Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill

Much of what is contained in schedule 1 pertains to what goes into the long-term plan, and I think that that is something worth discussing. It brings us back to the question of community outcomes, which we can see in Part 1 of new schedule 10, substituted in schedule 1. Community outcomes are the key thing that should be contained in a long-term plan, and, in fact, are the high-level goals. I just reiterate the concern that we have already expressed this morning about what this bill does to the whole process around community outcomes. The bill takes away the requirement that councils must consult citizens in the development of those high-level goals, and it undermines the very democratic basis of the whole structure of having long-term plans. I think that that is a real shame.

As well as taking away the requirement for councils to consult their citizens, this legislation also restricts the definition of community outcomes far too narrowly, I think. It says that the community outcomes, as the high-level goals of the long-term plan, can be the things that only the council itself can deliver. Setting aside any number of important issues that communities feel strongly about—they could be boy racers, alcohol, or the effect of gambling in the community—none of those things will be completely controlled by local councils themselves; it requires leadership, advocacy, and coordination. It is perfectly legitimate for communities to ask their councils, and their elected representatives in local government, to take up these matters, and it is perfectly reasonable that these issues could be identified as community outcomes.

The other thing I wanted to say about the long-term plan in relation to schedule 1 is that the kinds of things that go into the long-term plan are any substantial changes in the level of service that is being provided, or the sale, construction, or replacement of an asset. Those things are typically the kinds of things that go into a long-term plan. Yet this bill removes the obligation of councils to consult the people in their communities on these kinds of issues.

I will give one example that happened recently in Auckland. The council, well-meaning and wanting to promote public transport and bus patronage, proposed a four-lane highway to run down Dominion Road, which is one of the main arterial routes on the Auckland isthmus. Basically, it was to provide faster bus passage through, and in and out of, the central city. The impact of that proposal, when the council started to consult the community, was that the local community was horrified. Dominion Road is home to a couple of wonderful urban villages with really vibrant shopping communities, a lot of pedestrian traffic, and fantastic local restaurants. A lot of new migrant communities, particularly Chinese communities, have made Dominion Road their home. It is a really great part of Auckland. The effect of the council’s proposal to put a four-lane highway in, and no parking down either side of, Dominion Road for several kilometres would have been a disaster for these vibrant urban villages, but only the requirement on the council to consult on this matter would have gone into the long-term plan. Only the requirement to consult the community thoroughly allowed what was a well-meaning but misconceived transport plan to be debated and discussed; ultimately, it was thrown out. That is a vindication of the kind of community consultation processes that this bill is weakening and undermining. As a result of the long-term plan set out in schedule 1, those processes will be greatly weakened.

First, I would like to record my disappointment that the debate on a bill as significant as the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill has been so truncated that I did not have time to put forward any of my amendments to the last part we debated, Part 1. This bill is about a major change in New Zealand. It allows the privatisation of our water supplies. It allows ownership of our water supplies by private multinational corporations for 35 years, yet we are having a very truncated debate. This bill is being rammed through under urgency. The public has a right to expect that members of Parliament will at least have a say about this far-reaching bill and be able to introduce amendments. So I would like to record my disappointment at the truncated nature of the debate on this hugely significant bill before us.

I am quite certain that Roger Kerr from the Business Roundtable is listening with mounting satisfaction as we debate all the parts of this bill. Roger Kerr, the Business Roundtable, and the New Zealand Council for Infrastructure Development have been lobbying since the 1990s for the Government to allow the privatisation of our water supplies. I have here a number of policy statements and articles that Roger Kerr has written. They point out that private water companies have annual revenue of $300 billion, and they beg us to allow private corporations to take over our water supplies. Roger Kerr has achieved his wildest dreams. For 30 years he has been lobbying for this day, and he and others will be listening to this debate with huge satisfaction. Finally, their lobbying efforts have paid off, and from now on multinational corporations will be able to take over our water supplies for 35 years. They will be able to own them, control them, and manage them for 35 years. What a coup! I know Roger will be listening, and he must be enormously satisfied.

