Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Associate Minister of Local Government: I present a legislative statement on the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon JAN TINETTI: I move, That the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill.

I am pleased to bring the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill to the House. This bill makes two quite different but equally important changes to how information is shared under the Act. First, the bill will improve natural hazard information provided in land information memorandum reports, also known as LIMs. Second, the bill will enable councils to withhold information that could prejudice national security. The bill amends current LIM provisions to introduce natural hazard information requirements for LIMs, including information on climate change impacts. It introduces a new responsibility for regional councils to provide natural hazard information to territorial authorities. It also introduces power to develop regulations to make sure natural hazard information in LIMs is clear and understandable. Finally, it introduces a limitation on council liability. This will mean councils can confidently provide natural hazard information without fear of legal action.

For decades, LIMs have been the main source of property information for home buyers. LIMs are intended to communicate information about natural hazards and climate change impacts so people can make informed decisions. Reviews, including by the local government sector, have shown that LIMs are currently not effectively informing the public about natural hazards. There is a lack of consistency about what information is provided across different parts of the country, so it is difficult for buyers to compare information from different regions. Sometimes key natural hazard information is missing, especially if that information sits with regional councils, as information held by regional councils doesn’t have to be included in LIMs. LIMs can often be hundreds of pages long and refer to detailed technical reports, which the average person does not have the time or expertise to read. I’ve also heard from councils that it is difficult to add summaries or explanations to LIMs that might help property buyers because of council fears about legal action by affected property owners.

We know that all our communities in Aotearoa New Zealand are at risk of severe weather and natural hazards, be it flooding, earthquakes, or landslips. Every severe weather event and natural hazard has seriously impacted families, communities, and businesses. We know that climate change will make many natural hazard events both worse and more frequent. This Government is working on actions to improve community resilience to these events through the national adaptation plan and future climate adaptation legislation. Improving natural hazard information in LIMs is a critical action under the national adaptation plan and a core focus of the bill. The changes to the LIM system in the bill are needed to ensure that home buyers can access the best natural hazard information available and make informed choices on where they build in their future.

The changes, outlined in this bill, to the Act have been welcomed by Local Government New Zealand, the Insurance Council of New Zealand Inc., and the Property Council of New Zealand for adding more transparency to limit council liability. The Property Council of New Zealand said the proposed changes were a positive step that strikes the balance between getting access to information whilst also ensuring that the sector continues its due diligence.

From a local government perspective, the bill requires regional councils to share the natural hazard information they hold with territorial authorities so it can be included on LIMs. This reflects the significant natural hazard information and technical expertise of regional councils. It will mean buyers can access all council information through a single document. This change will formalise and build on current information sharing between regional councils and territorial authorities. To be clear, territorial authorities will retain the day-to-day responsibility for processing LIM applications. However, regional council support of territorial authorities will be critical to the success of the changes.

To support councils to communicate natural hazards without fear of legal action, the bill will limit councils’ liability when sharing natural hazard information on the LIM in good faith. This preserves the right of property owners to complain to the Ombudsman if they have legitimate concerns about any information included on a LIM. The bill also provides for regulations to be made for natural hazard content in LIMs. These regulations will set out information and presentation requirements so natural hazards information in LIMs is clear, concise, and more understandable for the public. All New Zealanders have a role to play in managing our natural hazard risks. The first step is making sure people understand the natural hazards that affect where they live so they can take practical steps to reduce the risks.

Turning now to the second change the bill makes to how local authorities manage information. The bill will align the grounds for conclusively withholding information with those under the Official Information Act (OIA). Like the OIA, the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) does not currently have grounds for councils to conclusively withhold official information that may prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand or the international relations of the Government. The lack of these withholding grounds reflects that LGOIMA was passed in 1987 and that the working group preparing it did not think that withholding grounds related to security, defence, or diplomacy were relevant to local authorities at the time. However, time has moved on since 1987, and the local authority landscape is now very different. Councils hold extensive decision-making authority over strategic assets such as infrastructure and land. They also have considerable influence over business and development opportunities, including granting consents in the use of natural resources.

