the Government has assisted them with an increased allocation through the emergency works budget.I would point to the fact that water services reform will remove a significant amount of debt from councils' balance sheets—a debt that they are in some instances struggling to cover now. Some councils are already at their debt cap; other councils simply cannot increase rates because their communities can't afford it. They will be assisted greatly by the removal of that debt cap. That is also a major feature of the review into the future of local government. The member may remember or recognise that I have invited Local Government New Zealand to work with the sector and figure out what they want from that; what the solutions are in their view to deal with the funding problems and then come back after the election and we'll work through it together.