Local Government Law Reform Bill (No 3)

I move, That the Local Government Law Reform Bill (No 3) be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee for consideration, that the committee report the bill by 14 June 2004, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week on which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area on a day the House is sitting, despite Standing Orders 191, 193(a), and 194(1)(b) and (c).

The tight framework for reporting the bill is because some of the provisions in the bill need to be in place before 23 July 2004, the opening date for nominations for this October’s local authority elections. The purpose of the Local Government Law Reform Bill (No 3) is to further ensure that the legislative framework in which local government operates is as comprehensive and clear as possible. This bill seeks to clarify and address a range of issues relating to local government legislation that are mostly technical in their nature. It does not signal any major new policy decisions.

Cross-party support was gained in order for the Business Committee to agree to this bill being introduced as an omnibus bill amending six Acts. This agreement reflects the generally non-controversial nature of the bill.

Since taking office, the Government has introduced a comprehensive package of legislative reforms that have modernised our system of local government. This has included the Local Government Act 2002, the Local Electoral Act 2001, and the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002. As with any major legislative changes, it is not unusual that some minor issues have arisen that need to be addressed. I note that the need for many of the bill’s provisions has arisen during an extensive joint local and central government education and implementation programme for the new legislation. This Local Government Know-How project is an excellent example of local and central government collaboration between the Department of Internal Affairs, Local Government New Zealand, and the Society of Local Government Managers. The local government sector has given much positive feedback on the new legislation. This feedback has also highlighted several aspects of the legislation that should be clarified.

I do not wish to go into detail about all the provisions in this bill. However, I would like to outline a few matters in each of the six Acts that the bill seeks to amend. Firstly, the bill amends the Chatham Islands Council Act of 1995 to explicitly provide the Chatham Islands Council with the powers needed to support its limited regional council functions. Secondly, the bill makes various amendments to the Dog Control Act of 1996. It addresses an accidental omission in that Act of infringement penalties for failing to meet certain obligations as a probationary dog owner, as well as making amendments relating to dog seizure notices and recapturing unlawfully freed dogs. Thirdly, the bill makes various amendments to the Local Electoral Act of 2001, including clarifying the right of a candidate to stand for both mayor and ward councillor in the same territorial authority. This is required before nominations for this year’s elections open in July. Fourthly, the bill makes various amendments to the Local Government Act 2002, including clarifying certain voting provisions at council meetings and the absence of a casting vote, as well as applying existing information requirements to all council-controlled organisations.

In addition to these matters, the bill contains a number of other minor amendments to some of those Acts. This fine-tuning will provide more certainty and clarity for councils as they administer and work within the legislation amended by this bill. It will also provide communities with greater clarity in their dealings with their local authority. As I mentioned earlier, it is highly desirable that this bill be enacted by July. I acknowledge that this is a tight timetable for the select committee, and I thank the committee in advance for the hard work that I know it will put into this framework.

This bill should be called the “Chris Carter Fix Up the Botch-up Bill”, because it is all about fixing legislation that the Minister was responsible for that has subsequently been found to be seriously in error. I have to say, we told him so. Members on this side of the House told the Minister time and time again that when he forced through changes, under urgency in many cases and always in a rush, it was inevitable that there would be mistakes, and so it has proved to be.

But not only did the Minister botch once, he has botched again. Only last year there was new dog control legislation, and here is Parliament, less than a year later, having to patch up his mess. One would think he would learn eventually, but today the Minister introduced two more bills that he wants passed with a far more rapid timetable. I say to the Minister that members accept he can make a mistake once, but they also expect him to learn from his mistakes and to stop this process of throwing bills before the House, rushing them through, and making more and more mistakes.

I will go through some of those specific mistakes in some detail, but I also want to point out what should be in this bill but is not. The biggest issue for ratepayers and councils throughout New Zealand is increased costs that this Government is dumping on ratepayers and councils all over New Zealand. There have been the prostitution laws, the gambling laws, the dog control laws, the buildings laws, and today there have been announcements about the foreshore and seabed—new laws that will again dump costs on councils and ratepayers.