The important role that councils play in our democracy and economy can expose them to risks such as cyber-attacks and foreign interference. These are not theoretical risks. As the Director-General of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) told the Intelligence and Security Committee in March 2022, NZSIS has detected and investigated significant foreign interference efforts targeting political, academic, media, and private sectors within the past year. The current lack of withholding grounds limits the ability of intelligence agencies to proactively provide advice to councils on security risks because there may be no basis to prevent sensitive information from being publicly disclosed. In aligning LGOIMA with the OIA, this bill will allow councils and the intelligence agencies to work more closely together to manage security concerns while reducing the risk of information being disclosed that could prejudice New Zealand’s national security.

Local authorities hold important information on behalf of the public of New Zealand, and it is essential that our legislation provides greater certainty around how this information is managed. Critical natural hazard information needs to be clearly and openly communicated to the public so they can make informed decisions. Additionally, we must ensure that information can be withheld where it could prejudice our national security. The bill will have a full six-month select committee process. The bill provides for the withholding provisions of the bill to come into force on an enactment, while the LIM provisions will commence by 1 January 2025 at the latest. This will enable my officials to engage with local government and technical experts to support the smooth implementation of the changes to ensure regulations will work for all councils. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s ironic when you hear the overview from the Minister there that, actually, this is so, so urgent. There is no good reason why this bill, the Local Government (Official Information and Meetings) Amendment Bill, is being considered under the urgency motion. If you look at some of the background detail supporting this bill, which is reasonably scant, the Government received their regulatory impact statement on parts of this bill in November of last year. Twelve months have passed. In November of last year, they got the regulatory impact statement, but you know what? They’ve waited 12 months and now it’s going through under urgency. It’s so urgent that we need to push this bill through the House. Cor blimey! Why it has taken so long? Why has it taken so long for the Minister to believe that this bill needs to come to the floor of this House?

No one’s going to argue around the detail of the bill. It’s all lovely, it’s all good, and it needs to go through a select process. It’s going through under urgency but we’re still having to put it through a six-month select committee process. Well, it reminds me of that good old three waters, water services bill but we won’t get into detail about that, will we. No, we won’t talk about that. I’ll get back to the bill.

At the end of the day, irrespective of why it’s taken an incredibly slow amount of time for this bill to get to the House, there is another issue, and this will wind up people at home. What time is it now? Farmers will be back out of the cowshed and having a cup of tea. When you look at the regulatory impact statement, none in the local government area has been consulted on this bill. So the regulatory impact statement was done in November of last year and they haven’t used the last year to consult with the local government sector. And you know why? They couldn’t because of “time constraints”—and that is quote, unquote from the regulatory impact statement.

I tell you what—there’s a few members on the other side of the House that are asleep at the wheel. They’re in this plane and it’s flying towards a mountain. The engines are on fire and there’s smoke in the cockpit, and they are on their phones playing games and going, “Every thing’s wrong”, and the lights are going, “Pull up, pull up. We’re about to crash.” Woop! Woop! The alarms are going.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): That’s interesting Mr Watts but can we come back to the bill, please.

SIMON WATTS: You’re absolutely right, Madam Speaker. I was getting a little bit excited there, and I will pull myself back into focus.

What I do want to raise, before we let this one pass through to the keeper, is that the local government sector are incredibly stretched at the moment. This sector is dealing with a barrage of reform and regulation by this Labour Government. The local government sector is dealing with high levels of attrition. The central government departments are poaching all the local government staff at a time when they’re really on their knees, and the Government’s saying, “What does local government need to help them? They need a bit more regulation, a bit more compliance. It’s making their job a bit easier around the official information process.”

The other issue is, of course, cost—the cost of living crisis. We’re in the cockpit heading towards the mountain and Labour thinks everything’s fine. This is going to cost between $1 million and $2 million for the Department of Internal Affairs to try and implement—another $2 million. We seem to become accustomed in this House to seeing millions of dollars being thrown around here and there. Those who’ve ever owned a business or run a business, which aren’t too many on the other side, know that to earn a million dollars is damn difficult—but it’s easy when you’re spending other people’s money.

We’re going to be supporting this bill to select committee, because I think the select committee process—

Hon Members: Oh!

SIMON WATTS: The members on other side have woken up. They’ve thought, “What’s going on here? Where am I?” We’re in Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, and we’re in urgency dealing with a bill that has been sitting on the Order Paper for 12 months, yet all of a sudden someone has woken up and decided this needs to be pushed through under urgency. What an absolute shocker—what an embarrassment. But that personifies the Labour Government. It’s out of touch. It isn’t listening to hard-working Kiwis, and while we’ll be supporting this bill to select committee, I expect we’ll do a damn good job at making sure this bill is a stringent as it needs to be to deal with the real issues we need face in this country.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill. As has been mentioned, this bill amends the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act to ensure that information on natural hazards, including climate change impacts, are included in LIMs. The bill ensures that we have consistency and transparency across councils across Aotearoa, and is a critical action under the Government’s recently released national adaptation plan so that communities and households can plan for their future.

