Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. New Zealand has one of the most advanced systems of freedom of information in the world. We pride ourselves on our transparency and we regularly rate in the front of the pack in international comparisons. We do not have the same level of corruption as other countries, but we should never be complacent about this. Since 1982—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Sorry to interrupt the member, but it is the habit of the House to indicate at the commencement of the speech which select committee the bill will be referred to.

I apologise, but that was not the indication I had from the Clerk, actually.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, if the member could do that.

Yes, OK. At the appropriate time I intend to nominate that this bill be referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee.

Since 1982 our Official Information Act has progressively increased the availability of information to New Zealanders, so that they are able to more effectively participate in making and administering laws and policies, and to promote the accountability of Ministers and officials. There have been many other legislative reforms that have built on the principles and practice established by the Official Information Act, which includes the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987. That Act applies a similar regime to the local government sector.

Section 5 of the Official Information Act sets out the basic presumption of openness or the principle of availability. The theory behind the Official Information Act is that the public owns the information that is held by the Government and publicly owned entities. Every citizen has the right to access information held by public authorities. We are entitled to see it on request, unless there is good reason to withhold it, and that is not just any old reason.

But there is a gap in the accountability and transparency of our locally owned ports. Every single one of New Zealand’s 13 commercial seaports are either wholly or majority publicly owned. There are hundreds of millions of dollars of public money tied up in them, yet those who own them—in other words, the public—are unable to access official information. When these ports were originally built in the 19th century they were seen as providers of essential infrastructure to support other local and economic activities, and to promote local economic development and employment. In the 1980s and 1990s, as part of the neo-liberal attack on our economy and public assets—similar to the one we are seeing at the moment—the Government passed legislation to reform the port sector. The attempts—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: A Labour Government?

Yes, and a National Government. The attempts to sell off these locally owned assets resulted in different legislation for ports companies, in which the principal objective of ports companies is to operate as successful businesses. The ports companies were removed from the Local Government Act, in relation to the requirement to be open to Official Information Act and Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act requirements, and the requirement to be a good employer and have environmental and social responsibilities.

Although there was clearly an agenda to sell off our publicly owned ports during that time, that has not happened. Local authorities, supported by the real owners of the assets, the people, have resisted the privatisation of their ports. But the exclusion of ports and the requirements in the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act has placed distance between those who actually own these assets and the accountability and openness of those appointed to run them.

So this bill is about shining a light in dark places. My bill will bring publicly owned port companies back under the reach of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, and provide access to official information requests for those who seek information. This will mean that normal public accountabilities will be applied to ports companies. In addition, it will add the requirement for ports companies to act as good employers and to exhibit a sense of social and environmental responsibility by having regard to the interests of the community in which they operate. It is a simple and common-sense bill, and any political party that prides itself on openness and transparency around publicly owned entities should have no problem supporting this.

If National opposes this bill, I am going to be very interested in its justification, because there is none. How can anyone oppose openness and transparency in publicly owned assets? If it is opposition, maybe it is just another instance of the National Party hiding its mates from public scrutiny, just like John Banks. This Government is about helping its mates hide their dirty laundry from the public. I am also wondering whether it is a clumsy attempt to cover up the incompetence of the board of the Ports of Auckland in the attempts to contract out its workforce and privatise the ports. Secret plans to contract out the workforce, personal information of a worker leaked to a blogger, spies down at the port, and 1950s industrial relations management—I could go on.

This dispute has cost the citizens of Auckland tens of millions of dollars in lost business, in legal costs, in public relations costs, in redundancy payments for workers who had been dumped but who have now been re-hired on fixed-term contracts, on consultants, on a posse of bargaining agents, and on a possible compensation paid to contracting companies that were prematurely awarded the contracts but were unable to proceed. But no one is willing to come clean and quantify the actual cost, because the board of the Ports of Auckland hides behind its exclusion from the Official Information Act requirements. Without this legislation, we will never know for sure what this has cost Aucklanders.

There are legitimate concerns about the actions of the Ports of Auckland board and management that have arisen during the dispute with the Maritime Union. We need to ensure that these publicly owned businesses are open to the same scrutiny every other public institution faces. We have to wonder whether the real agenda of the Government—and Rodney Hide, of course—is to set up the Ports of Auckland for privatisation—

💬 Hon Member: And Rob Campbell.

—and Rob Campbell—supported by the Government’s Productivity Commission, which came out earlier this year urging the Government to privatise New Zealand’s ports.

It would not be the first time our ports have been up for grabs, and if this Government has its way it will not be the last. So let me be very clear. This is not just about an industrial dispute at the Ports of Auckland, even though there has been one and it has been awful. Accountability and transparency are fundamental aspects of democracy, and the public has a right to know how its money is being spent. It has a right to know about the Ports of Auckland and other ports throughout New Zealand—other publicly owned ports—just as it has the right to obtain information about libraries, schools, airport authorities, and numerous other entities.

But I fear that this is a Government that is setting out to destroy democracy, local decision-making, and accountability. Its Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill has councils up in arms across the country. It is a disgrace.

This is a Government that is pursuing an asset sales agenda, despite it becoming more untenable every day. This is a Government that removed Official Information Act requirements from its sale of State assets bill recently, so if a sale succeeds, the 51 percent shares owned on behalf of the New Zealand people will not be subject to openness and transparency. This is a Government that has denied democracy to the people of Canterbury by shelving elections until 2016 for their regional council. This is a Government that shelters its mates in big business. It has no care for the environmental, social, employment, and decent work consequences of their actions. It is all about a plan to dumb down our economy, to sell New Zealand off to the cheapest bidder, and to make New Zealanders pay through the loss of good jobs, decent work, and fair pay.

I am hoping that the National Government will prove me wrong tonight. I am hoping that Nick Smith, who may be the next speaker, will stand up and say: “We agree with the Labour Party. Openness and transparency are needed for our ports, our publicly owned ports throughout the country.” There is no problem with citizens being able to ask for information and receive that information, which they have a right to do, and which they will have a right to do if this bill is supported. Thank you.

Ports are vitally important for a small, ocean-bound trading nation like New Zealand. The essential question that is raised by the Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill is do we want our ports run as efficient businesses, or as bureaucratic council committees? Do we want our port companies’ decisions over governance being made on sound commercial grounds, or do we want the decisions made on political grounds? I am dumbfounded that we are even having this debate in 2012. Never has there been such a time for our nation when we need to grow our exports, when we need to improve our competitiveness, when we need to grow our productivity, and yet this bill would undermine every one of those objectives. In fact, this bill aptly illustrates the differences between the Government and the Opposition.