I want to draw this fact to members’ attention: in this past year rates and council expenditure grew by 9.3 percent. That is six times the inflation rate. I say to the Minister that that is a disgrace. It is a direct consequence of the sort of legislation this Government has rammed through Parliament and sent the bill for to the ratepayer. What those figures show is that rating costs and expenditure by councils has increased by six times the rate of inflation. Six times the rate of inflation is the cost that is being imposed on New Zealand families and businesses because of the sort of legislation being advanced by Chris Carter as the Minister of Local Government. There is increased bureaucracy, increased numbers of bureaucrats, and increased costs, and this Minister and Government simply do not care.

I will now go through quite specifically the botches made in previous legislation that members are now being expected to repair. The first of those issues is in respect of local government elections. There is a problem that the Minister has known about for all of the last 12 months. Councils drew to his attention the problem of mayors and council candidates not being able to stand for both positions; yet Parliament is being asked to rush through those changes. There are problems in the Electoral Act with scrutiny of the rolls. There are problems with the bill that was passed by this Government in respect of STV voting. This Government rushed through Parliament changes involving STV and mucked up the detail, and without this bill our local government elections in October would be a mess.

Do members know how many changes there are in local government legislation that have to be patched up by this bill? There are not one, not two, not three, but eight changes that Parliament now has to make to the Local Government Act 2002 that was rushed through prior to Christmas. How many times does it take for this Government to learn that rushing through legislation in the pre-Christmas period inevitably ends up with mistakes that end up costing? There are problems for port companies that have to be fixed, problems in respect of annual report requirements, problems with the casting vote, problems with voting in councils, problems with trade waste by-laws, problems in respect of quorums—

💬 Hon John Tamihere: You talk about the problems. What about the solutions?

Well, Mr Tamihere, why did this Government not get the legislation right the first time?

💬 Hon John Tamihere: Don’t know.

Mr Tamihere does not know. He is paid a ministerial salary. The Minister of Local Government should have got it right the first time. He was one of the members who voted for urgency and for the Local Government Act to be rushed through with all of those mistakes. There are mistakes with long-term community plans and local government decision-making requirements. There are even mistakes with dealing with disaster relief; an area that I would suggest is critical for us to get correct. There are mistakes in respect of the information that is required for council-controlled organisations.

Then there is the other legislation that was rushed through by the Hon Chris Carter. I do not know of any legislation passed by Chris Carter that Parliament has not had to go back and fix within 12 months. There was the Local Government (Rating) Act, which was also passed under that Minister. There is a botch-up in respect of information from rating records. New Zealanders thought they could get information from their councils about rating records, but the Minister botched it up, caused huge costs and huge inconvenience to New Zealanders, and now the House is being asked to fix it up in a rush. There is a botch-up in respect of postponed rates that members have to fix up, and then there is the dog control legislation. Members will all remember that—it was not even 12 months ago. Members on this side of the House—I also credit the ACT party and the New Zealand First Party—said to the Minister: “Look, you are rushing it. You are going to make mistakes.” The Minister assured the House: “No, trust us. It is all OK.” It has not been 12 months and I say to the Minister that there is not just one mistake, there are five mistakes in the dog control legislation that he was responsible for bringing through this House less than 12 months ago.

There are problems with probationary owners and infringement notices. And how about this one? If somebody manages to get his or her dog out of a pound, there are not even the enforcement powers to return those dogs back to the pound, such are the deficiencies in the law for which Mr Chris Carter was responsible.

The Minister could not get the Local Government Act 2002, the Local Electoral Act, the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, the Local Government (Rating) Act, or the Dog Control Act right, all of which he was responsible for administering. In five out of five Acts there are mistakes that he wants the House to patch up in a rush. The Minister owes the House an apology. Members on this side of the House pointed out to the Minister at the time that he was rushing legislation and making mistakes, and, inevitably, we were proved correct. I ask the Prime Minister how long she can maintain a ministerial warrant for a Minister of Local Government who did not just get it wrong once, but twice, three, four, and five times. There has to be a time when the Minister’s warrant is up.