This bill is important for my electorate of Nelson and for the whole Te Tau Ihu region in light of the recent flooding that has occurred across our part of the country. Our communities are seeking certainty and information regarding their properties, and this is a particular matter that they have spoken to me about in light of the recent flooding events. As a member of the Governance and Administration Committee, I look forward to receiving submissions and considering this bill. It’s an excellent bill and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand with the National Party in support to get this bill under way. The Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill, or LGOIMA as we call it. The issue around it being dropped in urgency, I think, was well-made by my colleague Simon Watts. If it’s so urgent that we’re dealing with it in urgency where we’re dealing with something like 24 pieces of legislation—some of them introduced and passing through all stages during this urgency session, which means no public scrutiny—if the process started and the advice was given last year, it isn’t really that urgent that we need to be dealing with it here. But it could be another one of those bills that is pushed off to a select committee in the next couple of weeks, and they’ll call for submissions over Christmas and it gives everyone a break. So everyone out there in New Zealand that’s got anything or any interest in these types of bills will be deprived of their Christmas break because they’ll be flat out writing submissions and reading legislation.

There’s a couple of things in here that I just wanted to flag. The alignment has been spoken about with the Official Information Act (OIA) and LGOIMA, makes sense. The disclosures around LIMs and property information make sense. But the one that does raise a flag with me is around aligning LGOIMA with the OIA so that we have information disclosure rules. And that’s going to be interesting to watch as the select committee processes that. The wording is something like “withholding grounds for information that would be likely to prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand.” So, you know, could that mean inciting distrust in the Government if it’s deemed to be mis-, dis-, or mal-information, as we are becoming so familiar with. So I think we’ve got to be very careful we don’t align this with hate speech laws as well. This is just OIA in LGOIMA—

Simon Watts: Tricky eh?

MAUREEN PUGH: Could be very tricky, Simon Watts—that we start to control disclosure of information based on other things.

But the other one in that particular area of alignment is around the information that can be withheld that is likely to prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand, or the international relations of the Government of New Zealand, and that is allowing the Prime Minister to certify those. Now, does relations of the Government of New Zealand also include the reputation of said Prime Minister? And if it does, is it something that the select committee should turn its mind to? I think they’ve got an interesting job ahead of them. I commend it to the House.

This is an excellent piece of legislation. I commend it to the House.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to take a short call on the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill. It’s interesting, the last speaker’s comments, because if they had actually read the bill, listened to the Minister’s introduction, they would realise that these provisions for withholding information actually follow those in the Official Information Act. We had with the district health board in the Waikato last year a major cyber-attack. This sort of information is exactly the sort of information that may be shared with local authorities about risks to them and that it may be appropriate to withhold. We don’t, obviously, want to see that being used widely, but it is appropriate to have these grounds potentially in the bill for the public to comment on.

But, getting back to the major part of the bill, we live in the Shaky Isles. We’ve got major natural hazard risks from earthquakes, land instability, and volcanoes, we have a major flood event around every eight months, and, as the regulatory impact statement (RIS) notes, the Government estimates that it spent $11.4 billion over the last decade responding to natural hazards. So this bill is making a small but important step in ensuring that buyers, when they go to make one of the biggest investment decisions of their lives in purchasing a house, if they can afford it—and that’s a whole other issue—have an opportunity to be better informed as to whether there are any natural hazard risks on that property.

As the Minister noted, there’s been quite wide variability in the information that is included in a LIM. The Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, the principal Act, says that land information memoranda can identify special features or characteristics of the land concerned, including but not limited to potential erosion, avulsion, falling debris, subsidence, slippage, alluvium, or inundation, or the likely presence of hazardous contaminants. So this bill will help buyer beware.

But I think the Government actually needs to go further with the Natural and Built Environment Bill and the guidance that the national planning framework will provide in terms of having some national policy guidance to councils on natural hazards. It was one thing that a former National environment Minister, Dr Nick Smith, started, but it hasn’t been finished by the Ministry for the Environment. So we need that more comprehensive framework for guidance in what will be the regional spatial strategies, the natural and built environment plans, as well as this bill providing property purchasers with more information.