Firstly, the Government is focused on the future; the Opposition wants to take New Zealand backwards. It actually pines—and we heard it in Darien Fenton’s speech—for the days of industrial chaos and feather-bedding in our ports that have actually been such a sad part of New Zealand’s port history. You see, it is not so long ago, in the 1980s, that whether you were a truck driver, or a crane driver, or a loader driver—and as a student in the 1980s, did some of those jobs in the port—if you did those jobs in the port you got paid two or three times what you would if you did those jobs anywhere else. That was how inefficient our ports had become, because they were able to hold the nation to ransom, because they hold that crucial, fulcrum position in the export and import of goods in New Zealand. Actually, Labour members opposite like Annette King should be proud of the work they did in the 1980s to reform our ports. That was complemented by reforms that were put in place by National, such that we saw, in the 1990s, the fastest improvements in productivity in the New Zealand ports of anywhere in the world, of which we should be proud. That helped us grow exports and grow the strength of the economy during that decade. I am truly gobsmacked that Labour today wants to take us backwards, but not completely—not completely.

This is as much about not the national interest, but Labour’s narrow interest of serving their wharfie union mates. That is what this bill is really all about. You see, it wants to use this bill as the tool to drag our ports back to the inefficiencies that typified the history of the port industry in New Zealand. Why that should worry New Zealanders is that every single export, every import that we pay for as consumers, risks going up in price if we allow the ports to return to their inefficiencies of the past.

💬 Hon Annette King: Nothing to do with it.

Well, absolutely it has to do with it, Ms King. This bill was tabled immediately in the months after the port dispute, and Darien Fenton made absolutely plain that this bill was all about the Auckland port dispute.

But I have this question to ask members opposite: who wrote the Local Government Act 2002? Labour. Why did it, in 2002, exempt port companies from those very provisions? It was because it knew then that it wanted to have ports run on a proper, businesslike basis. But it is even more important if we look at that provision. Why was it that it exempted port companies from these provisions in the bill? What about the electricity companies? What about all the other entities that were listed in Labour’s bill in 2002? The simple answer is because this is simply about Labour doing the bidding of its wharfie union mates. This bill is blatantly about special interests, and lacks logic. Why is it, for instance, that members opposite think that Local Government New Zealand—a 100 percent public entity—is not included? Why not the insurance company? This bill is not about principles, it is about politics. Labour simply wants to repoliticise the management of New Zealand’s ports, and that is the very last thing this export-growth Government wants to occur. This bill is a nonsense. It shows how left Labour has become in its time in Opposition, how out of touch it is with what we need to do to improve New Zealand productivity. Any member who wants to strengthen the New Zealand economy must vote against this bill.

You know, there are some doctors who make you well, and there are some doctors who make you sick. I have to say that Dr Hutchison is one who makes you well. We have just heard from Dr Nick Smith, the master of myths, the master of shonky figures and egregious examples, who has just given us a lofty speech about vital infrastructure in New Zealand, and New Zealand going forward. Then he harked back to the 1980s and the Cold War to give us examples of what has happened in the New Zealand ports. Once again, he used his list of egregious examples.

I have to tell you, Dr Smith, that this is 2012. It is not the 1980s. The way he was describing the operation on the wharves is not the way the wharves and ports are run today. He evoked class war, he evoked union bashing, and there was plenty of emphasis that if we vote for this bill, the Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill, it will be the end of exports and a growing economy.

Well, what a load of hogwash. It had absolutely nothing to do with the bill at all, and he never once mentioned that ratepayers’ money, which goes into that port, should be open to transparency and to accountability—transparency and accountability. Where was that in his speech? Where was his emphasis on why in an open economy like New Zealand, where we pride ourselves in being No. 1 or No. 2 in Transparency International ratings, we would not, with what this bill does, enable there to be some transparency and openness around the Ports of Auckland?

You see, there are good local government bills and there are bad local government bills. We have just experienced two bad local government bills, one of them at the hands of Dr Smith. He is being done over all around New Zealand on his Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill. Almost any submission of substance has absolutely poured a bucket on his bill. The submitters have told him that it is based on myth. They have said that he has got his facts wrong, and that he does not know what he is talking about. The Government is going to end up looking a fool if it passes that bill. That is a bad bill.

Then there is a second bad bill, brought in by the new Minister of Local Government, who is way out of his league. They are still laughing about his appearance at the Local Government New Zealand Conference. He spoke for 5 minutes, he did not have a clue what he was talking about, and they said: “How did he get this job? What have we done to deserve this man?”. So there was a second bad local government bill. What is that one about? It is an anti-democratic bill that takes away the right of Cantabrians to vote for people to make decisions in a local area until 2016—2016. The hidden agenda is, of course, that the Government is going to amalgamate the councils down there, and it just needs time to be able to do it. So there are two bad local government bills.

But we have also had two good local government bills. One just happens to be one of my own. It was a bill that I thought would be very helpful—very helpful—when it came to the salary of Mr Doug McKay, Chief Executive of Auckland Council. He is on a salary of $800,000-plus. It might have been a good idea to have an independent group, like the State Services Commission, or an independent person look at that salary. Of course, the National Party voted against that sort of openness and transparency.

Now we have this Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill from Darien Fenton. Well done, Darien Fenton, on bringing forward this bill. All it is asking for is some openness and accountability, and to provide to the people of Auckland some information about what happens within a port company. You know, even a private sector company would provide more information than the Ports of Auckland does. You see, it has got a culture of cover-up and covert decision-making. The lack of confidence in Auckland that has come out of that is something that should worry the Government. Has the Government done anything about it? Is it prepared to look at this issue and say: “Come on, be more honest with the people in your area.”? No, it is not. It put up the straw man, Nick Smith, to make a stupid speech about the lofty ideals of exports in New Zealand—nothing to do with what happens in the ports today, and nothing to do with openness and transparency. I say to this House that this is a great opportunity to support a bill that could make a difference. But will we get support from the party opposite? No, we will not. It will be more cover-up and more covert decision-making.

I seek leave to table a document. It is the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 No 52 of New South Wales. It is an example of international best practice, which this bill seeks to follow.

