Barry Maggie: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBarry Maggie: Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 12 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16624. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore):If you thought that Part 1 and the preamble were fascinating I am delighted to be able to take a lengthy call now analysing clauses 5 6 7 and 8 and then the exciting culmination clause 9. There were no changes recommended to those but the process of how that conclusion was arrived at is indeed fascinating. I am of course hoping that the sponsoring member Damien O’Connor will be able to shine a little light on how the community has responded to the progress of his member’s bill the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill so far but I see he is deeply engaged in conversation. Perhaps at a later moment he might be able to sort of elucidate and come to it. I could ask him again really—now that you are paying attention—to talk about the community and how it feels about this validation and whether it will in fact smooth over some of the hurt feelings and problems that have happened.When we look at clauses 5 6 7 and 8 they are specifically concerned with the validation of the specified rates the validation of penalties the payment of specified rates that have been declared lawful and then clause 8 itself the “Recovery of unpaid specified rates or penalties declared lawful”. A number of submitters opposed clauses 6 to 8 in relation to the penalties in particular. One submitter’s view that was particularly interesting was that the council should be limited to being able to collect only the base rate but not the penalties for late payment on the base amount. This is the logic around it: the ratepayers who had delayed paying the rates because they were invalid should not be penalised. This was considered unjustified because it would mean that the council would then be benefiting from its own errors which is of course something that we need to take into account. After all as every good parent knows you cannot reward bad behaviour. By benefiting from its own errors the council would indeed be in a difficult situation. Well in fact it would be in a good situation but that would send a very bad signal to other councils.One submitter on those clauses 5 through to 7 suggested that penalties should apply only to amounts that remain unpaid after some specified period after the Act comes into force. So you will appreciate that there were a number of submitters who had given this a great deal of thought time and energy. The officials for their part also devoted a lot of time and energy to this. As I said in my earlier call on the preamble it is a shame that something like this has got to the stage that it has and that it has wasted so much of the House’s time and the taxpayers’ money. But there it is—that is the nature of democracy. We know that the Labour members’ short concentration span on the whole cannot really tolerate it but we will go through it—Jacqui Dean: They find it boring.MAGGIE BARRY: Yes they find it boring. That is a very very telling observation. I think that they seem to find most things boring which is probably why the local government reforms will go through and they will go through without too much in the way of rigorous opposition because Labour members just cannot marshal the intellectual rigour to be able to counter any of the excellent arguments that we put forward. So there you go—they are indeed wallowing in their short concentration spans and their problematic moments.I would like to go now to the recommendations of the Department of Internal Affairs on the clauses. It did consider them to be appropriate for purpose. The department recommended no changes to clauses 5 to 8. When we come to clause 9 Mr Chair—and I know you will be interested in this—it makes explicit the nub of the problem which is the 2006-07 Ligar Bay and Tata Beach stormwater rates. It made them valid and declared them lawful despite the category of rateable land not being identified in that earlier impact statement. You know floods occur occasionally in this area and that was explained to us in detail by a couple of submitters—in particular Mr Schmuke who had gone to a lot of trouble to laminate several large photographs and had as I said in my earlier call and as others have referred to just taken it that step further.Nine submitters opposed the validation of the Ligar Bay and Tata Beach stormwater rates. They were very much opposed to the initial levying of the stormwater rates on the grounds that no stormwater drainage services were provided by the council and that there was no need for them; therefore why should they pay for them? Further there was no initial consultation on the inclusion of Ligar Bay so those ratepayers felt themselves disenfranchised not involved in the process and were obviously therefore very unhappy at what they were expected to pay. Submitters also opposed the validation of the invalid stormwater rates on the basis of the Ombudsman’s opinion back in 2009 that supported the position that levying a stormwater rate for Tata Beach was based wholly or partly on the mistake of law and fact. Really was that natural justice? No it was not.So the officials had commented—