Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. The purpose of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2) is to amend the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act of 2009 to provide powers to local boards to delegate responsibilities allocated to them under the Act.

💬 Phil Twyford: What a good Minister.

Thank you. I want to acknowledge the work of the Local Government and Environment Committee, of which that member is a fine member. I also wish to thank the Auckland Council for its supporting submission on the bill. Can I acknowledge the member Phil Twyford across the House, who is a member of that committee, and also particularly Nicky Wagner, who chairs the committee. I acknowledge her work and the work of the wider committee on the bill. The bill has received unanimous support through its parliamentary stages, and I look forward to it receiving the same level of support as we wind into the end of this debate.

There are 21 local boards throughout the Auckland region. They have a significant and wide-ranging role, which spans most local government services and activities. They service areas of significant population. In fact, only two of Auckland’s 21 local boards have populations of fewer than 45,000 people. Elected bodies need flexibility in how they structure their decision making. They need to be able to create committees and subcommittees, and to delegate appropriate responsibilities to them. This need was recognised through the Government’s Auckland reforms policy package, and local board delegation powers were provided for through transitional regulations.

These regulations will expire on 31 October of this year. The transitional regulations were always recognised as an interim solution. They allowed time for the development of a more robust understanding of local board operations and associated delegation needs. The understanding could then be reflected in a future amendment to the Act, with the opportunity to adjust the provisions should local board experiences deem it necessary to do so. Well, the fact is that there has been no need for change. These delegations have been well executed. There is good experience, and now this bill rolls out the legislation exactly as the regulations were originally drafted and provided for.

Auckland’s local boards are working well. They are contributing effectively to the governance of the whole region and to the communities within it. The local board model has proven so successful that as a result this Government has made it available in a modified form to other parts of New Zealand. In fact, the Hon Nick Smith, in last year’s Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act, allowed for the Auckland two-tier model of governance to be copied in some circumstances—that is, where a proposed metropolitan unitary authority has a population of more than 400,000—but it did not at that point enable it for smaller populations.

Further amendments to the Local Government Act to be introduced later this year under a new local government amendment bill will provide the ability for local boards to be established more widely where unitary authorities are established through reorganisation or through amalgamation. This initiative will deliver on requests from local government, and it recognises that authorities and their communities need a broad range of reorganisation options to enable the more effective and efficient provision of local government services and facilities. I think that this will be an excellent initiative, and, once again, I look forward to it receiving the support of the wider House as we roll out that local board opportunity to other communities throughout New Zealand. It is important to understand that it will still be up to the Local Government Commission, in consultation with those communities that are proposing to undertake reorganisation, to determine when the establishment of local boards is justified and is, in fact, desirable.

The effectiveness of local board delegation powers and the local board model as a whole are just two examples of the success of the Auckland governance reforms. The reforms were instigated by central government in 2009 and 2010 under the leadership of Rodney Hide, the Minister of Local Government at that point in time, and also of the Hon John Carter, who was his Associate Minister at that point in time.

💬 Phil Twyford: And we’ll come to Rodney Hide.

The changes were necessary because of longstanding problems with Auckland, which Mr Twyford across the House has acknowledged in a number of speeches. The eight councils lacked a collective sense of purpose and did not have the constitutional ability to effectively address the region’s wider issues. Local issues and parochial attitudes created an insurmountable barrier to regional progress and integrated development. But I am pleased to say that since the creation of the new Auckland Council, the Auckland region has, for the first time, a unified, single goal—that is, to make Auckland the world’s most livable city.

Significant progress has been made in working towards achieving this goal. I will not go into the full detail of that, but I will just mention a couple of the key achievements: firstly, the launch of the Auckland Plan, which is a 30-year strategy to guide the region’s development to 2041. Auckland has adopted the City Centre Masterplan, the Waterfront Plan, and the Economic Development Strategy. Just imagine if that had been in place when the opportunity was there to put a stadium on the Auckland waterfront. Auckland hosted significant portions of the Rugby World Cup in 2011. It has unified its entire library group. It is now the largest in Australasia, providing outstanding services to the citizens of Auckland. Also, what we have seen is the development of a world-class public transport system, which is excellent. As part of that, there is the purchase of a new fleet of modern electric trains. There is a working partnership with central government to progress major roading projects such as the Auckland-Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative; the East West Link; the second Waitematā Harbour crossing, which is in the mix coming forward, over to Maggie Barry’s fine part of town; and also the City Rail Link. These have all come together under this Government, working together with the Auckland Council.