Thank you. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

This Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill is designed to bring port companies and their subsidiaries under the definition of a “council-controlled organisation” in the Local Government Act. New Zealand is a very small country, a long way away from major markets, so it is absolutely vital that our transport infrastructure is as efficient and as effective as possible. But, actually, because our country is so dependent on its ports, it needs to be even more than that. We need our port companies to be innovative and to be sharply competitive, so that they can keep the costs down for our exporters. The health, the wealth, and the well-being of our country are absolutely predicated on us selling our produce overseas. So any legislation that adds barriers or makes it difficult for exporters to compete internationally cheats—yes, cheats—everyone in our community. Adding another layer of bureaucracy will only add more costs and reduce the efficiency of our ports. Every exporter and every importer will suffer, and society as a whole will pay the price of less funds coming into our country and increased prices in our stores.

Port companies are not local government bodies. They are commercial entities and part of the essential infrastructure that underpins the well-being of our country. There is no sense in this bill. It just increases the costs for all of us, for absolutely no benefit.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I think I would like to start my speech in support of this bill, the Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill, by paying tribute to the fact that today is Women’s Suffrage Day. I want to acknowledge the tūpuna kuia, the women who went before us, from whose work all the women in this House are entitled to be here and to be able to participate fully in our democracy—people like Kate Sheppard.

So it is fitting, from my point of view, that this bill should be in the House today, because it is about improving our democracy. It is a welcome attempt at creating accountability and transparency for organisations that are publicly owned—our ports. It is quite a straightforward and sensible bill. If you look at the explanation at the front of the bill, it says that it applies the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act to ports that are owned by councils, that there is a requirement for ports to act as a good employer, and that there is a requirement for ports to exhibit a sense of social and environmental responsibility by having regard to the interests of the community in which they operate. It makes sense. If we expect accountability for how public money is spent, then we should expect some accountability from these ports, which are profit-making businesses of our councils, for how that money is earned. We are not talking about anything earth-shattering or anything different from normal practice. The bill simply says that the provisions of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act apply. Ports can still have commercially sensitive discussions, table commercially sensitive documents, and do it in committee, as long as they have a good reason to do that.

It is a darn shame that we need to do this at all, but we may as well acknowledge that this is the result of ports acting disagreeably. The most disagreeable of all was the Ports of Auckland dispute, which happened earlier this year. There were nine strikes, there were two lockouts in the dispute with the Maritime Union, the company breached the good-faith bargaining provisions of the Employment Relations Act, it threatened to contract the jobs, it advertised those jobs elsewhere, it released private details, te mea, te mea, te mea. Darien Fenton has already listed a lot of them. Clearly, these were not the actions of a good or even a reasonable employer, and during this time the council that owns the port through its holding company, Auckland Council Investments Ltd, was unable to intervene, and it was dependent on information that was filtered through the company—information that was, frankly, being withheld.

Just last week in the Auckland Council, the councillors—who, by the way, were democratically elected by the people of Auckland—were still struggling to get answers from the council-controlled organisation about how much the Ports of Auckland dispute had cost. We can make some good guesses about that, but it has never been confirmed. My former colleague Councillor Cathy Casey got her hands on one of the emails that came from the chief executive officer of Auckland Council Investments Ltd, which said that the last thing it wants is political interference. The email said that if politicians sense that Auckland Council Investments Ltd is not on top of what is happening, they might interfere and the decision might not go the way it wants. It is outrageous that a council-controlled organisation chief can so clearly dismiss democratically elected people who are charged with the governance of Auckland, and that includes the governance of infrastructure like our ports. I am a ratepayer and I still do not know what that dispute in Auckland cost me.

It is not just about Auckland; Lyttelton would be advantaged by this as well. In Lyttelton they have no idea what is happening with the expansion plans there. They have been overruled by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority in terms of being rushed through an expansion of, I think, about 10 hectares of reclamation using demolition material. They do not know where their ferries will be. They do not know what the transport links will be. They do not know whether the container trucks will be off their roads or going through their towns. They do not know what public space amenity there will be for them. This is of major concern to the communities in Lyttelton. My colleagues tell me that this bill will help people who live near ports everywhere.

I seek leave to table a document containing a list of council-controlled organisations in Tauranga that will be subject to the Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill, including Tauranga City Investments Ltd, Tauranga City Aquatics Ltd, Tauranga City Venues, the Western Bay of Plenty Tourism and Visitors Trust, the Tauranga Art Gallery Trust and deliverables specific to the trust, and two more: Bay of Plenty Local Authority Shared Services and Bay Broadband Ltd, in case people do not know the ambit of this legislation.

Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

I seek leave to table a Ports of Auckland document, a labour strategy memo that has been leaked to us, which is a document that would be obtainable through the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act if changes proposed by Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill were to be enacted.

Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. If there is going to be objection to our tabling documents, could they at least say it loud enough so that we will know. The process usually requires you to say “Is there objection?”, and they need to voice it out loudly rather than just whisper over there. They think—

That is not really a point of order, but the member did make a point on the first rejection.

I—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The point of order on the floor is to be heard in silence.

I seek leave of the House to table a statement of intent from the Auckland Waterfront Development Agency as an example of an official document that should be subject to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act but is presently not.

Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

The Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill is arrant nonsense and I do not support it. Thank you.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is someone nodding his head sufficient indication that he objects? Does he not have to say so?

The member actually did say that he objected.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, we can’t hear it here.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That may well be a problem with the microphones, but I certainly heard it. So if the technician could check the microphones, please.

Is it not revealing that this National Government plays its endless tune to the populace of New Zealand about openness, about transparency, and about accountable government? And is it not interesting that this House has been subject to a disgraceful example—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! I have a member on my left and a member on my right who are interjecting when they do not have the floor. If they want to make a speech, they can do so next time.

This House has been subject to an example of disgraceful contempt for democracy in this country tonight. People who are out there listening to this should wake up and watch what is happening under a National Government in this country, when there is a genuine attempt here to get openness, transparency, and accountability of one of the biggest sections of our economy, the ports of this country, back into the public domain.

Currently, there are 27 ports in this country, many of which are controlled by councils under council-controlled organisations, where basically those major organisations can operate literally under the radar with smoke and mirrors and have very little accountability, apart from back to their parent body through confidential documentation. So much of the business and so much of our export and import livelihoods are dependent on these ports, but the very companies that use these ports, the very operators through the ports, and the industries across New Zealand that are dependent on the ports have very little knowledge as to what is actually happening within those ports.

It is understandable that this National Government would want this, because it is now building up a long history of this anti-democratic situation in New Zealand. It is very much a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde situation. In this case—

💬 Phil Twyford: Dr Smith and Mr Hide.