The other issue is that it does require regional councils to provide the information and support local authorities, as it’s often regional councils which have got much greater natural hazard information. Some of them have got very good mapping tools, and people can go on to their websites, look at where their property is located, look at the risk of sea level rise, look at the risk of flooding in different weather events. So we hope that the way that these LIMs are developed now will include good access to these other portals.

One issue is that, of course, for whenua Māori, where you’ve got land passing down through succession according to the provisions and the rules of the Māori Land Court, you don’t have this purchase and, therefore, you’re not getting this information to iwi, hapū, and owners of whenua Māori. I was disappointed to read in the RIS that the work that was being done through the community resilience programme was scaled back because of the level of funding in Budget 2021-22. It’s these other information portals like the Earthquake Commission’s risk and resilience portal where the Earthquake Commission is doing research and the information is put up on the portal.

It’s other communication tools that are really important for hapū, iwi, whānau, and also for the general public in terms of renters, and they don’t generally go anywhere near LIMs, either. So it’s ensuring that the wider public is provided with information through other sources in an easily accessible, clear, and well-communicated form. Knowing that the natural hazard is there is one thing; assessing the actual risk to the property, the vulnerability, is another, and I think that’s where ongoing investment in research is really, really critical to increase our understanding and then ways of mitigating those risks.

But this bill is a useful step forward, and I think the provision that councils don’t have legal liability if they are providing the natural hazard information on the LIMs in good faith is really critical, because we’ve seen court cases in Kāpiti where the council had identified coastal hazard lines then being taken to court by property owners. Those legal actions aren’t often successful, but they certainly, I think, had a chilling effect on Christchurch City Council when it was doing its coastal hazard planning. Property owners concerned about property values can seek to keep those financial values high, which means that we’re not actually coming to terms with the very real risks of a changing climate and the need to adapt to those risks and to take action to buffer from sea-level rise, to give rivers room to move so that they’re not flooding properties, and to take a whole other range of adaptation actions.

Taking action requires information. Unlike the National Party, which seems to have its head in the sand in terms of any action to reduce emissions or adapt, the Green Party supports the bill.

I’m very pleased to take a call on behalf of the ACT Party. The Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill is a very important piece of legislation. The fact that it’s been introduced under urgency is a surprise to ACT, because clearly the problem has been defined for some time. It was a problem when I worked in local government as a civil engineer, working in an infrastructure agency actually involved in assessing hazards and risks—slips, for example, in quarries; contamination as a result of past industrial activities; what we do with closed landfills that present a manmade hazard: landfill gas and leachate. So I’m familiar with these problems, but I’m also concerned about some of the aspects of the bill that omit to deal with specific issues.

We have the natural hazards component, and then we have the amendments relating to official information. We only have to think about all of the information that local government holds that could be used for nefarious purposes by somebody with evil intent—for example, all of the traffic management systems. Now, if you’ve ever used an app like Google Maps, for example, to work out where to go, what’s the fastest route, how to avoid traffic congestion—that’s pretty much impossible in Auckland or Wellington or Tauranga, because of the lack of investment in roading infrastructure and modern, intelligent transportation systems by this Labour Government—they hold all kinds of information. Councils have CCTV monitoring centres, where they monitor 24/7—thousands of cameras—and where they accumulate millions of hours a year of CCTV camera footage showing all of the terrible crimes that happen in our city, showing the police chases, showing the gang violence and thuggery, showing the shootings in public.

These are not things that ever make it to the 6 o’clock news but, for people who work in local government, for people who work in the command and control centres which monitor the CCTV camera network, for example, they will tell you that’s what they see. They protect that information now, because they would prefer that the police had access to that CCTV information so they can go out and catch the bad guys. The only problem is that what a lot of these CCTV camera operators see is that, when they ring the police and they say, “We are watching a smash and grab. We are watching a break-in to a vehicle and the theft of a vehicle.” and they give them the details, the police say “We’ll get someone there soon—we’ll get someone there soon. But, when we get there, we won’t be allowed to chase them. We’ll just be allowed to monitor them by following them at a 200-metre safe distance.”

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): We’re deviating a bit from the bill, Mr Court.

