Parker David: Local Government Law Reform Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Parker David: Local Government Law Reform Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14112] 
DAVID PARKER (Labour—Otago) 
: 
 I thank other speakers from the Local Government and Environment Committee who have spoken previously in this second reading. The issues addressed by this bill have been well covered by members. As they have mentioned the bill tidies up quite a broad range of matters that affect local government. 
Phil Heatley 
: What a mess! 
DAVID PARKER 
: That member could not be more wrong as evidenced from the fact that after a very broad and detailed amendment of local government legislation in 2002—the Local Government Act is very comprehensive legislation—we had only 14 submissions to this next local government bill to come before Parliament. So it is not a mess; it is actually in very good shape. 
I want to address a couple of the issues we looked at in some detail in the select committee. The first relates to the casting vote. We heard Mr Shirley of ACT criticise the decision of the Government to support the reintroduction of the casting vote. There was some sort of assertion that it was a giant backdown. I think it is true that all members in this House have changed their minds on the issue of the casting vote because when the provision for it was taken away from councils in 2002 by the Local Government Act that change had the unanimous support of every party on the select committee at that time. But after that change concerns were expressed by members of local government and as the Hon Nick Smith just mentioned there was a little bit of uncertainty as to whether the casting vote had been completely removed. The advice we had in the committee was that it had been but it was certainly arguable. 
The need for a casting vote in some situations was apparent in the cases where local government has a statutory duty to do something by a certain date. So we would be rather errant if we left local government in the position that it could not make a decision because it did not have a casting vote yet had an obligation for example to strike rates by a certain date. There were then arguments as to whether the casting vote should be limited to those situations where there was a statutory duty. The committee thought about whether that was an appropriate place to draw the line. On further reflection the Government agrees with National ACT United Future and New Zealand First that that is a pretty fine line and asks why we should not trust local government to exercise the casting vote in the manner it did without great problems in the past. 
The next issue I would like to talk about is infringement fees. Under the Dog Control Act councils have the power to impose fines by way of infringement notices on people who breach the Act. Those fines were a little bit inconsistent and some of the advice we had from councils—working in the areas that have the most problems with owners who do not keep dogs properly under control—was that they thought the level of fines was so high that in practice the fines were not collectible. Councils thought that a lower level of fines would still act as an appropriate penalty against those who break the law while at the same time make the fines more likely to be paid and collected. They said a lower level of fine would also mean that dog control officers would see it fair to render an infringement notice and be more likely to exercise their powers. We agreed with those submissions and as a consequence we have again tried to rationalise those fees. We tried to do it late last year and did not get it quite right but we hope we have done better this time. 
On the matter of rating information I remind members that access to the rates database was cut off in the 2002 Act because there had been a developing practice whereby marketing companies had wholesale access to the rates records and used that database to market people—to spam them to use the modern electronic equivalent—with information they did not want to receive. So at that stage access to rates records had been removed. 
That was a step too far because it is necessary to have access to such information. For example people might want to know who else is using a common drain or who they are dealing with in relation to a planning application. They need to know the postal address at which those people can be contacted. It is of course possible to get the name of other owners through other sources of information—for example by doing a search of the title. That costs a bit of money and it still does not show people’s addresses. 
So we have reinstated the ability of councils to let people have access to that personal information on rates records. But we have made it clear that they do not have the right to the whole of the records; they have just the right to information on an inquiry-by-inquiry basis. And we have given people on the database the right to opt out from providing personal information. There was a proposal from officials that people had to give their permission to be on the database before they could be included but we thought that that was making it too difficult for councils and I think we now have a proper and practical outcome. I recommend the legislation to the House.