It a “Dr Jekyll Smith”—I was about to say that—“and Mr Rodney Hide” situation here, because between the two of them they helped orchestrate this, with the assistance of the puppeteer Mr John Key. Of course, that puppeteer back in 2005-06, when he was an Opposition MP, a backbench MP in this House, was probably sitting up in the backbenches there. He had a member’s bill in the House—he was Mr John Key MP in those days—to create a super-city in Auckland, to create one super-city. But he thought he might not get away with the one super-city all in one, so he put up two options in his member’s bill. The other option was for there to be three cities: a north city, a central city, and a south city. That was an option, but he was hoping for one super-city.

However, that member’s bill, unlike Darien Fenton’s bill, the Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill, which we are debating tonight, did not get pulled from the ballot in 2005-06, much to his dismay. So he had to think about how else he could get control of Auckland, how else he could get control of the ports, and how else he could get control of the water, the sewerage, the transport, the waterfront, much of the facilities, and the buildings.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Find a fall guy.

Yes, find a fall guy. So he found Mr Rodney Hide, the guy in the yellow jacket. He sent him out on a mission. Mr Hide came to see all the mayors of Auckland and said that he did not actually know what he was doing. He sat in a mayoral meeting with six or seven mayors and said to us “I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m relying on you, the mayors, to tell me what I’m doing in Auckland. But we are going to put this together into one city. Please cooperate with me. We are working our way through it. We are finding things out as we go, and we are going to create this.” So they created the one city, and part of that one city was to put some of the entities of the city—not some of them; the majority of the entities—under council-controlled operations, one of which is the Ports of Auckland. As a result, that entity can operate, basically, without public scrutiny.

The councils of Auckland—the seven entities before plus the Auckland Regional Council—were accountable. We had open transparency. We had to give out the information. The information was subject to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and was constantly sought by the public, constantly sought by the media, and constantly sought by all sorts of stakeholders, and it was provided. It was provided in most cases, unless the information was so sensitive that it would perhaps compromise a commercial deal going through. But most times the information was provided. However, under this situation, basically, most of the business of the port is kept behind closed doors and is not obtainable. That is not acceptable. That does not provide well for a competitive economy. It does not ensure that it is, in fact, as efficient as it should be.

New Zealand First will be supporting this bill, because we are after open, accountable governance, not smoke and mirrors.

I oppose this bill. Thank you.

That was by far her best speech, as well. I seek leave—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! I have already said once tonight that when there is a point of order on the floor, it is to be terse and to the point, and it is to be heard in silence. Courtesy is contagious.

I seek leave to table a list of documents obtained from the Gisborne District Council that would be subject to the Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill, including BOPLASS Ltd; Gisborne Holdings Ltd, with two annual reports and four statements of intent; and Tauwhareparae Farms Ltd, or TFL, with three annual reports as part of that disclosure.

Thank you. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

I want to dedicate this speech to the memory of Kate Sheppard, a great New Zealander who was instrumental in bringing the vote to New Zealand women 119 years ago today. I feel sure that if Kate Sheppard were in this House tonight as a member of this House of Representatives, she would be voting for Darien Fenton’s Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill. She would stand up for principles of accountability, good governance, transparency, and public control of public institutions.

So let us see. This bill that Darien Fenton has brought to the House is based on the principles of good governance, openness, transparency, and democratic control of public institutions. It is no wonder that the National Party is not supporting it. Why are we surprised? Why are we surprised? Because that would go against every bone in the National Party’s body to actually open up public institutions to scrutiny, transparency, and openness. After all, transparency and accountability are the key principles of functioning markets. If this National Party was true to its liberal tradition, the members in the House tonight from the National Party would be voting for Darien Fenton’s bill. These are not left-wing ideas—openness and transparency. They are not the sole preserve of the left of politics. A National Party that actually cared a jot about its own liberal tradition would surely support this bill.

The point has been made already that this bill is not just about the Ports of Auckland dispute that has racked the Auckland waterfront for most of the last 12 months. It is a bill that would extend openness and transparency, principles of environmental and social responsibility, and accountability to the community. It would extend those obligations to publicly owned ports all around this country. But there is no denying that the Ports of Auckland dispute has shone a light on the issue that Darien Fenton is seeking to solve with this bill. What did we see in the Ports of Auckland? We saw a company that is owned by the ratepayers, by the citizens, of Auckland developing a strategy to sack the wharfies on that port and contract out their jobs. It was a strategy that was found by the Employment Court to be illegal. The employer was told in an embarrassing back-down to go back to the negotiating table and actually treat its workers with respect and to negotiate an agreement. We saw the most despicable behaviour that we have seen in a while from employers in an industrial dispute. We saw the Ports of Auckland leaking personal information on its own employees to the right-wing blogger Cameron Slater. Well, what an outrage. That dispute, which should be laid fairly and squarely at the door of the board and the management of the Ports of Auckland, has not only cost the Auckland ratepayer millions of dollars but also cost the Auckland business community millions of dollars because the ports were shut down for so long. It damaged the asset that is the Ports of Auckland, which is owned by the people of Auckland. Yet, in spite of all those things, the management and the board of the Ports of Auckland were not required to come clean and tell Auckland Council and the democratically elected representatives of Aucklanders how much that dispute cost them.

As if we need any more evidence that this National Party is a party of crony capitalism, of dirty deals done behind closed doors, and that transparency is the last thing that this National Party wants. This is the party that corporatised 75 percent of local government in Auckland when it set up the Auckland super-city, shifting billions of dollars in assets and thousands of staff into commercial entities governed by hand-picked corporate boards, picked by Rodney Hide and Mark Ford.

Even though there are special rules that govern council-controlled organisations like the one that owns the Ports of Auckland, all of these so-called council-controlled organisations do a great deal of their business behind closed doors, and that is the way this National Party likes it. We saw it in the corporatisation of Auckland. We saw it in the sacking of Environment Canterbury. We saw it in the refusal to vote for Annette King’s bill, the Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill, which would have instilled some transparency and independence in the setting of executive salaries, and now these people are voting against this very good bill of Darien Fenton.

I seek leave of the House to table a report from the Christchurch City Council detailing organisations under the control of the council that are not currently subject to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act. It is a list including Christchurch City Holdings, the Selwyn Plantation Board, Christchurch City Networks, Christchurch International Airport Ltd, City Care—I am trying to read it as fast as I can—Civic Buildings Ltd, the Central Plains Water Trust, the Lyttelton Port Co. Ltd, Orion New Zealand Ltd, the Riccarton Bush Trust, Red Bus Ltd, the Selwyn Plantation Board again, Transwaste Canterbury Ltd—almost finished—Tuam Ltd, and Vbase Ltd. And that is the complete list.

Is there any objection to that course of action? [Interruption] Sorry?