The provisions we are dealing with now are about long-term plans and financial strategy. The key thing is that the consultation requirements in the long-term plans and in other parts of local government have been absolutely gutted by this legislation. Now when councils consult on the long-term plan, they will not even have to mention that they have an intention to privatise their water supplies for 35 years or that they have an intention to hand those supplies over to a private corporation to own for 35 years. They will not have to mention this.

There will be no need any longer to bother to consult communities about such a significant thing. That is the real coup of this bill, and that is why Roger Kerr, the Business Roundtable, and the water infrastructure companies will be rubbing their hands with glee. I predict that there will be parties all weekend for the water companies that have been booted out of communities and countries all round the world, because, now, when they close down their operations in Latin America and even in Adelaide in Australia—they have just been kicked out of Adelaide—they can pick up the pieces, come across to New Zealand, and seek to privatise our water supply. There will be parties all weekend. One of the main things the private water companies will be celebrating is the fact that they will be able to sneak privatisation in. Councils will not have to consult citizens, because there is no longer a requirement to mention in a long-term plan that the water supply is about to be privatised.

This bill also deals with the financial strategy. One of the many clever little things Rodney Hide has managed to get into this bill is an innocuous-sounding clause that basically requires a cap on rates. It is based on finance and expenditure limits we have seen in America, in places like Colorado, where they set a cap on spending. In Colorado, under legislation similar to this, they are not allowed to increase their budget. The aim, of course, is to reduce spending, make us all resent paying our rates, and drive down the resources of local government to the point where it becomes bankrupt.

What happened in Colorado when they implemented the sorts of rate-capping provisions that are in this bill? Well, as a result of the grand experiment, which this bill is trying to implement, the Colorado budget will have a shortfall of $28 million this year, which is 10 percent of its budget. It has been brought about by the strangulating effects of this sort of cap. One-third of Colorado Springs’ 24,000 streetlights were turned off earlier this year to save about $1 million in expenditure. Residents can adopt a streetlight—they are encouraged to pay $100 a year if they want a light in their street. In the meantime, taxi drivers are trying to do the work of police because the police are so overstretched by cuts. Park budgets have been slashed by 25 percent. Grass is now mown monthly, not weekly. Buses have been sold and bus services no longer operate in the evenings and weekends. The fire and police budgets lost $5.5 million.

Is that what we want here in New Zealand? I am sure the people of New Zealand do not want that, but that is what is being sneaked through under urgency, along with all the other sinister provisions in this bill, which is, of course, all about seeking to implement Rogernomics Part 2. The battleground for the agenda of the Government and Rodney Hide to corporatise and privatise as many assets as possible has shifted to local government in this term of office, because the Government has had to rule out national privatisations. This bill is a triumph for them. It is the culmination of years of lobbying, and it allows local government to corporatise most of its assets, to contract out, and to privatise water supplies.

The Government is hoping that by sneaking this bill in under urgency the people of New Zealand will not notice. It is also hoping we will think that allowing a private multinational corporation to own water supplies for 35 years does not amount to water privatisation—that is what the National Government, in its Orwellian double-speak, is claiming. Members should not believe that New Zealanders will be fooled. New Zealanders need to be aware of what the rate-capping provision in the financial strategy section is intended to do. It is intended to reduce spending in local government to the point where local government is more and more short of money, it eventually goes bankrupt, and then—as has happened in Colorado and other places—it is required to contract out and to privatise not just the water supplies for 35 years but all of the other services.

This is the agenda of this part of the bill and other parts, and that is why private water companies will be rubbing their hands with glee. Twenty years of lobbying by Roger Kerr has finally paid off. He and the water companies finally have their goal—allowing them to get their hands on our water supplies, and deregulation of the whole water supply industry in New Zealand. It is way beyond their wildest dreams. Already two of the major global water companies, Veolia Water and Suez Environment, have 39 contracts between them in Australia and New Zealand, including ownership of United Water in Auckland and the privatisation of the water programme here in New Zealand. Its name has changed about three times because the ownership of that company has changed over three times in the last decade or so. But Veolia Water, this private water corporation, owns the water in Wellington and in Auckland already, and now, under this bill, it will be able to get its hands on the rest of the water supplies in New Zealand, and it will not even have to consult people in its long-term community plans. That is the beauty of this bill for the private water companies.

