Andersen GinnyGINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai. The Local Government (Community Well-being) Amendment Bill—as a member of the Governance and Administration Committee it's good to be able to see we are restoring the very heart of what local government does and that's providing to people. This side of the House this Government believes that there's a lot more to life at that level than simply bean counting and being able to draw up your books at the end of the day. Yes economic accountability is important—fiscal accountability as we've heard is important—but there's a bit more to life and we believe that. That's why there were so many submitters—so many submitters—who came along to the Governance and Administration Committee to give those views. In fact 106 of the 129 submitters who put their views forward supported the reinstatement of community well-being in the purpose of local government.The reasons that were given to the select committee members can be broadly described in four key areas which I would like to highlight because I believe that it's important to know what the purpose of local government is. The first was to give local government the mandate to take leadership—to take leadership—in fostering democracy to increase people engaging with their community and voting and being aware of the issues that are affecting their lives in their daily way. As we've already heard there's a bit more to that than just rates rubbish and roading. There's a whole lot more. In my patch in Hutt South we see an excellent job being done by the Hutt City Council to bring families together to provide services to children in school holidays to give mums and dads opportunities to engage and provide support to each other and to make sure that there are meeting places playgrounds and swimming pools. There's a whole lot more to life than simply making the books balance.Number two: reverse the trend towards fiscal centralism and centralised decision-making empowering our local communities to take charge of their own lives and to take ownership and to engage. That's a good idea too. Number three: ensure better health and well-being outcomes—that we're focused on outcomes not just what goes into the machine—and that we're looking at how that spills out into the daily lives of people and what differences that makes. The final one: to ensure councils are accountable for the effects of their decisions on community well-being. It's ironic that we've heard so much tonight about There's no accountability." when this bill does exactly that.I would like to look at what Local Government New Zealand submitted to the select committee. They did a fantastic submission and you would like to think that Local Government New Zealand has a good understanding of the issues at heart. They've argued that the reinstatement would strengthen place-based and integrated service delivery approaches allowing local government to take a holistic approach not putting things in silos but being able to take into account a range of factors—being able to take into account for example our Treaty relationships our obligations and how we engage with iwi within our daily work in the council to make sure that that's provided for. Also with the environment those important interactions that iwi and environment are able to have—that we're looking at our rivers our awa and the fish life in those and how that impacts upon local iwi and their views.It enables and empowers local government to work with communities so their interests and concerns are taken into account on a daily basis. But most importantly what they said which really intrigued me was that it gave a stronger ability to have a relationship with central government—that there'd been a distancing between local and central and how they worked together. It is so important particularly in areas where central government is funding to know that there is an area where they can communicate and that there is a consistent voice between both. They felt that the reinstatement of those four well-beings gave a mandate and a broader purpose and that was an important statutory signal from central to local government about how we perceive their role—that we are empowering them and we have confidence in their ability to deliver good things for the people that they look after.The second area that is also important is it restores territorial authorities' power to collect development contributions for any public amenities needed as a consequence for development and for the reserves for non-residential developments. Now this is also an important area that we heard submissions on. The objective of the bill is to give that back so that it will assist in providing facilities such as sportsgrounds swimming pools and libraries—and how important are those facilities for the community? To enable and empower local government to have a wider mandate to be able to look at those areas and fund them appropriately—those are often the facilities that people use so much in their daily lives that make a difference to families who can't afford to do other things. To be able to use swimming pools for kids to be able to learn how to swim and to be able to get access to a book a holiday programme over the holidays—those things are incredibly important.I'm really proud to be a member of the Governance and Administration Committee and to see the good work that was done. It's really disappointing to see that the National Party members with their view in the select committee report did not support that. I felt that the reasons given for not supporting were just not really substantive enough to understand why you would take that position. The only reason I could see was that this was simply seen as unpicking work that the National Government had previously done and there was no ability to take a wider view to look at what the clear benefits are for going forward. We had so many local government representatives who do this on a daily basis coming to tell the committee that they were pleased so proud and happy to have those well-beings reinstated.I think there is far more concern about the broadened scope of amenities and development contributions being levied which is the key point made—charging businesses development contributions for amenities unrelated to their business operations. I think it's important that businesses are connected into the community and are able to have a voice as well. However reinstating the four well-beings quite simply does not prevent this from taking place.I think we have a really good bill here. I'm proud to see local government having its voice restored having a good connection with central government and being able to be empowered to do the job it can do so well. The bill is forward-looking and the change to the purpose of local government addresses the dynamic nature of well-being so that so many local authorities can best serve their communities. I therefore commend this bill to the House."