💬 Michael Woodhouse: What is the source of the document?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Would the member like to tell the House what the source of the document is, please.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yes. It is general and technical information from the Christchurch City Council, which I assume is 2012—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): From the Christchurch City Council. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Over the last few weeks I have been referring to Mr Speaker in respect of the process and speeches that are accompanying the tabling of documents, and I would draw your attention to Speakers’ rulings 147/4-6 in this regard. The House has considered this, and the senior Opposition whip did raise the point that the document itself had to be specified with some degree of particularity—I think his words were—which is correct. But what we have emerging is a long dissertation about what the document says, which I would suggest is starting to come into the realms of a speech. This evening I am struggling to identify the source of the document, which is the purpose of the description, but I get a very long dissertation about what is in the document. I wonder whether you would reflect on whether or not those tabling requests are within Speakers’ rulings.

The fact of the matter is that the Christchurch City Council is a substantial body and has a significant number of holdings. The minimum thing that I am required to do is to identify the holdings about which I speak from its official document to us to explain the ambit of the bill’s effect upon them, and I have given it from the point of view of the general and technical information that was required. I could not put it any briefer than that, and I did not make a long speech, at all.

Can I—[Interruption] No, no. Can I just say that the impression I took from the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ seeking to table the documents was that he actually referred to only the actual organisations. He did not speak, and I was quite happy to accept that.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am not going to challenge your perception of how the document was described, except to say that the point of tabling documents is so that members can see and read them. If the description is so thorough that they then go in Hansard, there is very little point in tabling documents.

In fact, the Rt Hon Winston Peters did not do that. He described each of the documents. If the concern of the senior whip from the National Party was that the list of documents was too long, then that would have been a different point order, but the Rt Hon Winston Peters did not over-describe the documents. Can I refer you, Mr Assistant Speaker, in particular to Speaker’s ruling 147/5, which was one of the Speakers’ rulings to which the senior whip from the National Party referred. It says: “The strategy of giving a long explanation and then saying, ‘I table it’, is not appropriate. When members are tabling documents they should seek leave, give the purpose for the leave, and then identify the document they wish to table so that other members can make an informed judgment on whether they should accept that.” Indeed, even after his initial explanation, a member from the other side said “What is the source of the documents?”. They were, effectively, asserting that Mr Peters’ explanation had been too brief rather than too long. So I would invite you to rule that the tabling of the documents was in order.

Thank you. I had already done that.

💬 Hon Members: Point of order.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The tabling of documents is in order. I have made a decision on that.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether I could seek your clarification about whether the member was tabling one document or several, because the Hon David Parker referred to them as several documents. My understanding of the process of tabling documents is that they should be done one at a time.

Well, that is what the member was doing. He actually tabled them one at a time. That was the way I understood it. The member wishes to speak to that?

In the interests of settling my colleagues concerned over there for the accuracy of the way it was presented, the Christchurch City Council listed on a separate page each enterprise about which they speak. I happened to get a stapler and staple them together, but they are all separate documents.

Thank you.

💬 Chris Hipkins: Point of order.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Well, I think the issue is finalised now. It has been settled.

💬 Chris Hipkins: I just want to raise one final point.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): One final point.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just want to draw your attention to the fact that the Speakers’ rulings referred to in this discussion, and I think it has been a useful discussion, pre-date the change to the Standing Orders with regard to what can be tabled in the House. Further Speaker’s rulings from Speaker Smith were then, I guess, formalised in the change to the Standing Orders in the last Parliament. If we rewind the clock back several Parliaments, it was the practice of members at the end of a question, for example, to seek leave to table large numbers of media clippings. They would go through them one at a time and it would take up a lot of time. One of the trade-offs with removing the ability to do that was that the much smaller number of documents that was permissible to be tabled had to be described in greater detail to establish whether or not, in fact, they did meet that criterion. It is important that the House take note of that. Some of these Speakers’ rulings pre-date the current practice of the House, which has greatly reduced the number of documents that can be tabled.

Thank you very much.

I am very happy to take an unexpected—

💬 Andrew Williams: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As a relatively new member of this House, can I just ask for clarification. I heard the chief whip from the National Party specifically ask for the documents to be tabled so that National could ascertain what the documents were. He wanted clarification as to what they were. This was provided, and then National declined to allow them to be tabled. Does he want it one way or the other? He asked for clarification of what was being tabled, he sought the information, and then he declined to have them tabled. Which way does he want it?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): All right. I will ask the member. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken?

💬 Michael Woodhouse: Is leave being—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The leave is being re-sought. No objection.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Encouraged by that, I seek leave of the House to table a report from the Marlborough District Council detailing the organisations under the control of the council, which, similarly, are not under the ambit of this legislation. The two listed are MDC Holdings Ltd and the Marlborough Housing for the Elderly Trust.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none. No objection.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I am very happy to take a call on this—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek leave of the House to table a letter from a constituent in support of this bill. It is dated 13/9/2012, to my colleague Mr Williams MP.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Very good. I think they are done for now. That is good. I am very happy to take a call on the Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill, and can I say it is not a great day for openness and transparency in the House of Parliament today. There have been two bills in a row put forward by the Opposition designed to increase transparency and to increase the flow of information to the public about the activities that they have an interest in as taxpayers, and both have been voted down by the Government.

First, there were the changes to the Ombudsmen Act, which would have allowed the Ombudsmen to charge for investigations. Of course, we know that the majority of investigations we would be talking about under that would be Official Information Act investigations—potentially even some of the investigations that they could be conducting under this bill, if it were passed, because the Ombudsmen could end up investigating some of these things if this bill were passed. So there is a great irony there.

Government members are voting against more transparency and democracy twice in the House tonight, and I think that is very, very disappointing. Why? I have not heard anyone from the Government. I accept that there was no autocue earlier on, so Maggie Barry’s one-sentence speech could easily be explained by the absence of an autocue—

💬 Hon Member: It was the best speech.

—and, yes, it was actually the best speech she has given in the time she has been in Parliament. But I do want to say I am disappointed that no National member has actually stood up and given a reasonable explanation for why ports should not be subject to the Official Information Act. It is actually quite a simple issue. Why should it be that the Official Information Act can apply to schools and to any range of Government entities but not ports, which are council-controlled organisations fully owned by the council? Why would it not apply to them? I cannot actually understand this. There is no justifiable reason for that. What we are talking about here is openness and transparency around ports, and I do not think it is unreasonable for the Government to at least send this bill to a select committee to give some explanation of why it is voting against it.

