Dean JacquiLOCAL GOVERNMENT (COMMUNITY WELL-BEING) AMENDMENT BILLIn CommitteePart 1 Reinstatement of 4 aspects of community well-beingHon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you Madam Chair. This is perhaps a good bill to follow the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill because as we left off before dinner my contribution was around the potential which the Minister signalled for the levy collection to also take into account local government ratepayers. My comments just before the dinner break were beginning to raise concerns around the impact on ratepayers—[Interruption] I am in fact speaking to the Local Government (Community Well-being) Amendment Bill but in the context of the previous bill. My concerns are the same in this bill where the Minister perhaps rather than indulge in any fresh thinking on the Local Government Act has merely reinstated—and it says that in the bill—a part of the bill which had been taken out. So when we get to the title and commencement part of the debate I signal that I will be calling it the Tit-for-tat Bill". I don't see any fresh thinking in this piece of legislation. What I merely see is a Minister in a Government who needed to get what they felt were some wins on the board quite quickly which was to just simply reinstate something which had been removed from the bill. We remain resolute that our focus for local government should be on good quality expenditure on behalf of ratepayers and good quality expenditure should be confined to the provision of good quality services particularly around infrastructure for local communities. We make no apology for that and that remains our position. The well-beings are being put back into the bill. It sounds great you know—great applause!—but I'd ask: what does it really mean? What does it really mean? Isn't it the function of each local authority mayor and councillors and those people who spend the time to attend meetings and submit on various proposals and have their view as they should do—they are part of a community so by definition a local authority is the community that it serves. So merely putting the words back into the bill—I'd like to hear from this Government what in fact that adds rather than "Thank goodness it fills up the Order Paper for them which otherwise is looking a little bit thin." It's not putting something on to the Order Paper which is new and refreshingly exciting. No it's not. It's simply you know hauling something from 2007 and reinstating it. Well that's the start and finish of it from what I can see. I do go back to my comment that our position was still is and always will be good decision-making by local authority mayors and councillors and chief executives and all those involved in providing good quality well-considered expenditure on those things that their community needs. I will make further comments around other aspects of this bill in in due time. But I want to return to my first point which is the point I was raising in another aspect of a piece of legislation which had an impact on local communities and that was the signalling of Tracey Martin the Minister that she was considering placing local government ratepayers squarely in the frame for funding for a fire service levy.CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Can I just ask the member to come back to this specific bill please? Thank you.Hon JACQUI DEAN: Thank you Madam Chair. So in the context of the local government bill and the impact on ratepayers that means that there will be a cost to ratepayers. And if there's one thing that we in Parliament should be doing and should be focusing on if there's one thing that is providing good quality services and infrastructure to ratepayers. But things like the fire service bill and now this bill in placing the well-beings back to the purpose statement of the bill for no good reason other than they need to fill up the Order Paper I would say are a threat to that good governance philosophy which local government should hold dear. Thank you."