Eagle PaulPAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Look having come to Parliament from—in fact directly from—seven years in local government it's an honour to speak in support of the Local Government (Community Well-being) Amendment Bill which is being read in the House for the first time. I want to acknowledge the work of the hard-working Minister Nanaia Mahuta her staff the officials and Local Government New Zealand who helped bring this bill to the House this evening. It's a piece of work that rights the wrongs and resets the relationship with local government and central government. I am especially pleased this evening because as the Minister said I was initially hoping to progress at least the four well-beings aspect of this bill as a member's bill but there is nothing better than having it as a Government bill to give it the urgency and it shows that this Government is serious about empowering local government.I want to kick off by reinforcing the comments of the Minister when she said that local government is very much more than just roads rates and rubbish. That sets the scene because it sends a clear message to councils that this Government values the role of local government and supports civic participation and community involvement in local democracy.The bill amends the Local Government Act of 2002 and it's being expressed in four different aspects. First of all it restores the social environmental and cultural well-beings in addition to economic. That's a point that I'll come back to later in my speech because that goes now into the purpose of local government. Secondly it removes the requirement for councils to have particular regard to core services—what was core and what was non-core—and how they fared for their communities. Thirdly it restores that power to collect development contributions for a range of community infrastructure and the Minister talked about what that can be used for. Finally there is the minor technical issue that stands in the way of councils accessing transport infrastructure funding from the Housing Infrastructure Fund.I want to focus on the most critical issue with this bill and that's the reinstatement of community well-being into the purpose of local government. We heard from the Minister too that it shifts the power back to local communities to decide with their councils what should be done for them. Councils all over New Zealand are facing the challenges. We know what they are but the challenges are based on the most cost-effective reference in the current purpose statement. That's the issue.We know that the four well-beings are already intrinsically woven into the local government regulatory framework—that's not a problem—but this holistic approach gives much clearer authority for local councils to shape the activities based on what their communities require. It moves the focus on councils from what councils can do to what they should do. It means that they can reset their thinking from Are we allowed to do this?" to "Should we do this?" and that's critical. As I said having spent the last seven years in local government here in the capital city at the Wellington City Council having to deal with this scenario it was a sinister scenario based on an ideologically driven approach by the previous Government—based solely on that economic imperative—and today with the reinstatement of the well-beings now we look at all four aspects of it.Let me give you some examples just to demonstrate this. There's nothing like something that's really from the grassroots that's happened. Let's look at something from back in June 2013 when I went to a formal farewell of 27 council road workers who had given more than 500 years of service between them. That was the departure of those staff from the council's in-house works unit marking decades of institutional knowledge lost and the end of council building its own roads for 130 years. Funnily enough that unit only 20 years earlier was forced to set itself up as an in-house works unit because the National Government of the time in 1990 forced it to contract its work out. Luckily the capital city made a decision to say "We're the best in the business. We're going to compete against the private sector and win our work back." But I said at the time of that situation—to quote myself—"Some of these men have given their entire lives to [Wellington City]. They've earned their jobs and our respect. They deserve better from us."A month later in July of that same year—in 2013—the Local Government Act said it was absolutely fine to outsource the work and so they did to an Australian company called Leighton solely because it was cheaper. It didn't matter that they had no local workforce it didn't matter that they had no trucks and no depot and it didn't matter that they had no record of delivering works in New Zealand. All that mattered was they were the cheapest. I can tell you for the next two years the new contractor drove around in trucks with "Henderson Rentals" on the side of them. They even changed their name when ratepayers got upset because service levels weren't being met. Now they were called Ventia. They cobbled together a workforce mostly temporary and mostly on the minimum wage not to mention they had to endure the 90-day rule. But worst of all was that less than 2½ years into that contract they walked off the job. So 130 years of the council doing the work themselves was flawed by an Australian company who got a cheap contract off the capital city council and then they walk off the job: they literally down tools and they're gone. That's what the current Local Government Act and the lack of not having four well-beings in that Act does. That happened right here in the city that you are sitting in tonight. When I questioned the CEO and said "How can this be? How have we got to this? How have we sent 27 guys down the road who had 500 years' worth of institutional knowledge?" he said "That's the legislation that we have to work in." Tonight and by the end of this year we will bring that scenario to an end and no longer will local councils across this country be endured with that sort of treatment to their workers and their people.I also want to talk on a more positive note and let's look at what the change means to local authorities. What it does mean now and I want to focus on the same council is that they can introduce things like the living wage. If you want to pay those same workers that you've outsourced $20.55 an hour—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Don't bring me into it.PAUL EAGLE: —they are welcome to do that. I certainly want to say that there will be councils all over New Zealand who now will be able to engage with their communities based on those four well-beings and be able to say "This may not happen anywhere else in New Zealand but we as a community will proudly implement this or deliver that because that's what our communities want." and that's the spirit of what we're doing this evening.As I said I'm really proud to speak on this bill. This bill puts the local back in to local government. I said in my opening paragraph that it resets the relationship with local government and central government. I've given an example there that you cannot dispute. You cannot dispute where the purpose of the current Act—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I might but others might not.PAUL EAGLE: Absolutely Madam Deputy Speaker. That example there some may dispute at their peril but look I certainly look forward to the bill going to the Governance and Administration Committee and being brought back to the House by the end of September and come Christmas time the people of New Zealand through their local councils will be delivered one of the best Christmas presents that I believe most of them will ever get. I commend this bill to the House."