Court Simon; McAnulty KieranSIMON COURT (ACT): Madam Chair thanks. Minister you did correctly observe that the bill does not require councils to carry out any work except to publish information that you believe they already have on land information memorandums (LIMs) giving property owners information that a council already has. And I certainly acknowledged in my contribution on the second reading that many many councils have such information. But officials did point out that many do not. They do not have sufficient expertise or resources to commission their own modelling. Minister it's been acknowledged that local government doesn't necessarily have the capability to undertake more complex work whether it's in three waters or certain types of infrastructure work. They don't have the funding for it they don't have the financing and they don't have the revenue sources. It's very clear in this document that the officials who put together this regulatory impact assessment identified that there was funding to collect this information but it was withdrawn in Budget 2021/22. So Minister how are councils expected to fund this additional work if they don't have the budget they don't have the expertise and they don't have the in-house resources or access to professional resources to do it? I mean if it's natural hazards that are meant to be on the LIM they would want to tell people where it's dangerous to live or where they should consider not building. How's that information going to be collected and made public or made available to property owners if the councils can't afford to do it?Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Minister of Local Government): This is a question that can extend to all operations and councils. There's no doubt that councils across the board are under considerable financial strain and it's no doubt that rates alone are not a sustainable form of revenue for councils. That is why the Government agreed to the sector's request for a review into the future of local government. And that is why I as Minister have asked Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) now that we have the recommendations that have come out of that review to conduct a process within the sector to come to an agreement. What we don't want to do is repeat what's happened across the board in previous and successive Governments where we've had reviews we've had recommendations the Governments looked through those it cherry picked what it liked decided what it's going to do then goes to the sector and says This is what we're going to do. What do you think?" What I've asked LGNZ to do—and this is relevant to the question of resourcing and revenue—is to sit down with the sector come to a consensus ideally and then meet after the election and we can go through bit by bit what is sustainable what would work for some councils but not for others and what things can we change to allow councils to extract additional revenue. I'm interested in that conversation. What additional opportunities could there be for partnership between central and local government? I'm very much looking forward to that conversation. The broader question of funding for local councils is one that has to be tackled and it's one that this Government is up for but there's a process in play at the moment to deal with that."