Looking at schedule 2 of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill, the thing that stands out to me that I am concerned about—I know members on this side of the Chamber are concerned about it, and I know the Greens are concerned about it—is the way in which the term “council community” is omitted the whole way through schedule 2. That highlights the point of difference between this side of the Committee and that side of the Committee. To us, community should be the focus—a sense of community and ensuring that the community has a say in what happens in any council—whereas on that side of the Committee it is all about ensuring that the democratic ability to have a voice is shut out.

A good example of this difference is the recent local body election that we had in Auckland. There were two very different main mayoral candidates: one was all about the corporates—and he was supported by the Government side of the Committee—and one was all about the community. That was Len Brown, who went on to win, and he was supported by this side of the Committee. I can imagine that a mayor who is all about community will struggle with legislation like this, which excludes the community and undermines its ability to have a say in what is happening.

Every community has the right to hold its council to account and expect transparency in decision making, so any ratepayer and any person who is part of the city should be up in arms about this bill, because it will undermine their ability to hold their council to account and expect that transparency. I know that the Minister of Local Government, Mr Hide, is one of those people who do not think communities should have a voice, which is why we see this legislation coming through this Parliament. That is unfortunate, given that most Aucklanders recently voted for a mayor who promised them an inclusive city—a mayor who promised them that community would be at the centre of everything for that city, the biggest city in New Zealand, Auckland City. Yet here a National Government is voting for a bill that undermines communities’ ability in that respect.

I say it again: Auckland City voted for a mayor who was all about community, not for the mayor who was all about the corporate. Yet the Government does not listen to that, the National Party does not listen to that, and the ACT Party does not listen to that, because they think they know better, even though the overwhelming majority of people who voted about a month back decided that the most important thing for them was community.

I point out again that the Government is attempting through schedule 2 to omit the requirement that the council consult its community—the requirement that the community have a voice in council decision-making. We are very concerned about what that will mean. When we look at the aspects of the bill in relation to that provision, we can see very clearly, with regard to the corporate agenda versus the community agenda, what the Government is trying to do. This bill puts into place the ability for the private sector to own water infrastructure for up to 35 years, which is effectively privatisation. Again, that fits into that corporate model that the Government side of the Committee is ideologically in support of. It goes against everything that we believe to be right with regard to the community having a say in what is happening.

Although we support the move of this bill to increase financial accountability and transparency, we oppose the imposition of arbitrary core services and cuts to the requirements for councils to consult their communities. At the end of the day, how can we guarantee accountability and transparency when we are legislating so that the council no longer has to consult the community about its views?

With regard to community, I just point out that we have seen the merger of a number of cities in Auckland, some of which were very community-focused.

I will carry on from my colleague Carmel Sepuloni on the theme of this legislation, especially in respect of schedule 1, “Long-term plans, annual plans, and annual reports”, of reducing the requirement on a local authority to consult its community. I raise a couple of practical examples from down my way in Christchurch. I note in passing that the author of this bill, the Hon Rodney Hide—the man who preaches openness, transparency, and accountability, except when it comes to his own wallet, his own air tickets, and a few other things that he has been less than open and transparent about—brings a bill in here that is couched as though it will make councils more accountable and more transparent to their communities. Buried in this, of course, is a reduced requirement on those local authorities to consult on things like goals and community outcomes.

