Mark RonRON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): It is an interesting debate that I am listening to and it is one of those delightful occasions when I find myself concurring with the views expressed both to the left and right of me by the Green Party and the Labour Party. I am somewhat saddened—Hon Ruth Dyson: Ah quit while you're ahead—that's good.RON MARK: —put that down; I actually said it—by the pathway that the Government has chosen to take in respect of local government.In my time as the Mayor of Carterton I stood helplessly by and watched this Government continue on a pathway whereby through passing legislation it sought to advance amalgamations aiming at the size and scale and a repetition of what it achieved in Auckland—and my has that not gone so well! Has that not gone so well! We sit here looking at this piece of legislation—continuing to look at this piece of legislation—as we have done over the last number of months. One glaring question leaps out: why? Why has the Government put this piece of legislation up in the first place? Why did it choose to do it in the way that it has done it? When it first entered their tiny little minds that there was something wrong in the State of Denmark—i.e. local government—and that they needed to intervene and write legislation—Hon Ruth Dyson: Do you know about local government?RON MARK: —well we might just touch on a wee bit of that the Hon Ruth Dyson—why did Government members not think just for a fleeting moment that they should go and talk with people who understand local government.You see one thing that I do know is that sitting on one side of the table at the Local Government and Environment Committee were five people with experience in local government. Sitting on the other side—although it was hard to keep track with the comings and goings and things that happened—there were none. I think occasionally Mr Ian McKelvie popped in which added one former mayor but I also sit here and wonder how much sway that gentleman has in his caucus because he is an experienced mayor. Actually—not quite so experienced—there is another mayor in that caucus: old Jono—Hon Ruth Dyson: Maureen.RON MARK: —and Maureen Pugh. There is local government experience in the National caucus but there was none on the select committee. Why is that? It is probably because if those experienced members with their personal views—which they do let out into the ether when they are trying to calm the rebellion in provincial New Zealand and when their good friends say What the hell are you people doing?" they say things like: "Oh no no. Don't worry—no. Ah well you know if you're in the caucus you're bound by caucus—you know. It's sort of like you're—well it's not about being whipped; you've got to go with the flow. You've got to go." If you want to be elected back—if you want to be back on the list you have to go with the Government's policy and support the Minister. So what those ones with local government experience are saying in the hustings and what they are voting for here in the House today—this piece of legislation—are not the same thing.It saddens me as a former Mayor of Carterton who does understand the concerns of local government New Zealand and who does talk to people like Lawrence Yule and other mayors that this Government: (1) does not understand local government (2) does not care and (3) is not really interested in democracy and has no interest in localism. The idea of local people deciding for themselves: (a) how they want to elect their council (b) how they want their assets to be owned or managed and (c) whether or not they want to be divested of those assets that they have built up over 150 or 175 years with money out of their own pockets with no assistance at all from any central government no matter what colour it might have been—no one seems to think over that side that these people might actually have their own views on how those assets should be held whether they are held in council-controlled organisations (CCOs) or not. No one on that side of the Government seems to want to listen to the fact that there is a raging debate going on up in Auckland about CCOs and the control of them and the vesting of power in appointed boards that have no obligation whatsoever to listen to Mrs Buttons at 58 King Street when she says: "I don't want our sewage system—our waste-water treatment plant—to be divested into the hands and the control of a bunch of appointed bean counters or corporates." She does not want it.When I hear National members stand up and say: "Well we couldn't imagine how Kaiapoi would possibly have handled the Canterbury earthquakes if it had still had a little council—because of course size and scale is what got Christchurch through!". Seriously? Does Matt Doocey really believe that? If he does he needs to explain to me how in 1929 when the 7.8 Murchison earthquake hit all those little county councils and all those little borough councils—how did they get by? In 1931 Hawke's Bay got whacked on 3 February and got whacked again on 13 February. How many councils made up the Hawke's Bay prior to the 1989 reforms? Dozens and dozens. How did they get by? Matt Doocey says they would never have survived.In 1934 Pahīatua got whacked on 3 February. On 24 June 1942 Wairarapa got hit and got hit again on 2 August—the biggest earthquake since 1931. It was massive. It knocked down the Carterton post office. On 22 February 1863 Hawke's Bay got hit. How did they all possibly survive and rebuild and recover to be the wonderful places that they are with all of the infrastructure that this Government now wants to take off them and vest into the hands of some corporate-minded bean counters with no ability for the ratepayer to have their democratic say about how those assets are managed how high their rates are going to go up how high the fees are going to go up and what levies are going to be placed? How did those small county councils and borough councils ever ever ever get through those major earthquakes Matt Doocey? I think you need to go back to school and do some learning. Spend some time talking to some local government people.Actually we would have been better off if the National Government had taken all of its members who had served in local government stuck them on the select committee and given them free rein to work with the Opposition members and produce a bill that we could all have come back to the House and supported—but it did not. It rammed it through with no interest at all in what we have done in the Wairarapa. Talking about CCOs—CCOs are not the only solution to better management or more cohesive or collaborative management and that is actually the word—"collaborative management". Shared services work. Shared services in the Wairarapa has been going on for the last 10 or 15 years and increasingly so. But the great thing about doing it that way is that the councillors get to sit on the committee—the duly elected people.There is the message. If this Government does not trust Local Government New Zealand enough to go and talk to it and ask it what the bill would look like it if wrote it; if it does not trust the councils enough to listen to their submissions; and if it does not trust enough the mayors or the councillors who have just been elected in 2016 a number of whom were booted out because they believed in this amalgamation philosophy of the National Party then what it is saying is that all of those card-carrying members of the National Party who are mayors who are regional councillors who are councillors and who do chair these committees do not know what they are doing—do not know what they are doing—do not know what is best do not know what is right and are stupid. Actually that may explain why such a large number of them are leaving the National Party in droves in provincial New Zealand and why our membership is doing so well and why our committees are building and growing. Finally those people have actually realised out in rural provincial New Zealand and in councils and district councils all over New Zealand that the National Party has become too arrogant and too dismissive and is actually not interested in their opinions at all."