Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill

Members, we now come to debate on Part 2. This is debate on clauses 27 and 28 and schedule 2.

💬 Chris Hipkins: Mr Chairman.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Chris Hipkins—first off the block.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. It is about time. Part 2 deals with the transitional provision relating to proposals made before this bill, the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill, comes into effect. I want to know whether this transitional provision applies to the secret deal to do that Nick Smith cooked up with Fran Wilde over a year ago to do with the Wellington region. Will this transitional provision apply to that? We know that Nick Smith cooked up a deal with Fran Wilde over a year ago—over a year ago—to reform local government in the Wellington area. And the provisions that have been enacted in Part 1 mean that Wellingtonians will not get a chance to have a say on it. They will not get a chance to have a say on it unless they sign a petition demanding to have a referendum. At the moment, under the current law, they would get a chance to have a say on that, but, oh no, Nick Smith knows better, so he decided to do away with that. The proposal that he has cooked up to reform local government in the Wellington area—he has not been upfront about it; it has not been a formal proposal—will probably not actually be covered by these transitional provisions, and I think that is disgraceful. I think that is disgraceful. That is what this Government does.

This Government does not actually have any respect for the democratic process. Nick Smith is the same Minister who when confronted with the reality that people in Christchurch did not particularly like what the Government was doing there just decided that the best way to deal with that problem was to cancel the elections—just to not have the elections. The Government did not want to know what the people of Christchurch actually thought. We heard Nicky Wagner early on in this debate talking about the importance of grassroots democracy in Christchurch, yet she has said absolutely nothing about the cancellation of local government elections in Christchurch. The member for Christchurch Central has had nothing to say about the cancellation of local government elections, which her constituents are very upset about. They are very upset about that, and Nicky Wagner has not said one squeak in their defence—not one squeak in their defence. And then she had the audacity to lecture Parliament about the importance of grassroots democracy.

This bill is a terrible piece of legislation. It narrows down the scope of local government. I just want to draw the Committee’s attention to one comment made at the select committee by someone whose view I respect quite a lot, and that is Martin Snedden. I asked Martin Snedden at the select committee hearing what the impact of this bill would have been on the Rugby World Cup had it been in place when Rugby World Cup took place last year. I remember word for word what Martin Snedden said. He said: “A lot of New Zealanders would have had a lot less fun.” A lot of New Zealanders would have had a lot less fun. That is it—members of the National Government do not like people having fun. They hate fun, in fact. They do not like it. They hate democracy. They are not interested in the views of the voting public. They command a majority in the House, and that is all they need to know. They will shut down the debate when they do not like the points the Opposition is raising. They will vote to shut down the debate, because they do not like it when the cold, hard truth comes out about the absolutely disgraceful attitude they have shown to the democratic process in pushing this bill through.

The people of my electorate are very concerned about this piece of legislation, and I come back to Part 2 and the transitional provisions that are contained in Part 2. The reason that the people in Upper Hutt are very concerned about this is that they think their fate has already been sealed. They think the Government has already decided what it wants to do in the Wellington region and that it is just not being upfront and honest about that. The people of Upper Hutt want a say in what happens to their local government. I can tell Nick Smith, who talked about his constituency, that I have one of those as well. Overwhelmingly, the people in Upper Hutt do not want their local government to be the subject of amalgamation. Overwhelmingly, the people of Upper Hutt do not want their local government to disappear, but that does not worry Nick Smith. He has already decided what he wants to see happen in the Wellington region.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: What have I decided? Let me in on the secret.

He has already decided, and even now he is still not willing to get up on his pins and actually say what it is—actually say what the decision making is. But, of course, we will have to wait until he is reinstated to Cabinet before we find out what Nick Smith’s proposal for the Wellington region is. But the people of Upper Hutt, whom I am proud to represent, do not want to see Upper Hutt swallowed up in a Wellington super-city like the National Government does.

They took some heart from the Prime Minister’s statement. I am paraphrasing here but he basically said the Government is not going force local government reform on the rest of New Zealand the way it did in Auckland. Yet this bill allows the Government to do exactly that. It is another promise that John Key made that he had no intention of keeping. John Key is very much the “Simon Says” Prime Minister: “Don’t pay any attention to what I’m actually doing; just listen to what I say.” Regardless of what he is actually doing, he will go out there and say one thing while his Ministers in his Government will do something completely different. That is National’s approach to governing. As long as John Key can go out there and smile and wave for the crowds, he thinks that his Ministers can get away with doing whatever they like. And if that means they bring legislation to the House that directly contradicts promises that John Key has made, he does not really care. He is probably quite relaxed about it, in fact. This bill is an anti-democratic piece of legislation that robs New Zealand citizens and residents who are subject to local authority rule in their area of their democratic rights.

This Government ultimately has no respect for the role of local government in their local communities, particularly not in Christchurch, where, actually, the role in local government after something as big as the earthquake is vital. It is not just the city council but Environment Canterbury as well. The National Government’s approach to that is to simply cancel all democratic participation in that process, and cancel the ability of the voters of Christchurch to have their say on issues to do with Environment Canterbury. Why did it do that? What was its justification? Government members were actually quite upfront about it. They were worried what the outcome of an election might be. That is not a secret agenda; they were actually quite open about that. They actually went out and said they do not trust the people of Christchurch to make the right decisions and elect the right people to Environment Canterbury, so they simply cancelled the elections.

💬 Phil Twyford: They’re wanting water for their corporate dairy-farming mates.

That is right. They want to protect the water for their corporate dairy-farming mates, as Phil Twyford just pointed out. This Government has no respect for grassroots democracy. I want to conclude with a quote from David Shearer’s speech to the Labour Party conference last Sunday. He said that the rebuild of Christchurch should be driven from the grassroots up, not the Beehive down. That is the absolutely right approach to the rebuild of Christchurch. This Government does not want a bar of that. Government members do not want to hear what the residents of Christchurch have to say, and if they have to cancel an election or two to make sure they do not get a chance to have a say, that is exactly what they will do. They do not want to hear the views of the people in Wellington about local government reorganisation, either. If they have to change the law to deny them their right to have a say on local government reform in Wellington, that is exactly what they are going to do. That is exactly what this bill does.

This bill is an attack on local democracy. It should not be passed by this House. The people who are voting in favour of it, in particular a local Wellington member by the name of Peter Dunne, should be ashamed of themselves. This bill goes against so many of the things Peter Dunne tells his local citizens, his local constituents, that he supports. It goes against so many of the promises that he has made to local people about his respect for their views and their democratic rights. I am very, very disappointed that Peter Dunne is supporting this piece of legislation. It is bad legislation, and we will be voting against it.

I want to make just a brief contribution in respect of Mr Hipkins, because he does not know the history of his own party. Mr Hipkins says that change to local government without local democracy is an affront to the values of the Labour Party. Do you know who the spokesperson on local government is for the Labour Party? It is another member for Wellington, Annette King. If he checks the parliamentary record he will see that Annette King, Phil Goff, and many of those actually voted for legislation that just simply said: “Central government has decided we’re going to merge all these councils and the lot of you can get knotted.” Did Chris remember that? Did he read that bit in the history of the Labour Party? Does he support Annette King and her views on local government, expressed in 1989?

You see, the provisions in this part of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill certainly facilitate local communities making changes to their councils. Yes, the bill does that, but it also says that local communities will be in control and will drive that process, and that if only 10 percent of them in even just one district want to have a referendum on that change—that might be in Wellington.

I have got a further challenge for the member for Rimutaka. He says that Nick Smith and Fran Wilde have got a magic plan they stitched up a year ago on the reform of local government. Could he just fill me in? Could he just tell me what it was? I do not have any idea, and I would like to be in the loop.

The provisions that are in this bill have actually been quite carefully nuanced by the new Minister of Local Government, David Carter. There are a number of significant changes that respond to the submissions. For instance, now it takes a petition of only 10 percent in any one district for there to be a referendum triggered. There is a more refined thing about the Local Government Commission being satisfied that there is significant community support in areas. There is a whole series of amendments in Supplementary Order Paper 153 that make this into a sensible reform bill that will let local government change occur. It will not be forced by central government, but will be better than the situation over the last 13 years where a number of councils have wanted to make changes and every single one has been rejected. Members opposite know in their heart of hearts that there are areas of New Zealand where local government reform would be sensible, and the provisions in this bill allow that to take place in a sensible and consultative manner.

Prior to that contribution from Nick Smith we had a powerful speech, a passionate speech, by the local member for Rimutaka, Chris Hipkins—a member who is in touch with his local community and actually knows what the people of Upper Hutt want in terms of local government changes. So I was hoping—maybe it is hope against hope—that the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Consumer Affairs, might get up on his hind legs and answer some questions about whether these transitional arrangements apply to the jack-up that was done with Nick Smith.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member—

Oh, I was in full flight. We could keep going. I will be back.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The time has come for me to leave the Chair.

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

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The House in Committee is resumed on the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill. Before the dinner break we were debating Part 2. The Hon Annette King has the call. She has just under 4½ minutes, should she require that.

Oh, I certainly will require it, because I was just getting warmed up at this point and saying to the Committee that we had just had an extremely passionate speech from the member for Rimutaka, who is very well connected to his community and very well aware that any changes to local government in the Upper Hutt area would be strongly opposed by the people up there. He knew what was going on in his community.

He did ask the question about whether the transitional arrangements in Part 2 would apply to any deals that have been done for local government amalgamation in Wellington. I have to say that my colleague did get something wrong. It was not a year ago that Nick Smith was working on these changes with the Hon Fran Wilde; in fact, it was for most of the beginning of this year. I would like Nick Smith to get on his feet and deny that he was meeting on a regular basis with Fran Wilde around Better Local Government. In fact, I believe that she had a very large input into what we ended up with.

This part of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill provides the transitional provisions if there is a reorganisation proposal. I was hoping that we would have a Minister in the chair who would be able to explain what the transitional provisions would be. But, unfortunately, we are on the third Minister in the chair. None of them have been the Minister responsible for the bill. None of them have been able to open their mouths. They have all had their heads down doing whatever they are doing—crossword puzzles or sudoku or whatever—but they have not been concentrating on this bill. They have contributed nothing to this debate. Would you not think it was pretty insulting for local government in New Zealand and people who support local democracy that you could not have a Minister who could stand up and make even a little contribution—even if it was “I move that the question be now put.”? That was Maggie Barry’s contribution to this debate. I am hoping that she has got a lot to say. I am hoping that she has got a lot to say on the transitional provision, because I will be mightily surprised if she has. What we found out in the Local Government and Environment Committee was that if you have a look at this page about the transitional arrangements, it is pretty much a blank one.

💬 Hon Member: It’s across the page.

No, it goes into the schedule after that. If you wanted to know what the transitional arrangements are, which members of the select committee tried to find out—we found that they are a work in progress. That is how I would put it—a work in progress. A lot of what is going to happen in the transitional arrangements—not the reorganisational arrangements but the transitional arrangements—is going to be worked out at some later, undefined date. If you recall, we did ask why the Government did not consult with Local Government New Zealand on some of the ways the transition would take place. In fact, it was because the Opposition insisted that we send part of this back to the Department of Internal Affairs—and it sent it back to Local Government New Zealand—that Local Government New Zealand actually got an input into the transitional arrangements at all. It had not been consulted, and that is what has come through in so many of these submissions that we received from local government—the lack of consultation. You would have thought that when you wanted to have a reorganisation take place you would work with Local Government New Zealand and ask what works, how it would work, what a chief executive would do, what a council would do, how many councillors you would need to have in a transition, etc.

💬 Andrew Little: That would be sensible.

You would have thought that that was very sensible. Well, there was a lack of clarity at the select committee around the transitional provisions. We can certainly talk when we get to the schedule about the reorganisation provisions. There are quite a lot in there, and quite a lot of work. But this is an area where I believe a lot more consultation and work could have been done.

I am really very, very sorry that Peter Dunne has not contributed to this debate, particularly around the transitional provisions. He is a member of Parliament in Wellington. We know that there are three or four areas that Nick Smith has had his eye on for amalgamations for some time. Those areas know who they are. The Hawke’s Bay knows that it is under the gun and that it is looking at amalgamation in the Hawke’s Bay—Hastings, Napier, Wairoa, the southern Hawke’s Bay area. It knows that it is one of them.

The other one, of course, is Christchurch. One of the reasons that the Government has delayed the elections for Environment Canterbury is so that when it gets its rearranged council in place, there will be an election, perhaps on the rearrangement, but not on Environment Canterbury elections at this next election. We also know that the far north itself is interested; maybe it will come up with its own arrangement, because it will work it through.

The other one is Wellington, which is why I am very disappointed that Peter Dunne has not made a stand or made a comment on any arrangements here for Wellington. It was interesting to read in the Whakatane Beacon, I think, that the deputy leader of his party, Judy Turner, said only a few days ago—

💬 Moana Mackey: And Deputy Mayor of Whakatāne.

—and she is the Deputy Mayor of Whakatāne, my colleague reminds me—in the paper that Peter Dunne was considering his position on this bill; he had not made up his mind. When we got a vote in Part 1, we had Peter Dunne voting against everything. So either he has duped his deputy, or he never ever intended to consider changing his mind on this bill.

I was also surprised that the Māori Party voted against the four well-beings. That was a surprise to me, because it has insisted that well-beings be included in all the Treaty legislation that we have been passing through this House. So it is OK to have it in Treaty legislation, but it voted against my amendment to include the four well-beings in the Local Government Act 2002. That would be hypocrisy, in my view, to actually insist on it when it is legislation that you are interested in as the Māori Party, but, because local government is not so interesting to you, to not support the well-beings being in that legislation.

I think that this is a poorly thought-out part of this legislation. I have moved Supplementary Order Paper 160 to amend clause 27. What I have moved is some very sensible ways that you could go about a transition. In it I say that you should consult “with all affected parties, including stakeholders and staff …” involved in any transition, because they ought to know what is happening. It is not a transition made with a small group of people. You need to involve the staff and you need to involve the real stakeholders in any changes that are going to be made in a reorganisation proposal. I believe that it has got to be “conducted on a basis of trust and good faith in negotiations;”. I have included some of these in my Supplementary Order Paper.

I said that reorganisations should also be based on principles. Imagine that—imagine having a bill that is based on principles! What a unique idea for this Government. The principles that I have suggested are that any changes, any transitions, need to be “evidence-based, have a clear and robust rationale, and be derived …” from some very key issues. One is that they “must provide good governance and be capable of adapting to meet immediate needs …” in the long term in that community.

These are sensible suggestions. I suspect the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Commerce, would not have read any of the Supplementary Order Papers. He probably does not even know what Supplementary Order Papers the Minister of Local Government himself is proposing, but I would say that if he does nothing else tonight, when he has finished his sudoku he should actually pick up the Supplementary Order Paper that I have put on this particular provision, the transitional provisions in clause 27. Have a read of it because it is an extremely sensible way of going about transition and reorganisation. It comes from work that has been done on transitional arrangements and reorganisations out of Australia and working with Local Government New Zealand in this country—

I am pleased to take a short call on Part 2 of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill, not because we support it but because Supplementary Order Paper 159 in my name would delete the transitional arrangements for reorganisation provisions that are in clause 27. That was intended as a consequential amendment to the rest of the Supplementary Order Paper, which sought to delete clause 23 and the corresponding schedule 1, which sets out these new reorganisation provisions. The reason for the Supplementary Order Paper and the retention of the current reorganisation provisions, which are set out in schedule 3 of the principal Act, is that there is no evidence that the current law is causing a problem. When there is an initiation and implementation of a reorganisation proposal, it requires quite careful thought to minimise any adverse impacts, and to ensure that it benefits residents and ratepayers. So the current criteria in the Local Government Act strike the right balance, in our view, between enabling such reorganisations and mergers to occur where their implications have been properly assessed, where those proposals have community support, and where they promote good government.

But National wants the changes that are in this bill because the previous Minister of Local Government, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, was aggrieved that the amalgamation of Nelson and Tasman districts did not succeed. Why did it not succeed? Because Nelson residents voted down the proposal in overwhelming numbers. The previous Minister knew that they would vote it down from indications in the community. There were 24,857 people against that proposed amalgamation.

Under the current Act it is a democratic right for local residents and ratepayers to have their say about how they should be represented and how they should be governed, through the mandatory requirement for a poll. But this bill extinguishes that right and requires electors to get up a petition before there is a poll. Certainly, in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper there has been some tweaking around the edges. Now there are 60 days to get up the required number of signatures on the petition, and the petition can be in each area rather than the whole of the area, but the bill still extinguishes that fundamental right to have a mandatory poll, and for people to have a say. That is because this Government does not like people voting. It does not trust democracy, as we have seen in Environment Canterbury, with the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Act in 2010, and the extension of the suspension of regional democracy there.

So why is the Government so keen on reorganisation? It is because it wants to super-size councils. That makes it much easier to contract out the provision of council services, yet the Local Government and Environment Committee heard a number of times in Auckland from local boards about the longer decision-making lines, the less accountability, and the more difficult access to decision makers that comes when you get big councils.

The Supplementary Order Paper goes back to the provisions in the substantive Act. One of the other reasons that we are opposing the reorganisation provisions is that the bill puts a new section, new section 31A, into the body of the principal Act, and that gives the Minister the power to “specify measures and expectations relating to the Commission’s performance … of its powers …” and duties. The bill specifically mentions time frames against which the commission must progress certain matters, and which applications are to have the highest priority. So what we are seeing here is, once again, “control central” in operation. Local government is being directed from Wellington not only through the much-expanded powers of ministerial interference—so that councils are always looking over their shoulders to see what the Minister is thinking in relation to their fiscal performance because they are scared of being replaced by commissioners or having a Crown manager supervise what they are doing—but also because here, instead of the Local Government Commission operating at arm’s length from the Minister in reorganisation proposals, the Minister can prioritise which proposals are to get priority. As the Hon Annette King noted, there are certain areas where the Government wants these reorganisation proposals to proceed.

This bill is bad because I suspect we will get the same voting of 61 votes to 60 on this part that we had on Part 1. What does that mean? It means that we get zigzag policy-making, because there is not reasonable consensus in this Chamber on something as important as local government and the reorganisation procedures that should apply to amalgamation. There is strong opposition to the bill. On something that is as important as local government, which is such a strong sector of the economy, and which is so important in providing for communities and promoting community well-being, we have dramatically opposed views, and the bill is going to only just scrape through. Zigzag policy-making is not good law. The process by which the bill is being rushed through without careful thought is not conducive to good lawmaking.

I take a call on Part 2 of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill. This afternoon in this Parliament we had the visit to New Zealand of Crown Prince Philippe of Belgium. It is ironic that on the same afternoon that His Royal Highness visited this Parliament, where we have the names of Passchendaele, Messines, and other great battles fought for democracy and for the rights of people to live in freedom, and when the Prince of Belgium came to this Parliament to reciprocate the great and lengthy relationship that New Zealand has had with Western Europe to fight for democracy, this Government rams through the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill on a slim 61 to 60 vote that is hanging in the wings with the Hon Peter Dunne, who, as we have heard before, double-crosses the bridges when he comes to them. In this case he has obviously given his party deputy and others around the country one message, but then does not turn up to this Parliament, and gives his vote to the National Government to allow this bill to go through by 61 votes to 60.

It is most interesting, therefore, that in this country—which has always stood as a democracy; it was the first country in the world to give women the vote, and it sought to be a country that stood by democracy, and sought to make sure that the democratic principles were upheld and that we stood for those—this Government would ram through a bill that basically kneecaps and reduces the democratic level of our second tier of government, our local government in New Zealand. It is very much the case that, as a result of this bill, our second tier of government—and we do not have more tiers of government, unlike many other countries, and unlike Australia, which has several more tiers of government than we do; the United States and many other democracies have several more tiers than we do. We have only central government and local government. What this National central government is doing, supported by the ACT Party and by United Future, is basically kneecapping and pulling the rug from underneath local government.

I think that what is most disturbing here is that in Part 2, which discusses the transitional arrangements, again it has been shown that this Government has had the arrogance to not properly consult with the likes of Local Government New Zealand—the body that represents the 78 councils in this country, that has as its president Mayor Lawrence Yule, the Mayor of Hastings, that has many mayors and chairs of regional councils around New Zealand sitting on its board, that has senior executives who have extensive experience in local government, and that is the mouthpiece on behalf of local government in New Zealand. Yet throughout this Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill the Government has shown a complete disregard, really, of the need to sit down with the very body that represents that sector and say: “Is this right, is this workable, and is this really going to work for local government in New Zealand?”.

Can you imagine if this was a bill that was affecting Federated Farmers, if this was a bill affecting Business New Zealand, or if this was a bill affecting the chambers of commerce in New Zealand? National members would be out there seeing their mates in Federated Farmers, such as Conor English, the brother of Bill English. They would be seeing Phil—whatever his name is—at Business New Zealand. What is his name? Phil—

💬 Sue Moroney: O’Reilly.

—O’Reilly. They would be seeing Phil, they would be seeing Conor, they would be seeing all their mates, and they would be sitting down and saying: “How does it work for your sector? How does it work for your sector, is this right for your sector, and is it going to have the right outcomes that we need to help your sector succeed and do better?”.

But did this Government do that? No, it did not. It did not sit down and properly consult with Local Government New Zealand. It did not sit down and properly consult with the many councils of New Zealand, with the many mayors and councillors, some of whom have got two, three, or four decades of experience in this field. They did not sit down and consult with them. Many of them are National Party mayors and regional chairs, and National does not even understand the fact that its own party members, its own mayors in some of these areas, are saying to it that they are National Party mayors or councillors—or they were—and they do not agree with their own Government and their own party. What does that say to you? What does it say to you about the arrogance of this Government that it even ignores senior local government people who have had responsibility for the infrastructure of this country, the communities of this country, and building up the communities of this country over many decades? This Government will not even sit down and consult with them.

Then when the councils went to the Local Government New Zealand conference this year, back in July, all 78 councils passed a vote unanimously saying that they did not support this bill. I have never seen that ever—a situation like that where 78 councils would unanimously vote that the Government has got it wrong in this respect. That is incredible, as is the fact that probably the majority of those mayors were National Party mayors and councillors. Is it not extraordinary that they cannot even support their National Government on this? It is very, very disappointing.

In terms of many of these transitions, we saw the problems in the Auckland transition. There were many and they were huge. This National Government rammed the Auckland Council through, it rammed the amalgamation in Auckland through, and now—only now, a couple of years later—we are seeing the outcomes of that. There are some big problems there, and there are some huge cost blowouts. There are some massive costs in terms of the merging of the computer systems and the merging of the staff systems and all sorts of other systems. What we were promised from this Government was a reduction in rates in Auckland. We were promised more efficiency in Auckland. We were promised all sorts of things from this Government.

Remember, this was John Key’s idea back in 2005-06 when he was a backbench MP sitting back up in the gods. As a backbench MP he said he wanted to form a super-city in Auckland, and he would get it. He became Prime Minister and then handed it over to Rodney Hide to do his dirty work for him. So, people of New Zealand, just remember that it was not just Rodney Hide. It was John Key, backbench MP, who had a member’s bill that never got picked from the ballot. Do not look at me like that, Nicky Wagner. Look back there in the records. John Key had a member’s bill to create a super-city in Auckland. It never got picked from the ballot. So always remember, New Zealand, that John Key created the super-city in Auckland, but he got Rodney Hide to do his dirty work.

Now look at what we have got in Auckland. We have got a shambles there. We have got 75 percent of Auckland’s business being controlled by council-controlled organisations, unelected people, people whom nobody knows—all mates of the National Party, all hand-picked by Rodney Hide, all put on these boards. They will not even provide the minutes of their meetings to the elected councillors of Auckland. They will not even provide the minutes of their meetings to the elected council of Auckland. It is shocking. That is what this National Government has set up in this country. It is setting up for the rich, the well-to-do, those who have got influence, and those who can basically get into the ears of John Key, Steven Joyce, Bill English, and the likes of them. It is very poor. Now they have got the ear of Nick Smith, who is going to be the future—well, he was the past local government Minister. He will be back in that seat by Christmas, when Lockwood goes to Britain and when David Carter takes over the Chair as Speaker. Nick Smith will be back in there, and you can bet your bottom dollar that all these Draconian things in this bill will come to haunt everyone in New Zealand. The communities of New Zealand will be absolutely devastated when they see the effects on their communities around New Zealand.

In closing, I will just say that everyone agrees that efficiencies can be found and savings can be found, but this is not the way to find savings in New Zealand through our local government. This is not the way. Local government in New Zealand responded to the Government’s call to increase infrastructure in New Zealand. John Key in 2008, as the Leader of the Opposition, said: “We have a $60 billion shortfall in infrastructure in this country, and $30 billion has got to come from local government or this country will go backwards economically, and economic development is dependent on local government playing its part in this.” Local government responded to the then Leader of the Opposition, John Key, and it said it would step up to the mark. It has increased expenditure from $2 billion to $8 billion to provide that infrastructure at the same time as the National Government has taken its deficit from something like $16 billion to $55 billion, and it is heading to a $72 billion deficit.

So do not, Dr Nick Smith, lecture us on going from $2 billion to $8 billion in local government when your Government, in 4 short years—4 short years—has gone from $16 billion to $55 billion deficit. Local government responded to your leader, John Key, and his speeches to Local Government New Zealand. I have the speeches in my box here. The speeches are here. They responded to him. He said: “We have infrastructure deficit in this country.”

I think nowhere is it more clear than in Part 2 of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill how rotten and how inadequate this piece of legislation is. Part 2 deals with the transitional provisions relating to reorganisation proposals. As other members have pointed out, it is how we carry out the reorganisation of local government that is critically important, yet Part 2 is about five or six sentences long. That is all that is in Part 2 of this bill. The Local Government and Environment Committee wanted to know some of the detail about what actually would be required when the transitional provisions were released. We were given a little bit of information. It is extraordinary that Local Government New Zealand was not even consulted on this particular aspect of the legislation until the select committee demanded that its input be taken into account.

In the debate on Part 1 I thought a couple of the interjections from the Hon Dr Nick Smith, who is soon to return to the portfolio of Minister of Local Government, were interesting. When someone was making comments about Local Government New Zealand, he called out that they were self-serving and nothing more than a union. Of course, coming from the National Party calling someone a union is the ultimate kind of denigration that you could possibly come up with. We do not think it is quite the insult that, obviously, the Hon Dr Nick Smith thinks that it is, but the reality is that Local Government New Zealand is not a union. It is not self-serving. It is the mayors and councillors around this country who are democratically elected to represent their communities. They know far better what is needed on the ground in terms of local government legislation than the Hon Dr Nick Smith does, or, indeed, any member of this House. They come together as a group to discuss issues of importance to local government. They are there as a resource for parliamentarians to use when considering changes to local government legislation. They are not self-serving; they know what they are talking about. They are the people at the coalface everyday doing the stuff that the Hon Dr Nick Smith only talks about. We do not think they are self-serving on this side of the House; we think they should be listened to. It is interesting that a number of them are National Party members, particularly in the provinces.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: The good ones.

Nick Smith says “The good ones.” Well, whether they are good, bad, or indifferent, they are not happy with you, Dr Smith—not happy at all. In fact, I have a number of provincial mayors in the area I live in who I know are National Party supporters and who are furious with this legislation. They are furious that the Minister is refusing to listen, especially on issues around reorganisation and how those are transitioned through, because there are no guidelines. You do not even have to show that there is going to be a positive benefit for the communities involved for reorganisation to go ahead.

We know that the Hon Dr Nick Smith does not like local government democracy. He said that he stopped the elections for Environment Canterbury, the regional council in Christchurch, because he was worried about the outcome, such is the nature of democracy, such is the nature of having a democratic process where the people, instead of the Minister of Local Government, get to choose who represents them on their local council. It might be annoying for a Government sometimes that it does not get the people it had hoped the good people of Canterbury would elect, but that is just the reality of democracy, unfortunately, and it should not be undermined in the way that it is being undermined in Part 2 of this legislation. As my colleague Annette King pointed out when she discussed her proposed amendment to clause 27, surely it is not too much to ask that when local government reform is happening, it must comply with a few basic principles, one being that it must be evidence-based. We have now had three Ministers in the chair who have all sat there like dried arrangements and not even looked up from their papers. I do not know whether they even know what bill we are discussing, but it would be nice to actually have some input from a Minister on this very important piece of legislation. Why is it too much to ask that local government reform be evidence-based, have a clear and robust rationale, and be derived following consideration of key options and what each would achieve? All we are saying is that there are many ways you could reform local government and many different ways you could do it. There are different councils you could combine together and there are different structures you could come up with.

I note that the Wellington City Council has put up its own proposal for a one-tier structure of a Wellington super-city, which differs from the other proposal, so there are many numerous and different ways that you could do it. Why is it unreasonable that the legislation should say, firstly, that you do not go in with no evidence and make these changes? You have to be able to explain clearly why this is a good change for the communities that are involved. But probably most important is that you have actually considered all the options available, not just one single option that might be being pushed by a certain group or a certain person, and there have been references to people whom Dr Nick Smith has met with who have their own preferences around what a Wellington reorganisation might look like. Surely, we should be saying that if you are going to take this major step of reorganisation, which is going to be costly and which is going to be disruptive, on the other side there are clear benefits, and they are evidence-based. But you would have considered every possible option that would be available in that reorganisation. You did not just go with the preferred option of the Minister of the day, who has, probably, his own preferences and his own ideological bents that he wants to see come through in that, or a proposal from the Opposition, which is going to have different priorities and different focuses, or a proposal from Federated Farmers, Business New Zealand, different community organisations, or organisations that represent different ethnic groups. There are so many different ways it could be done, yet this legislation is silent on it.

It basically says that the Government can do what it did in Auckland. It can come up with the one structure that it wants, regardless of whether the people in that district want it, and say that that is the only option they are going to get, that it does not have to consider anything else and does not have to have any evidence, and that there does not even have to be any benefit to it, and that is OK. That is what Part 2 of the bill currently says. I want to know from the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Commerce, why, as I am assuming he will, he is going to vote down such a common-sense approach, which provides protections for the ratepayers. We have heard a lot of talk about ratepayers from the National Party here tonight and yet the National Party is denying ratepayers around the country one of their most fundamental rights—the right to make their own decisions about the future of their local government organisations and not have anything imposed on them from above.

Currently, in order for a reorganisation to happen or an amalgamation to happen, it has to have the approval by referendum of all the different communities involved. Each council that is going to be amalgamated has its own referendum. If one of them says no, it does not happen, which is what happened in Dr Nick Smith’s own patch. So if you look in an area like the Bay of Plenty, the bulk of the voting strength is in Tauranga, in the Western Bay of Plenty, and a number of the social issues that local government has been really active in engaging with and working on are in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, which does not have the same population base. But we are not saying to Kawerau, or to Ōpōtiki, or to Whakatāne, or to Rotorua for that matter, that if the Western Bay of Plenty votes for it, sorry, they are just going to have to suck it up and live with it. Currently, it does not say that. It says that you have to convince all these communities that it is in their best interests. Otherwise it does not go ahead. What that means is that the work does get done on the ground beforehand. All those negotiations happen because they know that if any one of those communities says no, then it is not going to go ahead. So they make sure that the protections are in place for those communities that have concerns. It provides an incentive for that work to be done early, for it to be done genuinely, and for it to be done comprehensively before it gets near a referendum. Well, that is going in this legislation.

So now, again, the will of the majority will be imposed on the minority and that is very concerning for communities that have high levels of poverty, where the local mayors are active in highlighting those issues, and where they are active initiatives like the Mayors Taskforce for Jobs, which will no longer be under the mandate of local government once this piece of legislation passes. It says to those communities that, actually, what they care about does not really matter. Provided the majority push it through, we do not think that there needs to be any kind of guidance around how these reorganisations happen. What the National Government knows is that if it actually went through a robust process along the lines of the Supplementary Order Paper that my colleague Annette King has put together, it would slow it down and it would highlight the flaws in what the Government is trying to push through, because there would actually be time to consider all the issues, and time to engage with all the stakeholders. Annette King’s Supplementary Order Paper requires that all relevant stakeholders be consulted and worked with, and that those negotiations happen in good faith. We know that when these processes are subjected to the scrutiny that they should be subjected to, a lot of what the Government wants to push through simply will not fly. When there is time to give proper consideration, the flaws will be highlighted. That is why the Government wants to rush it through. That is why there is provision earlier on in this bill for the Minister to actually be able to cancel elections—cancel local government elections. Instead of having a process that goes over maybe 3 years and is informative, the Government wants to ram it through so that we can get this in place, and if we have to delay Wellington’s elections by a year, who cares, we will just push them out for a year because we need to get this done right now, because if we allow—

I move, That the question be now put.

The Greens will be opposing Part 2 of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill—we will be opposing the bill in total, actually—and I rise to support Eugenie Sage’s Supplementary Order Paper 159, which calls for the existing arrangements for the amalgamation of local authorities to remain.

What we are seeing with this bill, and what we are seeing with this part of the bill as well, is unprecedented meddling by central government in local government. We have seen it time and time again since National took power. What it is about is wresting control and assets from local authorities all over the country. We have seen it in Canterbury. We have seen that forced amalgamation in Auckland, as well. So this Government is not content with limiting the purpose of local government by removing the four well-beings, which also limits the rights and abilities of councils to set their own course for their ratepayers. It is also not content with increasing the power of the Crown to interfere and intervene in the business of local government. It is also not content to limit even the ability of local authorities to set their own staff numbers, and to interfere with local government’s ability to be a good employer and, basically, set councils up for a whole contracting-out culture. Not content with all that, this Government also wants to remove democracy, the ability of local citizens and ratepayers to determine whether they want to amalgamate their council with another. It removes the right to vote, and replaces it with a petition.

It says in the report that came back for the second reading of this bill: “The bill is intended to streamline local authority reorganisation procedures, give the Local Government Commission more flexibility to develop reorganisation proposals put forward by individuals, organisations, or communities, and make it easier and faster for proposals to proceed.” I said in my previous speech that the faster you go the bigger the mess, and we have certainly seen that in Auckland with the forced amalgamation there and the removal of democracy that occurred around the amalgamation. It certainly has meant that people in our communities in Auckland have quite a lot of resentment towards central government because of this interfering and meddlesome approach that it is taking.

Local government is at the heart of communities. It is where local democracy happens. It happens far more there than it does in these hallowed halls. The intent of the transitional arrangements around amalgamations is clear. It is about forcing amalgamations. Who are those organisations that can propose an amalgamation? Who would that be? Would that be organisations with vested interests? In Canterbury, would it be Federated Farmers, if they are unhappy about the water and the water plan? These are not issues that this Government should be forcing on to communities all across New Zealand. We will be supporting Eugenie Sage’s Supplementary Order Paper, which goes back to the status quo in the way that reorganisation proposals are handled, and we would urge everyone across the Chamber to do that. Thank you.

I move, That the question be now put.