The reorganisation of local government in Auckland also provided the opportunity to release significant efficiency gains. For the financial year of 2011-12, the Auckland Council achieved an $81 million efficiency savings gain, and over the next 10 years we are looking to see $1.7 billion worth of savings. This is an outstanding result. Rodney Hide can take a bow for this achievement going forward. These savings represent the reduced costs of delivering the same service levels planned by the legacy councils. It results in lower rates overall than what were planned. In fact, I understand they are lower than expected, at 3.94 percent, and the council expects to be able to cap rates increases at 4.9 percent over the next 10 years. This is a huge achievement.

Due to its size, uniqueness, and economic influence, a successful Auckland is crucial to the success of New Zealand as a whole. The Auckland Council, as created by the Government’s Auckland governance reform package, is providing for a successful Auckland. Part of that success is in ensuring the efficient and effective management of local boards’ responsibilities and the delegation of the responsibilities allocated to them. Can I thank members of the House again for their wider support of this bill. This bill’s time has come. I commend the bill to the House.

Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson, I want to add my congratulations on the success that you had on the weekend in being elected as a member of the Papatoetoe Subdivision of the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board. Congratulations.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you.

It is very timely, actually, to be debating this rather non-controversial legislation about the Auckland Council local boards because I think that the local government election results on the weekend suggest, well, if not a maturing, then I think a useful development of the local boards. It is worth noting that what we saw across the city in parts of the region—not all, but in parts of the region—was quite a swing to the left politically and the growing success of tickets, whether they were community coalition tickets or, in fact, political party tickets. I am very pleased to see that in west Auckland, where I am based, two very successful Labour tickets on the Henderson-Massey Local Board were elected, three members for the first time, and that the Labour ticket on the Whau Local Board actually won a majority. So that was extremely successful. In the Waitakere Ranges Local Board, Future West, which is a Labour-Green community independent’s ticket, cleaned up and won all of the six seats. In the Puketāpapa seat the Roskill Community Voice won a majority there. City Vision held on to majorities in the Waitematā Local Board and the Albert-Eden Local Board areas. The Labour team in Māngere-Ōtāhuhu held on to its majority there.

So it is interesting to see more successful campaigning by tickets, which I think is good, when you think about a lot of the commentary that we have seen publicly over the last couple of weeks about the low turnout in local government. The argument some people have made is that in the larger centres, where people do not know each other so personally, voters do not know who they are voting for. Therefore, a ticket with an identifiable brand and a set of values and policies makes it easier for people to know who they are voting for and what they are voting for. So from my point of view, and from the point of view of the left in Auckland, to see that kind of strength in the election results in the local boards across Auckland Council was very gratifying.

The Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2), as has been said by the Minister of Local Government, Chris Tremain, one of the real nice guys of this House—we are going to be sorry to see him go at the end of this term, but I think Stuart Nash will make an excellent replacement, and we look forward to Stuart resuming his place in the House. This is a technical bill. We are supporting it. It is before the House only because of the incompetence of the National Government in the way that it has drafted the super-city legislation. It made these powers of delegation that the local boards rely on to delegate the work of the board to council staff—the day-to-day tasks need to be delegated in many cases. This enabling legislation allows that to happen, but it should never have been put in a bill with a sunset clause, as was done by the National Government. But, nevertheless, we are supporting it.

I think now is a moment when we can reflect on the local boards. They were the subject of so much controversy and debate during the time that Rodney Hide was implementing the super-city reforms in 2009 and 2010, and we argued whether there should be fewer or more, whether they should be bigger or smaller. The Government opted for this two-tier structure with 21 local boards, with most of the significant decision-making powers concentrated in the governing body, or what most people would describe as the council, but these local boards are given the role of being essentially a kind of community engagement mechanism for the super-city. They have—and I am sorry to say this, given that you have just won election, Mr Assistant Speaker, to one of these local boards—very few decision-making powers. They have no regulatory or rule-making powers. They have oversight of budgets, but, in fact, most of those budgets have been allocated, so really what they are doing is kind of twiddling around the edges. They have the management and control of some libraries, some parks, and some community facilities. But it is pretty small stuff.

In fact, these local boards are a kind of advocacy platform for communities to be able to come and lobby, convince the local boards of certain issues, and the idea is that those boards will then advocate upwards to the governing body.