I ask the Minister why, having made those mistakes on that rushed legislation, he introduced earlier today new important legislation that he also expects to rush. I will bet the very best bottle of Nelson wine that the Minister will have to admit and concede that he erred and stuffed up again, and the House will again be asked to fix up his mistakes. On behalf of Parliament, I say to the Minister that it is not good enough and that he should learn from his mistakes. This bill is an absolute embarrassment to him and his colleagues. He owes it to Parliament to get his legislation right, and not to continuously expect ratepayers to pick up the bill for his botch-ups.

That was a speech from the Hon Nick Smith, a man who has never made a mistake in his life. This is a good bill. It responds to the needs of local government communities, which are doing a superb job in New Zealand, and will assist them in their governance. I am pleased to support this bill.

I well recall, especially as the Hon Nick Smith was speaking, the fevered haste of the passage of the Local Government Bill in the last hours of the 2002 sitting period, particularly as councils did not see the bill. The bill was so rushed through on the Friday and the Monday that when we came into the House the bill had been unseen. One council I know well, suffered financial loss as a result of that indecent haste.

Secondly, although there have been some suggestions of a lack of duty in the preparation of that bill, one matter does not really lie with the Minister but with his advisers. That is the meaning of “council-controlled organisation” and “council organisations”. The impact of the suggested clause and its meaning was specifically raised in the select committee at least twice, and was denied by the advisers at the time. Clause 38 should have been drafted by advisers who knew what they really meant.

Last year companies that were subsidiaries of port companies were asked by the Audit Office to produce their books. For some companies that issue alone has been costly. In view of the fact that advisers were told that that would be so, and that the Hon Dave Cunliffe was there at that time—and as a commercial person should have known better—it should have been realised that that would be the end. We had the unusual situation that resulted in port companies being exempt, but in their subsidiary companies being under the overall monitoring and call of the Audit Office. Therefore, I am very pleased to see this patch-up section in the bill.

I called the Chatham Islands Council, and I did that because I was concerned, knowing something of its recent financial inability, due to funding, to meet the needs of a normal local authority, particularly when I saw that it was given the functions, views, and powers of a regional council. I was very pleased to be reassured by the council that those powers related to resource management and biosecurity functions that it felt it had to exert on the island. Secondly, I was also pleased to find that the Government will fund the council in the execution of those duties. Without that funding, the bill would have a rather shallow induction into the House.

With regard to the Dog Control Act, I was pleased that yesterday the Auckland City Council said it was pleased with the Act and saw it as an improvement. The council is catching unregistered dogs and has been able to implement those parts of the Act that relate to absentee dog owners. Its overall impression as of yesterday was that the Dog Control Act of last year was a considerable improvement. Therefore, I commend these sections of the Act—with the odd part that needs to be further clarified—that give greater authority to dog control authorities, if needed.

The only other section I wish to draw to the House’s attention relates to the electoral system. Again, those parts of the Act could have been clarified at the time it was debated. We need them amended in time for the elections this year, and I understand the Minister’s urgency.

But again, in closing, this is not the first time—and will not be the last—that we are back here looking at amendments because of the way the Leader of the House has managed the business of the House. I know that amendments are part of the daily realm of Parliament, but in these cases, with more care, there could have been a more considered response. Therefore, I was sorry this afternoon to see that a very major matter—that of the Auckland region, which has just been discussed—was once again the subject of indecent haste. The end result will not be pleasing, because of the way the House orders that area of business.

On behalf of New Zealand First, I want to say that we support these additions to the Local Government Law Reform Bill (No 3), which will improve the execution of the various sections of the Act. I hope that with adequate Government funding the Chatham Islands Council can carry out its duties.

With regard to local government, I know that those ambitious people who wish to stand for both the mayoralty and council roles will be pleased not to be denied that chance at present. To that degree, we support the bill being forwarded to the select committee.

It is 2 minutes to 6—just prior to the dinner break—which is not a great time to start one’s speech, but nevertheless. It has not taken long, has it? It seems just like 2002 when we were in this House debating what the Hon Chris Carter said was great, well-thought-out, well-drafted legislation that would see local bodies and communities well into the future. Here we are, back again, just 2 short years later, patching up the mess. This is an omnibus bill, as the Minister alluded to, and it is purely designed to patch up the mess, the inappropriateness, and the oversights that occurred during the drafting of the bill. The Opposition constantly pointed out at the time, in 2002, that the passing of the bill was too quick and too rushed.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.