Well, if we are to give councils the ability to arbitrarily set goals for community outcomes and basically make it up as they go along, the question I have asks how a council can be in touch with its community and know what it wants, what the goals and the outcomes are, if it is not prepared—and it should be compelled by this House and this legislation—to consult those communities. I will give the Committee a “for instance’; a real one. In the Christchurch City Council there was a move—before the election—to put market rents on early childhood education centres. I say this for the benefit of Kate Wilkinson who says that in my electorate the Government’s cuts to early childhood education funding will be only—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

I come back to the bill, Mr Chair, but I am sure you are interested in that. If it were the case, as it was with the local authority in Christchurch that did not impose cuts on an early childhood education centre of $29,500 but put forward a measure for those centres that were on council-owned land to require them—after 20, 30, or 40 years—to pay market rents, it would have put those early childhood education centres out of business. I know that Ms Wilkinson is quite supportive of change, even though Swannanoa Preschool, an early childhood education centre in Waimakariri District, has said publicly that it will have a $100,000 cut this year. I tell colleagues that the centre happens to be a few hundred metres down the road from where Ms Wilkinson lives. She would have known that, if she had knocked on its door. The Minister asks where I get my facts from. I tell her to try visiting an early childhood education centre a couple of hundred metres down the road from where she lives.

If it were the case, as it was at the Christchurch City Council, that a local authority wanted to put early childhood education centres that were on council land on to market rents, as it proposed, then under this legislation there would be very limited, if any, opportunity formally to consult that community. What happened in the Christchurch case was that the community was up in arms and said: “No way.” There were meetings, there were protests, and the council backed down.

That is called democracy. That is called listening. This bill should be about transparency and accountability. There should be a requirement in this legislation that councils are compelled—I repeat, compelled—to consult their community. There should be no option; they should consult. We know, of course, that this Government is not in favour of consultation, because the community might say that it does not like it. The community, hey presto, may say: “We’re not going to allow the local authority to steamroll over our public opinion and do whatever the hell it likes.” There is no reference to Mr Finlayson in that quote.

I say that this bill is a sham and these schedules are a sham. The bill purports to be holding councils to account, bringing councils closer to their community, and aiding democracy. What it really does, in these schedules and in other parts of the legislation, is reduce the absolute requirement on councils to consult their community. Some members of Parliament in this Chamber are so out of touch with their community. One sits on the opposite side of the Chamber—Ms Wilkinson. She cannot even understand how an early childhood education centre is funded, either by local government in terms of its property management or the fact that 34 out of 54 of them will be subject to a cut of $700,000 to $800,000 a year, thanks to her Government.

The early childhood centre down the road from where that member resides has a cut this year of $100,000, but she goes to the media and says: “I’ve been told that 22 of them will have $29,500 total in cuts.” That shows how out of touch that member is, and she has been caned in the media today. That is quite good, because it shows how out of touch she is. I tell the Minister to walk a hundred metres down Tram Road, although it might be too far for her, knock on the door of the Swannanoa early childhood education centre and ask them about it. She should have done that before she wandered into print, told mistruths, and was very slack with the facts.

I will talk about the definition of “development contribution policy” as laid out in Part 2 of schedule 2 of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill. The schedule amends that definition and is an interesting move away, given the context of the bill that we are debating. This legislation now says a review period can be requested for development contribution policy decisions. That means that developers can put a lot of pressure on councils where they are paying a development contribution levy—where a council has decided, for example, that if a development is going ahead in their area, if land is going to be put aside for it, if the council is going to chip in for amenities, then the developer can provide something back to that community in the way of a contribution. For example, it could go towards the provision of affordable housing or social housing in that district—

💬 Chris Hipkins: Or early childhood centres.

—or early childhood centres, as my colleague Clayton Cosgrove has pointed out.

This legislation says that the review needs to take place. It goes through this special consultative procedure, which is a very in-depth procedure in the Local Government Act. I recently sat through this procedure, both the judicial review and the Court of Appeal case that the Whakatāne District Council took to clarify what is required under the special consultative procedure. I am very pleased to say that the Whakatāne District Council ended up being successful in the Court of Appeal.

A very in-depth procedure is required for the review of these development levies. It has a number of steps along the way and is intended to be robust. It is intended to be genuine, and that is a good thing. It is a shame, though, that the community is losing that right themselves, through various other portions of this bill—in particular, clause 8 in Part 1.

Under Part 2 of schedule 2 we have discussion of a process for the review of development levies where a developer could put pressure on a council, because the developer does not want to keep having to pay it, to go back and review it. Yet the community has lost all these provisions for consultation. So the community loses consultation and the developer gets more consultation. That to me does not seem to be a particularly fair or just move under schedule 2 of this bill.