I turn to the purpose of the bill for a moment. The explanatory note of the bill states: “This Bill reverses the exclusion of port companies and their subsidiaries from the definition of council-controlled organisations in the Local Government Act 2002. This will have the effect of applying normal public accountabilities to port companies, including the application of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987, the requirement to act as a good employer”—and I will come back to those in a moment—“and the requirement to exhibit a sense of social and environmental responsibility by having regard to the interests of the community in which they operate.”

Again, I come back to the point: who could possibly argue—who could possibly argue—that a port should not be required to do those things? A port should act as a good employer, and we as a Parliament have defined what a good employer is. There are requirements in the legislation for what a good employer needs to do, so why is it that the Government would object to passing a law that would require ports to act in that way? It extends to them the requirement “to exhibit a sense of social and environmental responsibility”, so let us talk about those things for a moment.

A port is quite a large employer, so the social responsibility element comes in quite significantly. There are huge environmental issues with the operations of ports. It is not unreasonable for us to expect that ports would operate with some sense of environmental responsibility. And, as I said, they must have “regard to the interests of the community in which they operate”. Again, these are large entities owned by the local authorities, and of course they should have regard to the interests of the communities in which they operate.

This is actually a very sensible bill, and I am absolutely staggered that not only are the Government members not voting in favour of it but they are not willing to articulate their reasons for not voting in favour of it. That suggests a level of contempt for the concepts of openness and transparency in this House that I think the New Zealand public should rightly find incredibly disappointing.

There have been two strikes today against a more open Government. The first was the voting down of more powers for the Ombudsmen to allow them to clear the huge backlog of investigations that have accumulated under this National Government. Of course, we know the reason for that—it has shut down the flow of information. Government members are not willing to stand up and be accountable for the decisions that they are making. They are not willing to release information—that is disgraceful—and now they are voting against this as well, and that is disgraceful too.

I seek leave to table a list of council-controlled organisations from the Whangarei District Council that would be subject—

Are there any objections to that course of action being taken? There are none.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I seek leave to table a statement of intent from the Auckland Waterfront Development Agency, as an example of an official document that should be subject to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act—

Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is. I call the honourable member Darien Fenton to sum up.

First of all, I want to thank the Greens, New Zealand First, the Māori Party, and Mana for supporting this bill, the Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill. It is good to know that on this side of the House political parties believe in openness and transparency. Because what—[Interruption]—and actually they are prepared to debate the issues, unlike the other side, apart from Nick Smith and he does not actually count when it comes to debate. What madness was that from Nick Smith—1950s, you know, Cold War warrior rhetoric. It was unbelievable. But I also want to thank the supporters, friends, and others who have helped me with this bill. I want to make it really clear that this has come about through a genuine concern about a lack of accountability and transparency for the ports that we own throughout New Zealand, that ratepayers own, either wholly or partially. They have no access to official information, because of an exclusion in the Local Government Act.

There has been a lot of talk today about democracy, as it should be, because it is the 119th anniversary of Suffrage Day. People have referred to Kate Sheppard and asked what she would think about this. It is the day that women won the right to vote, and so it is something to be celebrated. But just as important as the right to vote is the accountability of those who are elected to office and those who are put in charge of assets and services that the people of New Zealand own and have built up over many years. It has been very disappointing to hear the weasel words—the few of them—that we have had from the National Party. As my colleague Chris Hipkins has pointed out, it has been a bad day for democracy in this Parliament. We have voted down two bills that would have brought openness and transparency. It has been a bad couple of weeks for democracy, as well. We had the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill, under which there will be no elections until 2016 for the people of Christchurch. We also had a whole range of other attacks on democracy. It is not a good look for this Government. It should be ashamed of itself.

New Zealand ratepayers have the right to know what is going on with the port assets they own, yet this Government has just voted down this right. This National Government, United Future, and the ACT Party—John Banks, that pillar of accountability, democracy, and transparency—will vote down the right of the people of New Zealand to ask questions about the way their publicly owned ports are being run. We have seen such goings-on in Auckland. There is no doubt about it; the Ports of Auckland dispute was a catalyst for this bill, but the people have since been in contact with me and said that they have issues about their port too, that they own them, and they cannot get information. But even elected Auckland councillors cannot get answers about what has been going on with the Ports of Auckland—owned by the ratepayers of Auckland. They asked questions last week, and the ports company and Auckland Council Investments Ltd—the council-controlled organisation—are able to hide behind a veil of secrecy and unaccountability.

What was really interesting in the debate last week at the Auckland Council was that it was told that Gary Swift, the head of the council-controlled organisation—Auckland Council Investments Ltd—had told the democratically elected councillors that his board was the port owner and not the council, and not the people of Auckland. Just to demonstrate how arrogant that is, he sent an email, which was tabled at the council. It was sent to the ports management and said, in part: “The last thing we need is political interference. If they sense that ACIL is not on top of what’s happening”—and he is talking about the industrial dispute—“they may interfere and it may not go the way we want (the vote 12 to 9 was not a strong endorsement of our position).” That is atrocious. What we have with the Ports of Auckland and other ports is public money, publicly owned ports with no accountability. Under my bill, people could have asked for that information. What is wrong with that? This Government does not believe in openness and transparency.

Before people rush to vote, could I just say that there is more sad news. This is in respect of documents I want to table about organisations belonging to the Waitaki District Council. They are Ōmarama Airfield Ltd, the Waitaki Development Board Ltd, Waitaki District Health Services Ltd, Whitestone Contracting Ltd, and Alps 2 Ocean Cycle Trail.

Is there any objection to that course of action? There is no objection.

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I wish to table also—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Point of order.

—in respect of the Far North District Council—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): He has not finished. [Interruption]

Drop your knees, quickly!

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Could I ask the member to just be seated. I had the understanding that the member had finished. The member over here wished to comment on that, and I called him.

💬 Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Assistant Speaker, my shaking of the head was not to say I oppose leave; it was to say I do not understand what the documents are that are being tabled.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Well, in that case, can I ask the member—

💬 Michael Woodhouse: From what I understand, what we have had are two types of documents. One is a list of companies and the other is statements of intent. We have been not declining leave for the lists but declining leave for the statements of intent. I would be interested to know what we just had tabled.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I ask the Rt Hon Winston Peters to explain.

I would be delighted to, Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Briefly.

This comes from section 03, “Council Controlled Organisations”: “A Council controlled organisation is an entity in which a Council (or Councils) has a controlling stake. This is defined in Section 6 of the Local Government Act 2002. Waitaki District Council has four subsidiaries that fall in to this definition. They are:”—and they are listed by the council in its long-term plan for 2012 to 2022.

Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none. No objection.

