Simpson Scott: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSimpson Scott: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 16 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9859. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It is a pleasure to stand to take a call in the second reading of this Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) in the name of my friend and colleague Alfred Ngaro. It is a member’s bill. When I was chairing the Local Government and Environment Committee which considered this matter I was very conscious of the hard work and dedication that Mr Ngaro has put into this bill notwithstanding in fact that originally this bill was entered into the ballot in the name of the Hon Maggie Barry who upon her ascension to Cabinet was able to ensure that Mr Ngaro was able to pick up the bill. He has done a very good job of stewarding it through the select committee process to the second reading here this evening. I want to congratulate him on that.It was fortuitous that this bill through the vagaries of the members’ ballot should have been drawn at a time that enabled it to come to the House prior to the local government elections which are to be held later this year. It was very fortuitous in fact because Auckland as members will be very well aware is the only jurisdiction in which we have these bodies that are known as local boards. For instance in my electorate where we have a number of district councils we have community boards. But in Auckland as a result of the amalgamation and the creation of the Auckland Council we now have these creatures called local boards.As I think an oversight in the original legislation it was possible for people to be elected to multiple local boards at the same time. The real difficulty there is not so much that those people may not have been physically able or indeed had the capacity to attend diligently to their duties and responsibilities as elected members of more than one local board it was the perception and perhaps also the potential for there to be a conflict of interest in those two roles that was really at the nub of this bill being promulgated. So as we know as members of Parliament often in politics it is the perception that is more important sometimes than the reality. This bill seeks to identify and clarify a situation that was relatively rare but had occurred and to resolve that so that the perception of a potential or a real conflict of interest could not arise again should a single individual be elected to more than one local board.This bill received careful consideration by the Local Government and Environment Committee. Members gave it diligent attention. We received 17 written submissions and we heard four of those as a committee. I thought the submissions were all thoughtful. They were well considered. They were useful in terms of us considering the bill and they aided us in our deliberations. The bill is one that I think is small in its detail but it has quite a significant and wide impact. It is a bill that I think needs to be passed by this House. It is a bill that after careful consideration by the Local Government and Environment Committee I am very happy to support and commend to the House.