Wall Louisa: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWall Louisa: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8318. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): I have been dying to take a call all morning so I appreciate this opportunity to contribute to Part 2 and I also want to focus on the validation provision in new section 170. I do thank the Minister for the clarification because essentially there was some requirement under section 123(7) of the principal Act that referred to a period of 60 working days for submissions to have been received after public notification.The question that I have actually is about the period between 14 January and 28 February 2014 and how many of the 9400 submissions that period actually applies to. It is actually relevant. I have not had clarification about access to this process of the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel. Essentially Auckland Council went out and as I said before it got over 9400 submissions on the development of the Auckland Unitary Plan. It also had an extended period when it got another 3800 submissions. It then wrote the draft Auckland Unitary Plan and that plan was given to the hearings panel to then consult and—this is my question for the Minister—presumably only with people who had made a previous submission. That is where this validation clause actually becomes relevant.My colleague the Hon Phil Goff said that there were 5000 submissions to be heard by this hearings panel and they are a subset of the total 13200 submissions. So in fact this validation clause is incredibly important if that is the relevance of this validation process. I need to know from the Minister whether or not the qualification to contribute to the hearings panel process is actually based only on your making an original submission to the Auckland Council unitary plan process. The qualification of what is a submission becomes incredibly important to the integrity of this whole piece of legislation.If the Minister could confirm that that would be good because I guess in looking at this particular clause you want to make sure that the clause actually has a purpose. So does this validation clause actually matter? I think that the Minister should let the public know the purpose the rationale and the relevance of this particular clause because if it does then determine qualification for those submitters through participation in the process from the beginning to be heard then actually that is really really important. If it does not and if it does not matter—and actually then I think the integrity of Part 1 comes into question. In fact in new section 144(5) in clause 5 the hearings panel ultimately will make recommendations that actually may be outside the scope of the submissions that it receives so there is not actually going to be a relationship between the submissions that it received when the cut-off date was 28 February 2014 and the ability of those submitters to make a contribution to the hearings panel process.That is actually the crux of the argument. It is a serious point to be discussed because what we know through other parts of this particular legislation in Part 1—and I seek your indulgence Mr Chair just to reference back—is that under new section 144(8)(a) in clause 5 the panel can “identify any recommendations that are beyond the scope of the submissions made in respect of that topic or … topics;”. Also section 144(9)(b) says that: “any other matter that the Hearings Panel considers relevant to the proposed plan that arises from submissions … ” but then it has got these two words: “or otherwise.” So “or otherwise” actually means that they stand apart or outside the process and in fact that is what we are concerned about in terms of the integrity of this process. What that essentially says based on what I have just read is that this Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel can actually introduce a whole lot of material and make recommendations to the council that have got no rational basis in terms of the process that we have been through. So Auckland—