These contributions are particularly important. It is commonplace everywhere in the world. It is not unusual to require developers to provide a contribution. I refer in particular to where a council may require a portion of a development to be set aside for affordable or social housing. In lieu of a developer being prepared to do that, a financial contribution may be offered, which could then go towards the provision of affordable or social housing.

As we know, we have a housing crisis in this country. It seems an incredible shame that where these brand new developments are going up, there is no leadership from this Government to make sure that part of that development ensures that young families are able to get into their first home. We know the benefits of homeownership; we know them very, very well. We know how difficult it is for young people to get into homeownership. So here is an opportunity when we have a new development for a council to put in place a policy or a levy that goes towards assisting people into homes, and goes towards housing people who find it very difficult to house themselves. They may be on a very low income because the cost of living has risen so highly under this Government. Here is an opportunity to address that crisis.

The Labour Government put in place legislation to specifically allow for that contribution, and to make it clear that councils are legally able to require it of developers. We did that off the back of a council in New Zealand that was being dragged through the courts by developers who challenged the council’s right to do that. The National Government repealed that legislation, and I would have hoped that in both Part 2 and the schedules of this bill we would see something to replace it, or more of an effort to say that the council is there for the community, nor just for developers. There is nothing wrong with the council saying that all the community should benefit from a development, not just the private companies that are involved in it. Of course, the Government does not like that, but it needs to look at the local body vote in Auckland to see what the community was saying. They do not want corporatisation of these services. They believe they should be for community benefit.

I move, That the question be now put.

I totally agree with Moana Mackey about what should be important in the bill. Unfortunately, those things are not in the bill. I also agree with Sue Kedgley when she says that this bill is designed to gut local government, to gut local democracy, and to make it easier for this Government to sell off our water assets. The Hon Clayton Cosgrove gave a wonderful speech that described the way this Government is going about couching this under “transparency” and “accountability”, when in reality the bill removes transparency and accountability.

I ask members to look at clause 47, “Other amendments to principal Act”. This clause should be of concern to the public, and I have no doubt that it will be of concern, once they get wind of what this Government is attempting to do.

💬 Hon Member: They submitted on it for months.

Some of them submitted; not all submitted. Members of the community of Papakura are protesting right at this very moment because they are outraged by what this Government is attempting to do. Clause 47 refers us to schedule 2, which principally changes the way that we now have to look at how councils conduct their business when it comes to community council planning. Schedule 2 changes the definition of “long-term council community plan”, and removes from the Act two critical words: “council community”. It removes the participation of community in consulting with councils to identify outcomes.

Let me give members some examples why a lot of people, including supporters of this Government, and, no doubt, members of the National Party, will be outraged by this measure. Currently, ordinary ratepayers are able to be involved in the entire long-term council community plan from genesis right until the fruition of a particular outcome. One example is housing for the elderly, which resonates very strongly with elderly people in Manukau, in various parts of Auckland City, and, no doubt, throughout the country. Whenever a council is determined to remove housing for the elderly, many National Party members and supporters will turn up. It does not matter how old they are, or whether they are using a walking stick or a wheelchair; they turn up from the beginning of the consultative process right until the very end. But this schedule removes their ability to participate. This legislation gives the power to the local council to determine whether consultation should take place, and whether people are involved only at the beginning or not involved at all.

This bill also gives the right to the local authority to determine outcomes for ratepayers. In other words, what Sue Kedgley said about gutting local government is precisely outlined in this very schedule. Every section outlined in schedule 2 removes community participation. It removes the ability of ordinary people—ratepayers and senior citizens—to front up to their local government and to say that they are not happy with a particular course of action that that local authority may want to take place.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chairperson. Kia ora anō tātou. I would like to direct our attention to Part 2, because, unfortunately, after I left the Local Government and Administration Committee the quality of input from Government members, in terms of vigilance and adherence to principles, diminished greatly. But that reflects the electoral fortunes that lie in their very near future.