The document is from Ports of Auckland—I will say it very slowly for the chief whip’s benefit—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! No. The member may raise a point of order but it is to be terse and to the point, and it is not to be used to score political points, or I will sit the member down.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With respect, and this is a genuine point of order, there was a member who expressed the fact that he either did not hear or did not understand what documents were being tabled. The member Andrew Williams quite courteously said that he would go through it slowly so that all of us could get a handle on it and we could then determine whether we object or not.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Members make disparaging remarks about each other in this Chamber all the time. It is a personal reflection that is out of order. I call the honourable member Andrew Williams. [Interruption] We have a point of order? Another point of order?

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: I seek leave to table both the final and the draft versions of the Auckland regional events and economic development plan—another provided by a council-controlled organisation.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none.

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I seek leave to table a labour strategy memo from Ports of Auckland as an example of a document that would be obtainable under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act if the changes proposed by this bill are enacted.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

I seek leave to table a document from the Far North District Council setting out a holding it has that, in respect of this legislation, would be affected. The company operation owned by the Far North District Council is the Far North—[Interruption] What did you say, a pig farm? No, it is not. It is Far North Holdings Ltd—this document here.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I seek leave to table a document from Auckland Transport regarding the transport-oriented development in my electorate of New Lynn. It is a further example of a council-controlled organisation document that has not entered the public view—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I seek leave to table an email from Gary Swift, the Chief Executive of Auckland Council Investments Ltd, entitled “Ports of Auckland Media Release: Mediation unsatisfactory; strikes to proceed”.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I seek leave to table a letter from Auckland Council Investments Ltd to the Maritime Union of New Zealand. It says that it has no accountability to anyone other than the Auckland Council, and it will not be involved in releasing information to what it describes as third parties.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that the point of order process and the attempt to table stuff at the moment is a delaying motion so that we do not get to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Amending Primary Function of Bank) Amendment Bill here tonight.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: You can’t say that.

I can understand why the member does not want to progress it, but I want to let him know that we are very eager that he should deliver that speech tonight.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That is not a point of order.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last time I checked, Standing Order 374(1) and (2) read: “(1) A member may table a document by leave of the House or a committee of the whole House. (2) If leave has been given for a document to be tabled, the document must be tabled within a reasonable period, as determined by the Speaker.” I do not know what the Leader of the House—apart from scoring political points—is attempting to do, but it is the right, under the Standing Orders, of any member of this House to seek leave to table as many documents as they like, and the House or your good self, Mr Assistant Speaker, determines whether they are not within the Standing Orders, rather than the Leader of the House standing up and in his usual bamboozled way making spurious points of order—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The member was doing OK.

I am helping out your cause. You do not want to get to this bill tonight. I am helping out your cause. [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Look, can I just—[Interruption] Order! Can I just remind members that when there is a point of order on the floor, it is to be terse and to the point, and there is to be no interjection from anybody.

The point that Mr Cosgrove makes is a correct one. People can seek leave to table documents. But it does have its constraints. The member will remember, as I am sure you will, Mr Assistant Speaker, the occasion when under the previous Government there was an attempt to systematically table every Standing Order from the Standing Orders document. That was ruled to be trifling with the House. I think we are in that situation here. I am desperately keen to hear what Mr Peters has to say about the bill that he clearly does not want to talk about tonight.

The Leader of the House cannot make that statement—twice. Mr Assistant Speaker, he was counselled against it by you the first time, but he gets up and says it again in the same way. Then when Darien Fenton was trying to table a document, he shouts out “Yeah, get on with it.” That is really a challenge to your conducting the affairs of the House in a proper way. It is no reflection on you; it is a reflection on his bad manners. It is reflection of his behaviour when he gets down to the House—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): It is one-all at the moment.

Given that Mr Brownlee addressed my point of order, I want to address his. You will also recall, and I suspect you may have been in the Chair, when we were on opposite sides to now, and National was in Opposition, and what was ruled as spurious in terms of tabling documents—and I remember the debate quite clearly—was Mr Brownlee’s attempting to table every page of the Standing Orders, Speakers’ Rulings, and I think the McGee volume, as well. What was never ruled—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The member knows, and I have said it twice now, that when there is a point of order on the floor it must be heard in silence.

So as I was saying, my recollection, to deal with Mr Brownlee’s point, where he is, is that what was ruled as a spurious abuse of the process was when he attempted when he was in Opposition to table every page of the Standing Orders, every page of Speakers’ Rulings, individually I might add, and I think every page of McGee, volumes 1 and 2. What was never ruled by any Speaker, to my knowledge, as an abuse is where a variety of members tonight have attempted, quite rightly, to exercise their rights and table individual and different documents. As I understand it, it is either for you to rule that they are publicly available, etc., and therefore the leave cannot be sought, or for the House to determine whether it will grant leave—not spurious points of order by somebody who may have sort of imbibed tonight.

Can I mention another reason why the process of, at times, slightly delaying the process of this House by way of point of order is in order. You can see how the Government, if it wants to get a piece of legislation off the agenda of this House, can take very short calls, as we have seen on this very bill. Repeated short calls are being used by the Government to try to manipulate the process of this House in order to meet its procedural purpose. If it is OK for the Government to use the processes and the Standing Orders of this House in order to manipulate things in that way, it must be in order for the Opposition members to use the point of order process, within reason, to slow down the processes of this House a little bit so that the Government does not have its way by its attempt to misuse the processes of this House.

Can I just remind members that I remember the last time this happened. The Hon Margaret Wilson was in the Chair, and I came in and I took over the Chair, and there had been some agreement made between all the parties that the issue cease. At the moment, under Standing Order 374, members are perfectly entitled to seek leave to table documents. If it ended up at the stage where it was becoming unreasonable, then I could understand people getting upset. However, I am guided by “Documents tabled by leave”, which is Standing Order 374.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to draw the House’s attention to Speaker’s ruling 146/5, which says: “A member is entitled at any time to seek the leave of the House to table a document. There is no debate about whether the document should be tabled.” Further, Speaker’s ruling 148/3 says: “Members do not have a right to table a document, they always have to seek leave, and it is entirely up to members whether or not they object. It takes only one member to object and leave is not granted.” That makes very clear that it is a member’s entitlement to seek leave, and that members opposite have two options—to either grant leave or not grant leave. Any way you look at it, the Leader of the House is out of order for having raised an objection, not by way of denying leave but by way of imputing motives to members of the Opposition, and that is out of order. I would ask that you ask the Leader of the House to stand and apologise, and withdraw the imputation that he has made on the ethics of members on this side of the House. It is completely contrary to Speaker’s ruling 146/5 and, frankly, quite offensive.