SIMON COURT: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think it’s important that we acknowledge what type of official information is going to be protected. The ACT Party actually thinks it would be good to have some sunlight on some of this information and that the New Zealand public got to see what some of these traumatised local government employees, forced to watch this terrible charade play out day after day, watch in these CCTV monitoring centres. But the ACT Party will support the protection of information and will support this bill to select committee.

Now I want to come to the natural hazard component. If we look at the definition of a natural hazard in this bill, which refers to the Resource Management Act (RMA)—that soon to be extinguished piece of terrible legislation that this Government wants to replace with RMA 2.0; the ACT Party has a different view on what resource management reform looks like, but we’ll be talking about that next Tuesday, 29 November, when we release our own resource management policies, so we’ll come to that later—a natural hazard is an atmospheric or earth- or water-related occurrence: an earthquake, tsunami, erosion, volcano, geothermal activity, a landslide, subsidence. That’s a sinkhole. For some of us, actually, the potholes are so big on the State highway network that they could be sinkholes! So maybe that’s subsidence. Maybe potholes are also going to be included in natural hazards! Wind, drought, fire, or flooding—these things can all happen but, if they happen where no one lives, it doesn’t really matter. So “natural hazard” actually means one of those things that adversely affects human life or property or other aspects of the environment that really affect humans.

If we’re going to disclose information on LIMs, land information memorandums, which then sit on the property title—and that information will influence how people use their property, how potential buyers see the value of that property, how they assess the risks of what kind of development can go on—we need to make sure the information’s accurate.

Right now, we don’t know that it’s accurate. In fact, we know it’s not accurate. I attended a presentation by a National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd (NIWA) scientist at Engineering New Zealand’s stormwater forum earlier this year, where we heard that for the flood modelling—the flood models and the prediction tools that NIWA uses, for example, that tell local government and that tell civil defence and emergency management controllers where floods are likely to occur, say, after heavy rainfall events or snow melts—actually, a lot of the data that they’re relying on is based on survey information from when New Zealand was first surveyed in the 1800s. Since then, there’s been a very high level of modification of the natural environment: we’ve cut down trees, we’ve turned that land into farms and orchards, we’ve built highways, and we’ve built cities. So a lot of the information that might be relied on and then might end up on a LIM actually hasn’t been validated and could well be out of date.

If you think about climate change, for example, this bill aims to give us more information about the impacts of climate change. Well, there’s a wide range of potential outcomes for how and where sea levels might rise and what the impacts will be on people and infrastructure, as well as the natural environment.

If we took the extreme scenario, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN prediction, the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario—now, hardly anyone listening on 882 AM will know what that’s about; maybe some people who watch Parliament TV regularly will be familiar with the UN climate change scenario—that says that sea levels will rise 3 to 4 metres. So, if your local council chooses to use that one, well, that means half of Auckland’s CBD will be underwater; most of Wellington’s, although you can never really tell whether it’s underwater or not, depending on how many pipes have broken lately.

Or they could choose a much more reasonable scenario, in line with the emissions reductions of New Zealand businesses and people who actually manufacture things and produce carbon and who are reducing their emissions. That’s what the UN was told last week at COP-27. Actually, we’re on track to beat our emissions targets by 2030, in which case maybe your council could pick the lower value, which predicted only a 0.3 metre to 0.5 metre sea level rise in the next hundred years, and maybe it wouldn’t even be that much.

So, if we’re going to be relying on information that goes on people’s property titles and affects their property rights—their right to use their land—we need to be confident that it’s accurate. Right now, there’s nothing in this bill that talks about the quality of information. So the ACT Party, when this comes the select committee, will be laser focused on inquiring about how this information is to be derived, how we rely on it. Because, if I lived in a coastal area and somebody sent me a letter saying, “Your council predicts sea level rise of 3 to 4 metres in the next 100 to 200 years.”, I’d be like, “My property is done. It’s worth nothing.” But, if they said, “We’ve done an assessment. Actually, our culvert is undersized”—which may have something to do with the way that that Nelson subdivision was completely destroyed by flooding a few months ago, because the council had permitted undersized culverts to be installed—“there might be a flood here. We’ve done some flood modelling. We reckon our stormwater networks are not up to scratch. That means your property is at risk.”, well, I know what I’d be telling the council: “Fix your pipes. Don’t put that tag on my LIM report unless you’re going to do something about it.”—right?