I want to direct our attention to clause 46, “New Schedule 10 substituted”. New schedule 10 is set out in schedule 1. I have a great deal of sympathy for what proved to be a well-written minority report put forward by the Māori Party members. Naturally we support the attack that they are delivering. We are only sorry that they did not think they could join us and collaboratively oppose—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Schedule 1 has already been debated.

I said schedule 10.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Schedules 2 and 3 are the schedules, not schedule 1.

I am directing my attention to the provisions that relate to the Māori parts of this bill, which, unfortunately for our people, as reflective of the broader local government reforms of the last 18 months, are very slender. But there is an important part in Part 2 that relates to dealing with rates, and in particular Māori rates, and this was picked up by the Māori Party, that reflects a complete absence in terms of what might be the Māori expectations of this bill. I direct our attention, along with that of our colleagues here, to the issue that once we define the community that local government would serve in a narrow monetary sense, one is writing out their interests and stakes in local government. Why should people in local government communities be reduced to elements to be defined only by money or wealth? Unless one has money or wealth one will not be able to influence local government decision-making, in the absence of broad community consultation provisions.

That in actual fact is what has happened in this bill. We accept that red tape ought to be rooted out where it is found. But it was Local Government New Zealand, not the Local Government Forum, that told every member on the Local Government and Administration Committee that this bill will have the effect of worsening the level of red tape. I do not understand why Government members have backed so enthusiastically Nick Smith’s attempt to improve resource management. Unfortunately that small glimmer of hope has long been wiped out by more recent attempts that he has made to improve resource management through local government, but that is another matter.

The tragedy of the situation is that although this part was designed to improve the prospects of simplifying local government and reducing costs, it has had the opposite impact.

💬 Hon John Carter: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I raise the point of relevance. We are actually debating Part 2, which refers to schedules 2 and 3. The part that the member is talking about is contained in Part 1 and we have already dealt with that.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I do not need any help here. This is very clear, because I brought the member’s attention to this earlier on. We are on Part 2, and that includes schedules 2 and 3. I ask the member to come back to those points. This is a very narrow debate. [Interruption] No, this is a very narrow debate, and that is what we are on at the moment.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The theme that has come out of the speeches in the last hour has been around consultation, or lack of it. I accept your ruling absolutely, but I put to you that 90 percent of the member’s speech has been around that theme. If that theme was relevant and valid for other members, then I would argue—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I have been presiding on Part 2 since the start and the debate has been within the realms of Part 2 and schedules 2 and 3. I ask the member to come back to that part of the debate.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I was, unfortunately, interrupted earlier in that speech. I direct your attention to clause 24, which clearly talks about a local authority’s policy on the remission of rates on Māori freehold land. The key point is that if we disenfranchise that segment of the community through participation and consultation, we make it very difficult for local government to make informed decisions. I would gladly accept a direction, either from parliamentary staff or from you, if I have misconstrued the clause.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes, the member is correct. Please continue.

How much longer do I have, given that we have wasted enough time—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No. When there are points of order, the clock stops, so no time has been deducted. You have 1 minute and 13 seconds remaining.

I am possibly doing the job that my relation from the far north Hone Harawira should be doing. Having said that, I actually want to enjoy a small measure of celebration on his behalf that I have enabled the Committee to exhaust a little of its attention on the postponement of rates on Māori freehold land. Although it might be said that it is a small and potentially irrelevant segment of this bill, it reflects the Government’s approach to these seemingly insignificant things. Small, seemingly modest Māori issues can loom large, and they can even cause Ministers of the Government to invoke the spectre of hell, and start to recite Dante’s version of politics. The underlying problem is that where one is to have a transitional provision for review, one cannot engage in the exercise of review unless one has access to information. That is not unreasonable.

I move, That the question be now put.

