Dalziel Lianne: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dalziel Lianne: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 27 November 2012. Volume:686;Page:6834. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chair for the opportunity to address the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill which I think could be better named the “Local Government Act 2002 (Let’s Ignore What is Going On in Christchurch) Bill”. I think that what this bill really does show is that we have learnt nothing about the experience we are going through in Christchurch. I want to remind this Committee—and I know he has been mentioned in this debate more than once—that Professor Sir Peter Gluckman prepared a report for the Government last year about the psychosocial consequences of the Canterbury earthquakes. I just want to share with the Committee why I think the name of this bill ought to be addressed in terms of what is going on in Christchurch at the moment. He stated: “In every disaster there is an inevitable tension between the desire for an immediate response and the need for planning”—by multiple layers of authority—“and risk reduction. This tension aggravates the situation and creates opportunities for externally driven exacerbation of symptoms. Anger and frustration are inevitable and endogenous. It is wrong to respond to this anger in a defensive way.” I believe that this bill is a defensive response to what is going on there. It may not have been driven by what has happened in Christchurch but if we do not learn the lessons of what has happened there and do not take them into account then we will be committing a grave injustice really and imposing it on the rest of the country. 
If Christchurch has to suffer the consequences of what we have been through we plead of this Parliament to listen to our concerns and to see what is actually going on here. Let me carry on: “It would appear that key to minimising this phase is the promotion of local empowerment and engagement by working closely in a collaborative way with the affected population in co-ordinating and co-leading the response effort.” Having this legislation focused on community outcomes such as good-quality local infrastructure local public services and performance of regulatory functions and pretending that that has got nothing to do with community well-being is a complete mistake and a complete disaster that I believe we should protect against. “If the population do not sense this is happening then the phase may well be longer and the symptoms of anger and frustration more intense. A feeling of self-efficacy and community efficacy assists the population in reactivating their coping mechanisms. Local governance empowerment and ownership have been shown to facilitate recovery.” If we have learnt nothing from what has gone on in Christchurch we must learn that lesson. By empowering communities to take ownership of their own recovery and in this respect local government we must learn those lessons. 
This legislation is a direct contradiction of all of the experience we have in Christchurch so far. The report carries on to say: “Then inevitable tensions and conflicts in achieving this are obvious (long-term versus short-term public versus private local versus national interests) and cannot be avoided—rather they have to be openly handled with sensitivity.” This legislation is the complete contrast to handling things openly with sensitivity. It says: “It follows that from the psychosocial perspective those involved in directing the recovery should create governance structures that understand and actively include community participation and enhance individual and community resilience. Such approaches will be most likely to be effective in re-establishing coping and functioning communities.” And I want to say that when we actually look at a conceptual model for infrastructure recovery and enhancement as has been prepared down in Christchurch we actually find if we look at the hierarchy of needs when we look at that baseline breathing water food warmth sleep and excretion as an example of the physiology that is required for a functioning individual within a functioning community. Above that are personal family employment health and property matters. Above that are friendships family and belongings. And esteem is the confidence achievement and respect above that. It actually ties directly to the basic infrastructure—[ 
Bell rung 
] Mr Chairman— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Lianne Dalziel. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: It actually ties directly across— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Can I just make the point to the member to tie in what you are saying because we are on clauses 1 2 and 3. It would actually be helpful to mention those in the course of this. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Clauses 1 2 and 3 obviously talk about the title of the legislation and as I said at the outset this bill could be better entitled the “Local Government Act 2002 (Let’s Ignore What is Happening in Christchurch) Bill”. I do not believe that the Committee has really seriously thought about how this legislation is going to impact on Christchurch. 
And then of course we have the commencement date. That has been changed obviously since the time the legislation was introduced. It was due to come into effect on 12 October 2013. I presume that that has been updated since the Supplementary Order Paper. I cannot understand why when one looks at the evidence that has been presented by somebody of the calibre of Sir Peter Gluckman about this need to balance these tensions around the public versus the private the local versus the national interests and particularly the long term versus the short term. I really fear that this Parliament is going to have a far greater impact not only on Christchurch but on the rest of New Zealand without learning the essential lessons that could have been learnt. 
The point that I was making and the reason that I was emphasising the title and indeed the commencement date of this legislation was that it would be better to wait until we have all of the reviews of the impact of both the response and the recovery efforts that have been undertaken in Christchurch. Would it not be better to have all of those reports on the table and indeed to obtain a synthesis of those reports in order to better inform the implementation of this legislation? So why implement this legislation? Why have a commencement date that is earlier than all of the reports that are going to be reporting on how we have responded to the disaster that has befallen Christchurch? I believe that there are a number of pieces of legislation that this Government should actually consider holding back until we have had all of that detailed analysis and until there has been the synthesis that is required in order to get a full appreciation of what has occurred in Christchurch and what those learnings might be. 
The international community is looking at what is happening in Christchurch with great interest because they have been given a narrative by this Government about how things have occurred there. But I think that when they actually look at what has in fact happened then people are going to be actually surprised that this Government has not looked at international best practice that it has not adopted the approach that other countries have adopted. When they look at the layer of this legislation coming in over the top of what we have experienced with a commencement date that applies prior to learning all of the lessons that we will have to learn from Christchurch then they are going to ask why we let this happen—why we let this happen in our country when we have had the experience of this disaster when we have seen how important local communities are in terms of empowerment how important local authorities are and we have seen our own Christchurch City Council completely left out of the frame as far as the consideration of the rebuild of Christchurch central city goes. It has been left out of the picture completely. We have got our Mayor of Christchurch constantly complaining about how he is no longer engaged in any process with central government. 
We have the Waimakariri District Council on the other hand which performed magnificently. It actually operated on a basis of real engagement with its community. There is no way the people of Waimakariri want to be subsumed into some super-city that involves the Christchurch City Council. It is the Christchurch City Council that has been found wanting in this case. It is the largest council in the region that has been found wanting. That is why I believe this legislation would be better framed as Local Government Act amendment legislation that takes no notice of any of the lessons that have been learnt in Christchurch any of the lessons that have been learnt in the Canterbury region. If we were to look seriously at what has happened down there we would not be proceeding with this legislation and we would be naming it for what it is which is a complete disaster.