Dyson Ruth: Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 01 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2857. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Unlike many other speakers I am actually very pleased to be speaking in this second reading of the Christchurch City Council (Rates Validation) Bill. Before I make my contribution on the bill though I just want to alert members to the fact that we have been warned already once this week about people falling off high horses. That was in reference to the Northland by-election but I want to just caution other members about being so critical of the Christchurch City Council in making errors given that it was only in recent days in this House that we passed a Statutes Amendment Bill that corrected 34 separate pieces of legislation that members of this House had deliberated on through the first reading through the select committee through the second reading through the Committee stage and through the third reading and then we had to come back and fix what were basically errors. So members should recognise that these things happen.The challenge for us is to do two things in my view when we get a council or local authority saying: “There’s been a terrible mistake. We’ve just been alerted to it. Can you help us fix it?”. The two things that I think we need to do are first of all decide whether we should fix it or not. Was the error that has been made made because of genuine reasons? Was it corruption? Was it an error? You know that sort of call. Clearly this is an error and not anything untoward. Then we have to decide really that we will fix it and make sure that it does not happen again—that is the second point. I have heard no contribution from the members from the Local Government and Environment Committee or indeed from the member in charge of the bill the Hon Nicky Wagner about any efforts that were made during the passage of this legislation to make sure that exactly the same thing is not happening somewhere else. Heaven forbid Mr Muller it might be in a North Island council.Poto Williams: Muller.Hon RUTH DYSON: Muller sorry. I will just join the people who are mispronouncing your name. Mr Muller insinuated that these errors happen only in the South Island. Kaipara—I am pretty sure that is in the North Island. I am almost positive actually. That was the most recent one we did.Just going back to this bill as the member who—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Going back to it? Oh sorry.Hon RUTH DYSON: —just terminated her call Joanne Hayes mentioned it is a pretty small bill. I do not understand why the Minister who introduced it and spoke earlier in the debate said it does not have any impact on any individuals. Clearly it does because the resolution was illegal. People got their rates bill and they paid it and the rate was set illegally so it clearly does have an impact on people. We have just decided that that impact is not of such a nature that we would not remedy the fact that the rate was struck outside the law. So that is the reason this legislation is needed.The first of the two offending parts is in section 24 of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002. Do you still have to refer to which document it is when you refer to Bound Reprinted Statutes? Is that still the requirement in the Standing Orders Mr Assistant Speaker? I think it is.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): You need to take a point of order Ms Dyson. Would you like to take a point of order?Hon RUTH DYSON: It is in Bound Reprinted Statutes Vol 26 at p 534. Section 24 “Due date or dates for payment” says: “A local authority must state”—and these are the three key words—“in the resolution setting a rate—”. So you have to state in the resolution: “(a) the financial year to which the rate applies; and (b) the date on which the rate must be paid or if the rate is payable by instalments the dates by which the specified amounts must be paid.” That was the first breach because the local authority—in this case Christchurch City Council—did state it on the invoice but did not state in the resolution that information as outlined in section 24.The other breach was in relation to the same Bound Reprinted Statute obviously but this time it related to section 57 “Penalties on unpaid rates”. It states: “A local authority may”—again those words—“by resolution authorise penalties to be added to rates that are not paid by the due date.” Then it goes on to say that a resolution cannot be made later than the date the local authority sets the rates and the resolution itself has to state how the penalty is calculated and the date the penalty is to be added and then it talks about the level. So that is the error that this legislation is fixing. It has meant that people in Christchurch for 10 whole years were rated illegally. I do not think there is a single person in this House—actually I do not think there is a single person on the city council amongst the elected representatives or management—who would be pleased about that. I do not know who made the error but as I mentioned earlier I want to make really sure that efforts have been made by the member who introduced the bill and also by the members on the select committee to make sure that the system is in place so that the Christchurch City Council and other councils do not make this same mistake again.The reason I am particularly keen on that is that I do not imagine given the intolerance that was demonstrated throughout some members’ speeches tonight—I am not confident that a future plea from another council might not fall on deaf ears. We might not get a positive response from a local member or indeed Parliament to retrospectively validate setting of rates or correcting any other errors. What would happen? What would happen to Christchurch if the city council had come along and said: “We’ve discovered this mistake.”? Actually the Department of Internal Affairs needs a bit of a pat on the back because it was actually the Department of Internal Affairs that found this mistake. Somebody—I do not know what their job is—had been reading the local government rating legislation of 2002 and comparing the requirements in it with the rating resolution from 2003 to 2013 of the Christchurch City Council. Heaven knows what their job description is but I am grateful to them that they did detect this error because that was the only way that we were alerted to it.But if the Parliament had said: “No we are not going to pass this legislation.” what would the options be? Well at the moment the Christchurch City Council is already looking at enough hard options actually. One of the options that has recently been put out for public consultation is an option in terms of meeting our city’s shortfall of funds—and it is a shortfall because of the debt requirements of the local government legislation—of selling off some of our assets. A lot of people in Canterbury are very concerned about that very upset very angry and we will be doing everything that we can to look at better alternatives. There is a very good reason for that. It is that the assets that our city council owns earn us a lot of money as ratepayers and that means we have to pay less in rates.If Parliament had decided not to support this rates validation bill we would be even further in trouble in terms of facing our financial future and having a shortfall. So I am very grateful firstly that Parliament has decided to proceed with this legislation understanding that the error that was made was not a calculated misappropriation of any sort that it was a genuine error and that probably we do not even know who was personally responsible for it. Secondly I am very grateful for the fact that we are looking atonly our current shortfall and we will be able to find better options for our city in its future than selling our income-earning assets.A number of contributors to this debate tonight have talked about how bad it is to pass retrospective legislation. I cannot imagine any other way of correcting a mistake that has been made than retrospectively. It would be very hard to pass legislation that corrected a mistake that was to be made in the future. That is the point of this. This is correcting an error and I think Mr Foster-Bell might have some learned contribution to make on this point. But the point I was making Mr Foster-Bell is that it is very hard to correct an error that has been made other than by retrospective legislation. It would be very hard to do it looking into the future.Paul Foster-Bell: Perfectly fair point.Hon RUTH DYSON: That is right.Paul Foster-Bell: I don’t disagree with the member.Hon RUTH DYSON: Paul Foster-Bell and I agree. It is time to quit this debate I think. We have got agreement on this very point. So I want to just thank members of Parliament for their understanding of the situation that the city council has found itself in and I look forward to the progress and passing of this legislation.