In schedule 10 there is a whole section on long-term plans and what sorts of things long-term plans must clearly identify. It talks about all the assumptions of a local authority concerning the useful life of significant assets, the replacement of significant assets, etc. But the extraordinary thing is that although the long-term plan will have to do the sorts of things that are spelled out in clause 18, it will no longer have to spell out to the community whether a council intends to divest itself of strategic assets, including divesting itself—

💬 Hon John Carter: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I listened to the member, and I assumed she was going to bring clause 18 into the relevance of the part we are debating, which is Part 2 and schedules 2 and 3. Actually, the clause 18 that she keeps referring to is in Part 1 of new schedule 10, substituted in schedule 1, so it is not part of the debate. We are talking about transitional issues relating to our long-term plans, so I think that clause is outside the scope of the debate.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I thank the member. I say to the member that we are debating, as I indicated earlier, Part 2, and schedules 2 and 3.

In this section we are talking about long-term plans, and we are talking about transitional provisions for long-term plans. I was making the point that long-term plans will be required to do all sorts of things, but they will not, any more, be required to inform a community about when a council intends to divest itself of key strategic assets. Until now there has been a requirement for councils to alert people in their long-term plans that they intend to divest themselves of key strategic assets, such as the ownership of water. But now, under this section, they will not have to inform New Zealanders, in those plans.

Most New Zealanders will not believe that as a result of this part of the bill, there is no longer a requirement for councils to inform or consult communities about when they intend to do something as fundamental as getting rid of the ownership of water supplies, which have been built up by generations of New Zealanders, and which will now be able to be handed over to—in fact, owned by—multinational corporations for a period of 35 years. That will not have to be mentioned in a long-term community plan. I honestly do not believe that New Zealanders will believe that the Government could do that—could think it was acceptable to sell off water assets, or any other assets—to a private corporation, without requiring that to be mentioned in a long-term community plan or any other plan. The real thing this bill does is that it guts the consultation requirements of local government agencies, so that they will not now have all the nuisance and irritation of having to consult communities when they intend to divest themselves of key infrastructures such as water.

I notice a bit more squawking from the Government members; they say that the Government is not selling water. But I am afraid to say that allowing a private corporation to own a water supply for 35 years is water privatisation by any other name. I do not know why National members keep on trying to object—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

But I am only responding to the interruptions that I am receiving from National members, Mr Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I bring the member back. The long-term plans are in Part 1. We are on Part 2 and schedules 2 and 3. Please confine your comments to that.

The consequential amendments and transitional provisions outlined in Part 2 also refer to transitional provisions for the long-term plan, and that is what I am addressing. It is there in clause 49. As I was responding to my colleagues in National, I tell them that they have some idea that the public is going to be deluded into thinking that handing over the control and the ownership of a water supply for 35 years is not water privatisation. But New Zealanders will not be fooled. They know that handing over for 35 long years—11½ electoral cycles—the ownership of a water supply that has been built up over generations amounts to privatisation. Those members are wringing their hands and shaking their heads, but that is the truth.

I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The question is that the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. With respect, I want to raise two matters with you. There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing over the schedules, and you have made a number of rulings. You ruled against Mr Jones in his first call, only to reverse that. Mr Jones sought a second call. He has had only one call in—

No. I thank the member for his comments. I am the sole judge of the relevance of the debate. On many occasions, as is well known, I have asked members to come back to Part 2 and schedules 2 and 3. This debate has been going for nearly 50 minutes. It is a very narrow debate on a very small number of provisions. Determining the relevance of the debate is at my sole discretion, and I have accepted the closure motion.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Mr Chairperson—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I do not intend to debate this matter further. I have accepted the closure motion and I will put it to the vote. That is where it stands.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I wish to raise a matter with you. You are right that you have ruled in respect of relevancy. I point out that in doing that in respect of Mr Jones, you reversed your ruling. He was dealing with a very narrow point, as I understand it, in respect of the rating of Māori land. You called him out for that. You subsequently reversed that, and the words you used were: “You are correct.” It is a very narrow point, which has not been examined by other speakers, but you denied him a second call.

I did not deduct any time from the member. He carried on and was actually talking about the provision of race—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Rates.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): —rates in terms of Māori land. I said he had 1 minute and 13 seconds remaining, and in that 1 minute and 13 seconds he did not actually mention anything that he had said he intended to mention. I have judged that the scope of this debate is a very narrow one. Under Speakers’ ruling 65/3 I am the sole judge of relevance. I have ruled that I will accept the closure motion, and that is where it stands.