Is the member seeking to speak on the point of order? The Rt Hon Winston Peters.

Mr Assistant Speaker, in your very helpful judgment at one point you referred to the reasonable tabling of documents. I think that that leaves us in some slight doubt. I was wondering whether you could perhaps describe for us or expand for us what you would deem reasonable tabling of documents to be in this case.

Well, I can only go back to what happened when this occurred in the previous Parliament. It went on for some time, and in the end, when there was a changeover of Speaker, the House came to its senses, as I recall, and it decided to move on with the debate. As a result, the debate continued and members appeared—or were—reasonable in allowing that to happen.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to pick up a point that my colleague opposite, Michael Woodhouse, raised earlier, which I do not think we have necessarily resolved yet, and that is to do with the tabling of multiple documents at the same time. In fact, I have taken some time now to read through the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings, and almost all of them seem to envisage the tabling of a document rather than of multiple documents. Therefore, each is a separate question, because the House may agree to the tabling of one but not others, and so on. So I want you to, perhaps, give us some guidance on whether, in fact, it is a legitimate practice for a member to stand up and read out a list of documents that they want to table, or whether, in fact, each document should be put as a separate question—described and put as a separate question—because, potentially, I think Mr Peters was describing a list of documents before that he wanted to table, when, actually, the correct process could well have been for the House to consider each of those individually. I am sure Mr Peters, ironically, was trying to save time by reading out the whole list of documents at the same time, but, in fact, that may have been where we got into some of the difficulty. Actually, it may have been more sensible for him to go through the documents one at a time, and for you then to test the will of the House with regard to each of those documents, rather than doing so as a job lot, if you like.

So that no one is left in any doubt, I want to table those companies that are under the control of local bodies from the following cities of this country. They are—those ones hitherto unreferred to—the Wellington City Council, the Hamilton City Council, both the Napier and Hastings city councils, the Dunedin City Council, the Palmerston North City Council, the Nelson City Council, the Rotorua City Council, the New Plymouth City Council, and, of course, the Whanganui City Council—with an “h” now—and the Invercargill City Council, to make sure that we have not left anyone out.

Leave is being sought for that purpose. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? [Interruption] Well, I want to find out whether there is any objection to that course of action being taken. There is none. There is no objection.

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think the House may be in some degree of difficulty here, because we were, in fact, as I understood it from my colleague’s previous point of order—which sought clarification from the Speaker as to whether the proper process was for the member to table individually the documents that he is now collectively referring to—seeking guidance from the Speaker on the propriety of that practice. In fact, the opposite has now occurred. The member has sought to speed things up by not only tabling a collective group of documents but, in fact, not even naming the documents and tabling them as a genus. We would welcome your guidance, Mr Assistant Speaker.

The point of order of my colleague is entirely right. I was just trying to save this House time, but to do it properly, the correct way to do it, is for me to table them city by city, one at a time. That is what I now wish to do, and seek leave to do just that. But I seek leave first of all that the associated company documents and holderships of the city of Christchurch be the first set of documents that I table.

The member’s present action now does not satisfy the point, because rather than tabling a group of council-controlled organisation documents from different jurisdictions, he is still tabling a group of documents from each one. The House does not have knowledge of the nature of the individual documents, and, therefore, members in good conscience are unable to ascertain whether they should grant or withhold leave on a document by document basis. So I would like, through you, Mr Assistant Speaker, to invite the member to be more specific in the description of the documents, which is—

Can I just say to members that where a member has a number of documents, Speakers in the past have allowed them to be tabled together. It is a matter for the Speaker.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption] Somebody groaned—I was just wondering whether they were in pain. Is it a—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: They’re shocked.

Somebody has let the billows out again.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

Could I ask you, is it a matter—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s the only way he feels good about himself.

McDonald’s is still open. Is it a matter for you to decide, not challenging—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! I know that it is getting late. Can I ask the members to show some courtesy to each other. It is not impossible, you know. When there is a point of order on the floor—as there is at the moment, being taken by the Hon Clayton Cosgrove—I expect all other members to show some restraint.

Thank you. I will start again. The point I was making, and I am not challenging your ruling, was that you said—I think the word you used was that it was a “decision” for you as Speaker as to whether a list of documents is tabled as a list or individually. Could I ask you to consider that, because I thought that was in the hands of the member, unless the member sought to table a list of documents in one hit. I may be wrong. I do not know whether it is a matter for you to determine whether Mr Peters has to table the list in toto, or whether he can do it individually, or whether it is a decision for the member Mr Peters to make. He sought to table—I do not know what the document is—a Christchurch document. That was not in the list, because I took some notes of the previous list that he put forward. I take it it is a new document. What my colleague David Cunliffe is simply seeking is that given that we have had a hell of a lot of documents tabled tonight and there has been some confusion—in fairness to the chief Government whip and others—as to the content and nature of those documents, we would hope that Mr Peters could determine whether he tables the list or whether he tables them individually, and that he is allowed, and required, actually, to give a fulsome description of what the documents are. We on this side may choose to object. Mr Brownlee’s side may choose to object. But I come back to the main point I was making—that is, is it a decision for you as to whether a member tables a list or tables them individually, or is it a decision that is up to the discretion of the member, unless he requests that he table the documents collectively, and requests that of you?

Well, can I just say to the member and advise the House that where a member has a number of documents, as the Rt Hon Winston Peters did, Speakers have allowed them to be tabled together. Where the practice is unclear, the Speaker rules. The member sought leave to table a number of documents together. That is what he sought leave for. So I am going to put that the leave be granted. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? It is already done? There was no objection.

I seek leave for the House to take the following course of action immediately upon the vote being taken on members’ order of the day No. 3, the Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill: for the House to then immediately vote on the third reading of members’ order of the day No. 4, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Amending Primary Function of Bank) Amendment Bill.

Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just before I continue, you recall very well that three times I have tried to have a bill discussed in this House with urgency, and it is the bill that waits in my name on the Order Paper, and, on every occasion, guess who declined me? Mr Brownlee and his colleagues over there. So let us—

No, no, no. Order! Order! The member is using a point of order to get involved in a debate, and that is not what we are here for. The debate is concluded. I am going to put the question now. The question is that the motion be agreed to. This is Darien Fenton’s member’s bill. I am going to put the—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I haven’t finished tabling the documents yet.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The documents have been agreed to be tabled. I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House is suspended and I will resume the Chair at 9 tomorrow morning for the extended sitting. Ka kite anō. Good evening.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday)