Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider the bill. This bill is about keeping public library services free for all New Zealanders. The bill would make public library services a statutory obligation for councils and would make core library services such as borrowing and internet access free. We have a fine tradition in New Zealand of our local libraries. We were brought up with them, our children visit them, new migrant students and older people rely on them. If members have not visited their local library recently, they should. They will find vibrant, exciting, and inclusive hubs of community learning and activity.

I want to acknowledge my colleague Grant Robertson, the original author of this bill. I was delighted to pick it up from him, and even more pleased when it was drawn from the ballot. I also want to acknowledge the important role of the Library and Information Association of New Zealand—LIANZA—which has been advocating for legislation of this type for some time. Its members have been talking with their local MPs. I am sure many of you will have heard from these guardians of the taonga we call our local libraries.

Who could ever imagine that our libraries could be at risk? Yet with the Government’s focus on local government cost-cutting, increasingly strapped local authorities may turn their attention to library services and more charges. Despite what many New Zealanders believe, our public libraries are not protected in legislation. Our current legislation only advises local authorities to ensure local residents can join libraries free of charge. We are out of step internationally with countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada, all of which protect free public library services via legislation.

We are not meeting Unesco guidelines where public libraries, in principle, should be free of charge and the responsibility of local and national authorities financed by national and local governments. The Unesco Public Library Manifesto states: “The public library, the local gateway to knowledge, provides a basic condition for lifelong learning, independent decision-making and cultural development of the individual and social groups. This Manifesto proclaims UNESCO’s belief in the public library as a living force for education, culture, and information, and as an essential agent for the fostering of peace and spiritual welfare through the minds of men and women.” This bill will help New Zealand meet Unesco guidelines. It will address the issue of user charges and ensure that New Zealand’s public libraries are an essential component of any long-term strategy for culture, information provision, literacy, and education.

Over the last couple of months since the bill was drawn, I have reacquainted myself with my local library. I have visited many other libraries and have found they are well attended and supported, sometimes crowded, with an important store of local and family history and exciting places of discovery. At the Auckland Central City Library students sit along the walls to access the free Wi-Fi. Others are curled up in chairs, reading a book that is crucial for their study. Walk a bit further along and there is a bank of computers, with people waiting to access them. They are there to access important information, such as job seeking. The old days of advertisements in the paper are diminishing, and now jobs are advertised on a range of internet sites, including Government sites such as the Work and Income job seek site. If someone finds a job, more likely than not they will have to apply online. It is almost impossible to do anything these days without access to the internet. Information about, and access to, Government services are increasingly available only through the web.

The public library is a place that is open to rich and poor alike. Our library services should never be bound by someone’s ability to pay, but that principle is at risk in these days of cost-cutting. Statistics show that the introduction of user charges results in lower usage of public libraries, and this in turn directly impacts on our communities’ literacy outcomes. It adds to inequality by denying access to those who can least afford to pay. The introduction of user charges in New Zealand in the past has resulted in lower usage of public libraries. In August 2009 Hamilton introduced a fee of $10 per month for homebound customers, and the numbers using this service halved. A series of charges introduced by the Rangitīkei District Council in the early 2000s resulted in a 35 percent decrease in borrowing. These charges—[Interruption] Well, good question. These charges were removed in 2005, resulting in a steady increase in issues. In 1999 Ashburton introduced a charge of $1 per issue for all adult books that were under 2 years old. In 1988 Napier introduced fees for selected fiction books and magazines, and that resulted in a 65 percent drop in borrowing. In the Ashburton and Napier cases, after a huge public opposition the councils subsequently reverted to a free issues policy, and that resulted in an increase in issues.

Libraries are the holders of many precious collections. They are the storehouses of history. I am thinking here of the important George Grey collections in the public library in Auckland. Imagine these collections being developed and applied on a user-pays basis. Do we really want unbalanced, profit-driven libraries that cater only for immediate, popular choices rather than non-profitable alternatives? The landscape in which public libraries operated has changed significantly over the past few years. Rapid technological change has seen the rise of social networks, e-books, smartphones, and many other mobile devices.

The scale of that change is impacting on public libraries worldwide, and countries are responding to change and that pressure in different ways. Some, like Denmark, are reinventing the library both physically and virtually into a vital national and community asset, without which a community cannot think of itself as civilised. In the UK, sadly, some local authorities are responding to financial pressure by closing libraries or moving them to being run by community volunteers, which has been a disastrous move. However, other UK local authorities are reinvesting in libraries to ensure their continued relevance and value. As Singapore did 10 years ago, China is now investing heavily in public library buildings and services to realise the economic and educational benefits they offer communities.

Public libraries are vital community hubs. They connect people to their communities and they contribute to New Zealand’s sense of national identity. A well-informed, educated population brings social and economic benefits to the whole country. Libraries help provide this with education, employment, and recreation opportunities. They provide the means for anyone to interact with the Government, business, and each other, regardless of means or income. With libraries now playing an important role in bridging the digital divide for those without personal computers or other devices, this bill will also ensure that no one is charged for accessing the internet via libraries in accordance with reasonable use requirements.

I am sure that all members in this House will agree that libraries have a very important place in our society. Voting for this bill will entrench in legislation the role of free public library services for all citizens. It is a popular bill. It is a bill that surely we can all agree with. In finishing, I want to quote that great feminist Germaine Greer, who said: “A library is a place where you can lose your innocence without losing your virginity.” But she also said: “Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm, and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark … In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed.” So the question for the parties in this House is whether they support free public library services being entrenched in New Zealand legislation. It is not a radical idea. I urge parties to support this bill.

This bill, the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill, is constitutionally confused, it is fiscally flawed, and it is awfully outdated. It actually says everything about how out of touch the Labour Party is with the modern challenges for New Zealand. It shows that the Labour Party is living in the past. Yes, I accept that in the 1930s the local library was the pivotal access point for people to get information. The reality today is that ultra-fast broadband and the internet, in which this Government is investing $1.5 billion, is actually going to be far more important for access to information this century.

The second thing is it is so nanny State. You see, members opposite fundamentally do not trust locally elected councils. What they want to do is sit in their parliamentary offices and tell elected councillors what they must make free.

The third thing about this bill is that it is fiscally reckless, like so many things that Labour does. You know, Labour knows so well how to spend other people’s money. You see, everything that Labour members pride themselves on doing is coming to Parliament and making something free. Well, I have got news for members of the Labour Party: somebody always pays. Whether it is the ratepayer or the taxpayer, they cannot pretend there is not a cost for somebody.

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: Oh, hang on—the Greens.

Well, we could take up the Greens. They say: “No, there isn’t a cost. We just print money.”, but this evening I am not going to go down that road.

You see, the basic point is this: do members on this side of the House think libraries are important? Of course we do. That is why we spent $70 million of public money on the National Library—$70 million. If you look at Vote Education, there was over $100 million spent by this Government on providing libraries in our schools for children.

It is absolutely proper that we in this Parliament have a say about how we spend taxpayers’ money, but what this bill says is that we are going to overrule local councils and say that they must spend money on public libraries. They must make them free. I could recite even in this Parliament speech after speech after speech of local members opposite saying that we must trust local democracy. So I simply challenge the members opposite—

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: What about the regional council in Canterbury, Nick?

And I can hear Damien O’Connor poking his head up. Why does he not trust the Grey District Council to make the decision? Why does he not trust the Westland District Council to make the decision? Why does he not trust the Buller District Council to make this decision? You see, members opposite cannot lecture this Government about local democracy and then, when they come to their particular issue, say: “No, no, no. Those services must be free, regardless of what the local council might decide.”

I also want to say how technologically illiterate this bill is. It again illustrates to this Parliament how much Labour is living in the past and not the future. I would love the next Labour member to explain this for me. Just down the road from the Nelson public library—in fact, within 500 metres—I have got three internet cafes. They are little businesses; they employ people. Their businesses have been affected by a directive from the previous Labour Government that said that there could not be any charge for the public internet service, even for international visitors, and the consequence was a loss of jobs for those businesses. So my challenge to members opposite—

💬 Andrew Little: How many?

How many? Mr Little challenges how many. I reckon there are about four or five people employed in each of those internet cafes. It is interesting—why is it that those internet cafes were started by private enterprise ahead of the public libraries? I will tell you why. Because private enterprise is innovative. It is able to move with the times more quickly.

I ask members opposite what they have got against the provision of internet cafes, Wi-Fi services, and those other things? For instance, why is it that this bill would make it illegal for my local library to charge a fee for a DVD? Do we really think it is such an offence that a library service, right alongside Video Ezy or the local video store, can also charge for a DVD? Do we really think Parliament has to pass a law banning a council from putting any charge on a purely entertainment DVD? Have Labour members become such a socialist society that they wish that DVDs were free under the great Labour Party vision that they have? I say not. I say this bill goes too far.

I also want to challenge the member’s assertion that Unesco says that libraries have to be free. What a load of hogwash! What a load of hogwash! I challenge the member to tell us all those countries—whether it be the United States, whether it be the Europeans—that have this sort of law on their books, that have respect for Unesco. The Government’s own advice from officials is that the member is flawed in her assertions in that regard.

Our local public libraries right through New Zealand have a very important service and role to play. They provide a damned good service, which members on this side of the House respect. Even when I was listening to the member proposing this bill, she struggled to find examples of a problem that would justify this bill. I noticed she remembered my colleague and the decision in Rangitīkei, which she then acknowledged a council had been democratically elected to change in 2005. So I say to the member opposite, you are going to have to prove a lot better case for the wrong that you are trying fix for Parliament to override the decision of councils.

This is a nanny State bill. This is a bill that is tied to books of the last century, rather than the information age of this century. This is a bill that says that members opposite know better how to spend other people’s money than they do about how to create wealth. This is a bill that speaks volumes about the lack of vision of the Labour Party and how bereft it is of ideas for taking this country forward.

I call the honourable member Jacinda Ardern. As it is a 5-minute speech, I will ring the bell at 1 minute.

What an absolute outrage to have that ex-Minister, Nick Smith, stand up and tell this side of the House that a bill to try to preserve what should be a sacred thing, and that is access to information via local libraries, is an attempt to overrule councils, overrule local government, and gut their ability to self-determination. I find it utterly outrageous to have the former Minister, who has tried to remove the four “well-beings” from local government’s mandate, can now stand up and tell this House that our attempt to preserve something that should be sacred is an overriding of local government’s jurisdiction. That is a complete outrage, particularly given that we have seen some examples in recent times of local government considering paring back some of the services around local libraries not because of choice but because of pressure—the kind of pressure that that Government is happy to place on local government, with no qualms whatsoever.

Bureaucracies are loading down local government, and that means they are starting to have to make choices between essential services and, for instance, having to send out bureaucrats to individually, one by one, register trees, Mr Smith. That is the kind of thing that that Government has decided is more of a priority than the kind of cost that we would like to see maintained within councils, and that is the preservation of essential services.

Nick Smith stood up and said this bill is constitutionally flawed. This bill is quite simple. It is about maintaining what the public would assume to be a natural right of local constituents anyway. Most people would be astounded to think that we would need to preserve in legislation free access to books and things like internet services. The ex-Minister also said that the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband was going to solve all the issues we have highlighted around access to the internet. That is absolutely untrue. He obviously has not heard of something called the digital divide, and it is very real—so much so that it is actually measured as one of the enforced lacks. Unicef uses it as a way of demonstrating whether or not children are all getting the same start in life, by whether they are able to access a computer and the internet. We know that that is an issue in New Zealand—we know it. Material deprivation, enforced lacks, has increased under this Government, and now they think it is fine to allow a situation where this will get even worse, and will not even put in a few measures to protect the odd free service, via, for instance, preserving what should be sacred.

In this party we recognise the important value of libraries—we always have. Norman Kirk, a great Labour Prime Minister, left school at 13. He educated himself via a local library. That side of the House may try to call those services antiquated. They are very much still the hub of our communities. I know that where I reside we have seen those services under threat even in recent times. Grey Lynn Library, which was voted by users across central Auckland as the best library we have, was recently threatened with closure, as the council came under increasing pressure to cut services.

The natural place that they go? Those quiet achievers; they look to our quiet achievers and they threaten them, and yet those are the places that our parents go, for playgroups and to take their children for story reading. It is where our job seekers go when they want to access a service that is a little more safe and secure than a Work and Income kiosk. It is where our students and our elderly go. [Interruption] If they are safe, why is it then that there was debate, Simon Bridges, in Tauranga about charging for general hireage? You would have to rent a book for $2 a go. We are not even talking about the best renters, like Fifty Shades of Grey, Simon—I know you would be an avid reader. We are talking about the general checking out of books at $2 a go. If that side of the House thinks that is acceptable, then fine, vote against this bill, but on this side of the House we want to preserve our libraries and that is why we are in full support.

You can only imagine yourself, or oneself, in the Labour Party strategy room, and they are thinking—

💬 Maggie Barry: Scary.

Well, yes, but in this instance we are going to go there and we are going to think “OK, we’re going to oppose the commissioners coming in to do a good job and pick up after Environment Canterbury because we really want local democracy.” Then they move on to the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority post the earthquake and they say “It is really not fair of that bad National Government to take away local democracy.” Then you move forward a month or two and you go to the Local Government and Environment Committee and hear the submissions from councils, fully backed up by their mates in Labour, and they say “Taking away self-determination from local democracy—bad old National Government.” Then we have in front of us a bill, the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill, that does exactly that. So what does Labour want? Well, I do not think Labour knows what it wants.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: A new leader.

Well, yes, Labour wants a new leader, and it cannot even make up its mind about that. It is tearing itself apart as we speak. But we are now dealing with this bill in the name of Darien Fenton, and all she is doing in this bill is shifting the costs. All those fine words about access to learning and access to libraries are all very well, and crossing the digital divide and finding jobs is fantastic, and finding shelter from the cold weather, which is what they do in my part of the country, is all very well, but who is going to pay for it? Well, under Darien Fenton’s “Labour-lite” world, it is all going to be for free. Who is going to pay for it? Well, not the ratepayers.

So here we go. Let us have a look at the purpose of this bill. Clause 4 states: “The purpose of this Act is to amend the Local Government Act … to expand the public library services that local authorities are required to provide for free.” So if it is going to be for free, who is going to pay for it? Let us just hold that thought for a minute, because we will move on to clause 5: “Section 142 replaced”—

💬 Phil Twyford: Jacqui, it’s called taxes. Hello, Jacqui.

Oh, it is the taxpayers! The member from the other side of the House has now decided that the taxpayer is going to pay for local library services. Well, let us ring up Local Government New Zealand and tell it that its Labour mates are now in favour of a complete takeover of local government by central government, and that the taxpayer is now going to pick up the tab for library services. Let us just remember that thought.

Let us go into new section 142(1)(a), which states: “the residents in the district or region of the local authority are entitled to join the library free of charge;”. Well, hello, here is some news, Darien Fenton: they can do that already. It is already in existing legislation. So let us go to (b) and have another crack: “the library shall not charge any resident of the authority’s district or region for the use of library material, including books, non-print resources, and digital information;”. Well, who is going to pay? Who is going to pay for these services? Is it going to be free? Is it going to be the taxpayer, as Phil Twyford is no doubt going to represent? Who is going to pay? Who is going to pay for these services if they are going to be for free?

I just want to make one final point on this bill, and I go to new section 142(2): “The National Librarian must present an annual report to Parliament on the implementation by local authorities of subsection (1), …”. Is that not fantastic? The National Librarian is now going to become the library police for the Labour Party. So, not content with drawing money out of thin air—no, should I say printing money, because I suspect that is the only way they are going to be able to afford this policy—or printing money to give effect to this bill, it is also going to make the National Librarian the library police for Labour so that it can go and check on local government. Here we have Darien Fenton, and all this member is doing is shifting the cost. She cuts across all principles of funding of local government. This member should be ashamed of the ignorance she is bringing to this House. I do not support this bill.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I am pleased to speak on behalf of my colleague Gareth Hughes, who is the Green Party’s library and archives spokesperson, on this, the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill. The Green Party will be supporting this bill in the name of Darien Fenton, because we believe that everybody has the right to information, and because, in an increasingly unequal society due to the economic policies of this Government, libraries are a place where everybody can have free access to information. This bill is not telling local councils how they should run their libraries; it is just enshrining that free right to read, and to access books, digital information, and the other services that libraries provide. We value libraries because they are the storehouses of knowledge. They play a vital role in our communities and in the functioning of this Parliament in providing access to information and providing in our communities a gathering place.

In Christchurch, where we have not been able to access the library in Worcester Street post-quake, it was a major cause for celebration when the new library opened opposite the old Christchurch Convention Centre in the old Vbase building. It is open, it is clean, and it is a place where children, migrants, and older citizens go because they can access books for free. This is why we support this bill. I would like to quote something that Carl Sagan said about libraries: “The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all of our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.”

Under the current Local Government Act, local authorities that provide a library need to ensure only that local residents can join it free of charge. Those councils do not have to enshrine a right of free access. We have seen the growth of membership charges, whether it is by rental for books or through other charges, and that goes against the whole Kiwi culture. Kiwis love our libraries. In 2003 a survey of cultural activities and spending found that visiting libraries was the third most popular activity—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: They love barbecues too; you’re not making them free.

Mr Bridges, 39 percent of the population visited in a 4-week period. Around half of all New Zealanders are members of our libraries, and in some places membership is at 80 percent of the local population. Another survey in 2009 by Kiwis Count found that 82 percent of people were happy with the services provided by their library—the happiest out of any council service. That is because New Zealanders value free access to books and library services. Where councils have attempted to put in place charges there has often been a strong resistance from the community, and in places like Tauranga the council has had to retreat and not institute those book charges. And where those councils—like Ashburton, as Darien Fenton mentioned—have put in place charges, what has happened? Patronage of the library has declined. Where you put in place those user charges, who pays? Who bears the brunt of those measures? It is people who can least afford to pay: migrants, people on a benefit, people on low incomes, the people who would get the most out of free access to the libraries and getting access to books.

This bill is a very useful one because it means that libraries have to ensure that books and the knowledge they provide is free. It is also a way, as others have alluded to, of bridging the digital divide, because not everybody has a computer at home, and by having free access to digital services, we can get over that barrier. So it is a bill that we will be supporting because it is consistent with what done elsewhere internationally by not charging for books.

I am very pleased to speak on the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill. I want to start off by acknowledging the great job that so many librarians do around our country. I also want to start by acknowledging that in this Parliament we currently have a parliamentary inquiry into 21st century learning environments. I am not going to go into the detail of that inquiry except to say that I do not support this bill, because I think there are rapid changes happening in terms of technology and information management, and that what this bill does—although I acknowledge Darien Fenton, the member who has put this bill to the House—is misguided. I think it is misguided for a number of reasons and I want to talk through them today.

The first thing that I would like to say is that when we look across the country in terms of information management, when we look across the country in terms of libraries in Grey Lynn versus libraries in North Shore, there is a difference in practice, so to provide a statute that puts things in place, particularly, even, terms around charging for digital information and books, will in my view legislate what may be outdated terms in a period of time. That is the first point I want to make.

The second point that I want to make, and it has already been made by a number of my colleagues, is that to put these costs on local government and to say that every public library is going to be free is a very dramatic change and it is contrary to a number of other speeches that we have heard in this House. I want to touch on something that Eugenie Sage has already said. Yes, there is an issue generally around access to information, but that involves a range of policies, the term “library” itself, the role of the libraries in the future, the role of libraries with regard to both public libraries and school libraries, and the role of libraries in terms of broadband policy—these are all things that we have been considering as part of the select committee inquiry. But to prescribe those terms and to prescribe policies, and to prescribe certain information management in legislation and say that every single local authority in the country will have free access around that, in my view, is a flawed piece of legislation.

I do want to say a couple of other things. Another thing I want to point out is that it is not just about the terms that are in the bill; there has also been an issue raised around UNESCO and its obligations under UNESCO. I do want to make the point that actually when you look in more detail at those guidelines, the guidelines are in principle and I would think there is a very valid reason for that. That is that right around the world many countries are acknowledging that whether it is through the greater role that some school libraries are playing, or whether it is through more online learning, there are rapid changes in information management. My caution to this Parliament is that although this bill may have been well intentioned by Darien Fenton, I cannot support this bill, because I think that what is needed—and I know that we have got a parliamentary select committee looking at some of these issues—is a much more holistic approach to information management and the access to information. In my view, I cannot support this bill for that reason.

The other main point that I want to make is that Opposition members stand up and say to other members across this House that in some way we do not support information management and access to information, when we are putting $1.5 billion—that is one of the greatest enablers in this country—into ultra-fast broadband. That is one of the greatest enablers particularly for disadvantaged communities. Many members in this House have heard of projects like Manaiakalani, where we are seeing a huge uptake by Māori and Pacific kids. I am very proud of some of the policies that we are putting in place to enable disadvantaged communities to have access to information. This bill is flawed. It may be well intentioned, but it is flawed and it does not take into account the rapid changing nature of both technology and information management in the world. Thank you.

I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill. This is a very interesting bill because the public libraries of this country are institutions in their own right. We all know of some of the great public libraries located around New Zealand, and we have grown up with those public libraries in our towns, in our villages, in our cities, and in our districts. They very much are the centre of many communities. As the explanatory note of this bill does say at the beginning: “Public libraries play an important role in our communities by helping New Zealanders to achieve access to information and entertainment. They also provide important community hubs.” That is very much the case. At this point in time, New Zealand First will be supporting this bill because we feel that it does require scrutiny and it does need to go through to the Local Government and Environment Committee.

We are very concerned about what is happening in local government in terms of the four social well-beings being taken away by this Government—in terms of the social, cultural, economic, and environmental well-beings. Therefore, if this Government is going to focus local authorities simply on rates, rubbish, and sewerage, and take away many of the social and cultural responsibilities, then perhaps our libraries could be threatened in the future. That is not to say that they would be immediately, but they could be threatened in the future. That would be a sad day for many communities in New Zealand.

I can recall an instance that we had on the North Shore where our Birkenhead Library unfortunately got demolished before there was a building and resource consent to replace it, due to some error in the bureaucratic system. Unfortunately, the lovely old library, which had outlived its usefulness and was leaking like a sieve—the roof was leaking like a sieve—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: This is a terrible story.

It is a good story, Simon, if you listen to it.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The member will use another member’s full name.

The Hon Simon Bridges. When that building was demolished and was out of use, for nearly 3 years the library had to use some temporary premises, and it actually did affect the whole community in that the community lost its heart and soul. It lost its library, it lost its meeting point, and it lost the place where so many people came together. It did illustrate the fact that although many people who are perhaps not used to using libraries see them as a cost or a burden on ratepayers, to a large percentage of the population they are actually an important community venue. They are somewhere they go to genuinely get enjoyment from reading, but also to get important information for their own educational purposes. When that building was replaced in Birkenhead after about 3 or 4 years, it absolutely rejuvenated that community by having that heart and soul back in the community. So it is important that those libraries are freely accessible, are free to those communities, and are able to be accessed without charges.

We do have some reservations about this bill in terms of we do understand that councils have difficulties in necessarily providing DVDs and CDs and all that sort of thing, because they can be expensive and they can be costly to stock, maintain, and replace. Therefore, if this goes through to the select committee, we certainly would be looking for more information on that, because perhaps there is an appropriate nominal cost to try to cover those sorts of electronic fees for the likes of DVDs and CDs. Also, in terms of the internet, again, we would not want to see libraries putting out of business local businesses that provide paid internet services. So there has to be a little bit of a compromise there, a little bit of give and take. Sure, you want your citizens to have access to the internet, but the library certainly should not be in competition with local businesses.

We certainly would like the Government to support this bill. Give it an opportunity to go through, let it be thrashed out, and let the people of New Zealand have their say on how they feel public libraries should be treated in this country in the future. Thank you.

Light bulbs, shower heads, compulsion in the shower, compulsion in the way we put light bulbs in—does any of this sound familiar? Is it bringing back the old failed polices of Labour lost? “Nanny Fenton”, I am afraid, has taken over. She is trying to exhume the Labour policies of old, which have failed abysmally in the past and are coming over again. We have rejected that level of micro-management. It does not work. No charge for library services, including books, digital information, and internet access. Prohibit libraries from charging. Compulsion and prohibiting—what good is that doing? Who are you shifting the burden to? Think it through. What good are you actually doing the wonderful libraries that are in this country? You are not doing anything about the problems that exist. So, for example, if someone takes out a DVD or a book and they damage it, do the ratepayers have to pay? Does everybody but the person who does the damage have to pay? Sometimes libraries have to be able to charge a little bit. If they do, that should be up to them and local government, not you guys. Relinquish your hold on this—

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

You lost elections over it—not you, of course, Mr Assistant Speaker. I suspect in your case you would not really adhere to this sort of stuff. The Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill is a bill that lacks specific measures to prevent, for example, excessive use and monopolising of the internet resources. So you go into your local library and there is somebody sitting there at the internet, hogging it hour after hour. There are no restrictions and there are no problems with it. There needs to be control. Local librarians and local organisations can sort this stuff out. You guys have enough trouble getting your leadership organised and getting your policies sorted. Frankly, it is nothing much to do with you—

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member needs a little help in just remembering the convention about “you”. She has brought you into the debate several times. I think just a little bit of assistance would be useful for her.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I thank the honourable member for his remarks, and point out to him that under Speaker’s ruling 27/5(2) the sole discretion is at the use of the Speaker. However, the member should try to direct her comments to the House. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I think King’s College would regret the day that it graduated such a person, but that is another issue altogether.

We look at what is already an unnecessary piece of work. This Government is all about rolling out broadband so that it is available all around the country. Books and libraries are places of great tradition in New Zealand. I think that people in Government, or, in fact, in their case, on the Opposition benches in perpetuity, should keep well clear of things that have not worked for them before. We do not support this bill for a whole lot of reasons. I certainly do not support it.

I think of our Better Local Government reforms that other members opposite have tried to ridicule, even though, of course, failed practitioners not elected even for Albany boards, let alone for the mayoralty, ought to take a cue from failed utterances in the past, Mr Williams. But what we look at here is ratepayers. I am concerned that somebody, sooner or later, is going to have to pay. Rates have skyrocketed, particularly on the North Shore, where I come from. The Labour Mayor, Len, is very keen to pass on charges. The Labour Party seems quite happy to help him in this. Who pays? Really, the dictates of this policy are ridiculous. I am surprised that it has come this far, but there you go. That is democracy.

I certainly do not support this bill in any way, shape, or form. I concede it is probably well intentioned, but it is still a failed and implausible piece of stuff, and I do not support it in any way, shape, or form. Thank you.

It is really lovely to be following the flower of the North Shore. That last speech was not so much a case of “spray and walk away”; it was more “spray and sit down”. It is clear that this bill, the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill—this very fine member’s bill from Darien Fenton, who seems to have a knack for pulling excellent members’ bills out of the ballot, and this is just another one in the series—has touched a deep nerve in the National Party benches. It exposes what is a philosophical fault line in this House, and that is that members on that side stand for user-pays and an individualism that is in stark contrast to those on this side of the House, who stand for public provision and—

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Community.

—community. That is exactly right. It was the British Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee who said, famously, that taxation is the price of a decent society. I would say—to paraphrase Clement Attlee—that public libraries are an indicator of the health of a decent society. That is why Darien Fenton has brought this bill to the House.

It should not surprise anybody here that the idea of ensuring, of guaranteeing, the public library as a place where anybody in the community has free and equal access to the information commons is extremely challenging to the members of the National Party. The idea that people should have free and equal access—free and equal access—to information is an idea that National Party members simply cannot get their heads around.

It is worth remembering that the public library is an institution in our society that developed at the same time, over the last couple of hundred years, and alongside free universal public education. It developed at the same time as we extended the universal franchise in our society. It developed at the same time as we began to govern our towns, our cities, and our communities through democratic public institutions, and not through private oligarchies. There is a reason. Those are all fantastic public achievements in modern history, and they are all based on the understanding that free and equal access to information is the cornerstone of democracy.

That is what it is about, and that is why National Party members do not like this bill. They do not like the whole idea that anybody should be entitled to turn up to a public library and have access to information whether it is on the internet, whether it is on a DVD, or whether it is in a book. Nick Smith got up in this debate and poured scorn on Labour for supporting a bill that he said infringed the rights of local government. This is the man who has sacked Environment Canterbury, who is in the process of stripping local government of its powers and purposes, and he got up and tried to poke the borax at Labour for interfering in local government. That is such an absurdity. But the thing is that Nick Smith pointed to the internet cafe as the great institution in Nelson. I think that that actually perfectly symbolises the National Party’s idea of society—the user-pays internet cafe.

Over this side of the House we champion the publicly available, publicly provided library, where any child in a town, a city, or a suburb around New Zealand can turn up at that library and have access, through broadband internet and a collection of books, magazines, and DVDs, to all sorts of information. That is the kind of society that Labour stands for, and that Nick Smith and the National Party clearly do not understand.

I want to finish by paying a tribute to the librarians of this country. They are a wonderful breed of people who are dedicated to service. They are dedicated to the community and to the sharing of knowledge. All over New Zealand tonight librarians from our public libraries will be watching this debate with interest. They will be appalled by the selfish, narrow-minded philistinism that they have heard from the National Party tonight. May the rage of a thousand librarians rain down on the heads of National Party members.

I can see that the good people of Te Atatū are sitting at home tonight regretting the decision they made a year ago. They sent Phil Twyford here to do great things, they sent him here to make big changes in the world, but actually he came here to save them 50c for borrowing a book from their local library. That is what Phil Twyford is going to be known for after tonight, if this legislation passes—50c at the local library. I want to know why Labour members are focusing on the big issues in this economy. We have got some issues to deal with. Their solution is printing money. Their solution is borrowing a whole lot more money, and it is also about protecting libraries from the Christmas Grinch, from the library Grinch, who supposedly is raining down upon local government in New Zealand.

Actually, local government will continue to provide for libraries, at a reasonable cost to its ratepayers, like it has done for a long time. In fact, if you look at the legislation that this Government is passing through the process around local government, it actually talks about good quality local public services. I absolutely agree that libraries are part of a good local public services regime, and that is why libraries in local authority districts around the country have been operating fairly well for a long period of time, without the need for the socialists, and without the need for the command and control economists sitting over there, on the other side, coming along and passing legislation to protect them from something that is just not even going to happen. Libraries in New Zealand provide a great role in local communities. I absolutely agree with that. But there is no need at all for this legislation—there is no need at all for this legislation.

The explanatory note talks about public libraries playing an important role in our communities—absolutely—but swimming pools play an important role in our communities too. Are they now going to bring legislation saying that swimming pools should be free? What about museums? Museums play an important role in local communities. Why do they not have a bill saying that museums should be free? What about art galleries? What about hall hire? Local authorities do a huge number of things in our local communities that play an important role, and that ratepayers and residents do value. Why are they not telling us they should be free, too? It is because it costs money. They know that the ratepayers in New Zealand expect their local councils to look after their money sensibly. There is a cost to it too. There is a cost to it.

I have looked through the Auckland Plan, which details the budget. If the Labour Party legislation goes through in the form that it is written in, then there will be ratepayers up and down Auckland who will be up for about an extra $5 million. There are ratepayers in Auckland at the moment who are moaning, who are complaining, and who are absolutely upset that the Labour Party member who is the Mayor of Auckland is proposing huge costs on them, and we have got the Opposition on the other side wanting to impose even more costs on ratepayers. The Labour Party does not care about ratepayers. The Labour Party cares about ideological solutions to non-problems, because this is a non-problem. There is no problem here at all.

I want to talk about some of the services that libraries do provide, because libraries do legitimately charge for some of the more premium services. By premium services I mean the likes of DVDs. When Shane Jones goes to his local library and wants out to hire out a DVD, then I would say that the local library should be quite within its rights to charge for it, if it is a premium service that that ratepayer—maybe Shane Jones could be his name—wants to be utilising. What about CDs? If someone wants to go to their local library and hire out a CD, I do not see why I should have to go to the local CD shop—I do not see why the local CD shop should have to have his business impacted on because the Labour Party wants to make CDs free in order—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Order! Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. There has been far too much of this tonight. I have been quite lenient, but the rules for interjections are predicated on the assumption that the person being interjected on has the call. There are members interjecting on each other rather than on the person who is addressing the House. That is not allowed.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. If it makes the House feel any better, I was actually quite enjoying his interjections. They are usually quite comical.

💬 Hon Member: They’re a lot better than Twyford’s.

They are a lot better than the ones coming from Phil Twyford anyway.

If there are premium services that the library wants to provide and wants to charge a legitimate, and small, charge for that, then they should be allowed to, because there are businesses operating probably next door to the local library that will be having their libraries competing with them for free, simply because an ideological solution from the other side has been passed through legislation. And the end result—the end result—of this legislation if it passes, actually will be us seeing a reduction in services provided by libraries, because if libraries and local authorities cannot charge for some of these more premium services, they will simply stop providing them. That is what this legislation does.

First of all, I want to thank the colleagues in the House who made sensible and reasonable contributions to this debate. I am really glad that this bill, the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill, was drawn from the ballot, even though it is very clear where the National Party is going with it, because I think what it has done tonight is reveal the real agenda of the National Party. It has revealed those members’ real agenda around the local government reform. It has made it very clear that deep down in their hearts they do not like libraries, they hate books, they hate people having access to knowledge, and they think people should pay for it. They think this should be about user-pays—never mind the people who cannot afford to pay.

What we have heard from this Government tonight is if you do not have access to a computer—I mean, if you do not have access to a computer because you cannot afford one, broadband is no use to you. Broadband is no use to people at home if they cannot have it, and yet we have this whole programme of e-government. It is all about information provision online by the government to the citizens of New Zealand, but this Government wants to make sure that that is impossible.

I am really looking forward to seeing and hearing about some of those members visiting their local libraries, and seeing—what was the word you used about the librarians—the anger, the rage of a thousand librarians raining down on them, because it will. I think the attitude, the sniggering, and the sneering that has gone on from the Government tonight shows nothing but contempt for those people who work in our libraries, who are committed to what is a public good.

I have got a very, very interesting question to ask the members of the Government. Are they prepared to cough up for user-pays for the Parliamentary Library? Are they—are they? Are you prepared to have the Parliamentary Library as user-pays? No, it is a fair question. Silence. Silence on the other side. So it is fine for the citizens—for the poor citizens—to have to pay for their local library—

💬 Phil Twyford: Who pays for the Parliamentary Library?

Well, who pays for it? Good question. Yes, it is a very—

💬 Hon Member: That shut them up.

Well, it did. It absolutely shut them up.

I thought Nikki Kaye made an attempt at least of making a contribution. I know that she has chaired an inquiry into the digital future of New Zealand, and I do know that the Library and Information Association of New Zealand has made a submission on the digital divide—a very, very important submission. I am looking forward to Nikki Kaye, on her next visit to the Auckland Public Library, when she trots along and wanders around showing her support for the library, and gets her photo in the paper and all the rest of it—she has just lost the library vote. She has lost the library vote, and there will be other members who will be in that same situation.

There is an old saying that it is well known that libraries are dangerous places. Libraries are dangerous places, because they actually help people challenge themselves, learn new ideas, and actually, possibly, challenge the status quo. How dangerous is that? This Government wants to shut this down. It does not want the dangerous places called libraries. It does not want ordinary people to have access to knowledge and information, and information on the internet, because by keeping them shut out of information, it can make sure that it controls the future.

Well, I have got news for the Government tonight. This is not the end of this bill. It may be voted down by those members, but I can tell all of you in the House that this is not the end of the matter. The librarians of New Zealand will continue to mobilise around this. The citizens of New Zealand and the communities of New Zealand will mobilise around it. They will be outraged when they hear about the appalling speeches from the members of the Government tonight.