Local government has a responsibility to communicate information about natural hazards. What they also need to do is communicate what they’re going to do about it, who owns that responsibility, who should be paying for stuff, and in what time frame, because it’s not fair on property owners to say, “You’re at risk of flooding”—but, by the way, we’re not telling them that, actually, it’s because we haven’t bothered to upgrade our stormwater system, or we don’t give consents to people who want to clear streams and rivers of debris and logs and all the other things that block streams and rivers like they do on the West Coast that ends up causing floods in Buller.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker, and I’d like to congratulate the previous member—the member of the ACT Party—as he crunches the numbers for his bid to become the next leader of ACT. I look forward to that being announced shortly.

I support this piece of legislation, the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill. It’s good legislation. I’m glad that we can get it through under urgency so it can go out to the public and we can consult on this piece of work, so I commend this to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak on the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill. Actually, like my colleague Simon Court spoke there earlier, I am very concerned about property owners whose LIMs could be attached to their property title highlighting that they’re at risk of flood and sea-level rise, etc., and, actually, all the current data that they’re using is using the flawed representative concentration pathway (RCP) 8.5 model, and that has been completely discredited now, and, actually, even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have walked away from it at the COP flop—the latest COP meeting: COP-27. They’ve completely walked away from it. It actually hasn’t made the mainstream media yet—shame on them; they should be talking about this. This is massive news.

So, Madam Speaker, for your information, instead of expecting a business as usual temperature rise of 4 to 5 degrees by 2100, it is now 2.5 degrees by 2100. That’s business as usual. RCP 8.5 actually could only be achieved if we burnt coal for everything, increasing coal consumption by many, many times what it is today, and including using coal to run our cars. It’s not going to happen, and that’s why they’ve walked away from it. They should have done it a long time ago. Actually, everyone in New Zealand should know about it and rejoice because we don’t have a climate emergency. Yes, we have a climate issue and we’re going to address that, but it’s certainly nowhere near an emergency. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. Ka mihi ahau ki tēnei pire ki te Whare.

[Thank you, Madam Speaker. I commend this bill that is before the House.]

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Very happy to take a call on this bill, on the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill. I’m very surprised to hear the ACT Party suggesting that there shouldn’t be all available information on a LIM. Property owners, by selling and buying, should be able to see the nature of the land they’re buying—all of the information that pertains to it, including all natural hazards information. I absolutely commend this bill to the House.

Thank you. I take the last call for the National Party on the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill—also being referred to in the House as LGOIMA, which sounds a bit like an infectious condition.

So in terms of the infectious nature of this, the National Party has indicated supporting this at the first reading through to select committee. And it is dealing with process issues. So notably that this has come before the House under urgency. The process issue—as has been identified by colleague Simon Watts—this is under urgency, why is that? When this has been well-known by the Government, with a disclosure statement having been prepared and also a regulatory impact statement prepared in June this year and also November last year.

So here we are, bearing in mind almost 12 months later, the Government deems that this is a matter of urgency and here we are. What’s very important about this bill, Mr Speaker—welcome to the Chair—is that this is, as I said, addressing matters of process where the bill will make changes to improve the process of making available important information to the public.

In relation to natural hazards, provided in the land information memoranda, which are known as LIM reports to those persons who have purchased properties—buyers beware—needing to check out whether there is anything to be concerned about the nature of the property. So the land information memoranda will identify, as a result of this LGOIMA, the alignment of provisions in the Act, also associated with whether it is appropriate or not to withhold certain information.

Listening to debates in the House, it’s been interesting because this bill is very much focused around local government territorial authorities. So in my Māori development role—and I’m looking across the House at the Minister for Māori Development—we are aware that within the Māori Land Court, there is particular information held and sometimes that information is not made available and accessible to the local government territorial authorities.

It will be interesting at select committee, when this bill is being examined, the importance of being able to access all the appropriate information. That’s called due process as well, in terms of the diligence of it being scrutinised before the select committee.

So keeping my call brief, the National Party supports this bill. Appropriately, it’s going to select committee—questionably why it is under urgency but importantly that the public gets the opportunity, according to due process, to scrutinise the elements of this bill. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take the last call on behalf of the Government in the first reading of this bill. This bill provides clarity and certainty for local authorities. The change is to improve natural hazard information provided in the LIM report, otherwise known as the land information memorandum report, and align the processes of the Official Information Act to improve the LGOIMA, otherwise known as the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987, to have that better alignment, and it fits in the larger plan of the Government’s larger objectives. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

The question is, That the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill be considered by the Governance and Administration Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.