Little Andrew: Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11019. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour):I rise to speak as other Labour Party members have in support of the Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) and remind the Committee just how important this piece of legislation is. I am somewhat surprised that here in nearly the middle of June in a year in which we are having local body elections we are dealing with more changes that arose out of the last set of local body elections more than 2½ years ago. We are now frankly down to the wire making changes that will have a bearing upon this year’s elections at least in relation to candidates’ returns in terms of their election expenses and residential declarations.We know why this is important. It is because there were aspects of the 2010 local body elections that were frankly a disgrace. There are consequences to that election that have been played out not only in the great city of Auckland—the super-city of Auckland as some have described it—but also in this House because of the conduct of some individuals arising out that election. What has become patently clear is that we now have a Government that even on important legislation like this is propped up by shabby and tawdry members who have muddled around and mucked around at the local body level caused disgrace to themselves and their so-called parties—or what is left of them—and shone a very poor light on the Government of the day. Frankly the people of New Zealand expect better.The people of New Zealand expect that in the Government of the day not only the members of the party that leads the Government but also those who support it through agreements formal and informal are people of good character and that they are people who act with integrity and indeed with honesty and act in a way that is befitting of members of a Government. But we have a Government that is increasingly supported by people who can be described only as shonky as lacking in integrity and as lacking in credibility and yet this Government is utterly and totally dependent and reliant upon them.What sort of shabby Government do we have now? The answer to that question is pretty obvious. The Minister in the chair the Minister of Conservation who only this morning defended his role in local government and in relation to housing by enunciating an entirely new philosophy of trickle-down housing philosophy—trickle-down housing philosophy—wants to impose that philosophy on every local government in this country. Well it just shows you what a pretty pass we have come to—what a pretty pass we have come to.This bill will make differences to the declaration of campaign expenditure. They are long overdue. We simply should never have been put in the position where a candidate—any candidate in any local body election—can be the recipient of brown paper envelopes stuffed with cash from large corporate donors that can then apparently credibly—Hon Chester Borrows: Union members sneaking around in the dead of night.ANDREW LITTLE: Here we go. Here comes Mr Borrows and the anti-union rhetoric. They are union-haters—the union-haters and union-wreckers opposite. They hate the idea of people acting collectively. They hate the idea of people exercising their freedom of choice to act collectively. That is the nature of this Government. It is not enough to be propped up by the tawdry shabby people and their informal confidence and supply agreements. It acts as it has always done. The anti-union wreckers and hatersof old have come back. Well if it was not enough for Tau Henare to express the values of the 1950s here earlier this morning now we have them back again—the “fifty-oners” of the National Government. They hate unions and hate working people who exercise their freedom of choice. That is why they bridle at and resist any attempt to regulate local government.Mr Borrows of all people knows that because of the Cold Creek water supply agreement which we had rammed through this House and rammed through the South Taranaki District Council at his and Shane Ardern’s behest. They know all about local government. They have never shown any respect for it at all and that is why they uncomfortably and grudgingly pass this legislation which will tidy up just an element of it and ensure that those who stand for local government and for office in local government at least meet some test of good character integrity and probity.When passed this bill will ensure that the declarations made by candidates for local government shine a proper light on their expenditure and those who have supported them and that campaign managers cannot be prevailed upon to make declarations that clearly are not credible and that clearly are not honest. When passed this bill will provide thresholds that by and large are meaningful and credible—except of course for those campaigning in the super-city of Auckland. My good colleague Phil Twyford will have a Supplementary Order Paper that will deal with the issue of campaign spending limits which under this bill are set extraordinarily high—at an extraordinarily high level—when that is not necessary and indeed when the most recent candidates in Auckland attested that the levels at which they are set are clearly not necessary if they are to run a credible campaign. So those are all good things in this bill.We welcome the opportunity to tidy up this piece of legislation. Many members who come to this House come through the local government channel. They come through having cut their teeth on local government and understand what Government processes are. They learn about regulation at a local level. They learn that local government has an important role to play in ensuring good peace and good order in the community that one ratepayer’s freedom invariably cannot be exercised if it is at the expense of another and therefore that we have local government to play an appropriately moderating and mediating role when it comes to regulation at a local government level.But we need to make sure that those who stand for public office even at that local government level do so under a system a framework that is appropriate and that ensures integrity credibility and honesty; that we do not have people who are sponsored by corporates or the rich and the wealthy; and that we do not allow Tammany Hall politics to infect local government in this country. We do not want the situation where local government can be controlled by a small elite a plutocracy or an oligarchy. We need to allow proper freedom and democracy to operate at the level of local government so that people who stand for public office open themselves up and open up their spending to a proper process of scrutiny. This bill will allow that in its provisions. It is for that reason that we support it.