💬 Denise Roche: It’s not upwards.

Well, it is a kind of governance model.

💬 Hon Members: It’s not even upwards.

I know that the Green and New Zealand First members think it is not upwards, but, frankly, I would submit that they are in la-la land if they think that the local boards and the governing body of Auckland Council have some kind of horizontal arrangement with power shared equally between them, because they are not.

In fact, I think that is why the jury is still out on this governance model, which was chosen by Rodney Hide and the National Government, because it gives a second tier of governance at the local level that has very little in the way of real decision-making power. Now there are other councils around New Zealand, like the Greater Wellington Regional Council, that are considering the same two-tier model and trying to weigh up whether, in fact, the two-tier model with these so-called local boards is a good way to go. Frankly, I actually think that a larger assembly model with a greater number of councillors, acting more like a Parliament with electorates, could actually offer a far higher level of democratic accountability and a real decision-making power much closer to the communities. But that was not the way that Rodney Hide saw it.

We saw, actually, a really interesting insight in the Herald on Sunday this weekend, when Rodney Hide in his column in the Herald on Sunday said that if it were his choice, he would replace the elected representatives of local government with appointed officials. That explains a lot about Rodney Hide’s time as the Minister of Local Government and the decisions that he made on behalf of National in setting up the Auckland super-city. He and the members opposite were the ones who voted for a highly corporatised structure in Auckland, which took 75 percent of the services and the assets in Auckland and handed them over to corporate entities governed by hand-picked business appointees—the boards of these so-called council-controlled organisations. That was just one of a whole pipeline of decisions and policies that National has made that showed contempt for local democracy and contempt for the right of communities to control their cities and their communities. We saw it with the way in which National handled the super-city. We have seen it with the suspension of democracy in Canterbury, in terms of Environment Canterbury. We have seen it in the way that the purpose statement of local government was stripped out of the local government legislation. We saw it most recently, actually, in the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill, which shifted transport priority-setting away from local communities to the executive arm of Government, which is Cabinet.

So how have the local boards gone? I think the jury is out. Some of them have done very well. Some of the elected representatives on the local boards in Auckland have done a fantastic job of responding to the needs of their communities, raising issues, and taking initiatives. Others, I would say, not so much. My hope is that in this second term of the Auckland Council, the new crop of elected representatives and local board members right across the region will take the bull by the horns and really use these local boards as a platform to campaign, to raise issues, and to speak out on behalf of their communities, as some of them have done very effectively—not to be constrained by the very limited decision-making powers and resources that they have at their disposal, but to speak up for their communities, to build alliances with each other, to build alliances with members of the governing body, and to really use the local boards as a platform to raise issues and progress their own agendas. If they do that, they will at least, I think, have made the most of the opportunity that these local boards offer. Thank you.

I am very pleased to be supporting this bill, the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2), in its third reading. It is very good that it will be passed before the transitional powers concerning local boards expire. The bill was considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee, and it was a pleasure to work on. It was non-controversial. It is a technical bill. There was only one submission, and that was from the Auckland Council, which supported the bill. The committee members also agreed unanimously to support it and reported the bill back to the House without amendment.

As we have heard, the bill amends the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009, and it enables Auckland’s local boards to continue to delegate various functions and powers to committees of the local board or to a council officer. It needs to be done now so that the council operations can continue seamlessly, because the transitional powers expire on 31 October.

Contrary to the comments of the member Phil Twyford, the regulations were transitional for a reason. They were transitional to allow for time for a better understanding of how local boards would operate and to make sure that the structure worked well. Time has shown that this structure is very appropriate. It has passed the practical, on-the-ground test, and there is agreement throughout the Auckland Council to support this structure and to pass this legislation.

The National Government, of course, is very keen to see local government being efficient, being responsive, and being well focused. So we are supportive of the Auckland Council when it tells us that allowing these local boards to continue delegating responsibilities as they currently do will help them to operate effectively and efficiently.

The success of this local board model means that in the future that model in a modified form will be available for use in other parts of New Zealand. Last year in the Local Government Act we allowed for the Auckland two-tier model of government to be used under certain circumstances. It could be used where there was a proposed metropolitan unitary authority that had a population of over 400,000. It was not available for smaller populations. However, due to requests from local government, we are planning to make further amendments to the Local Government Act this year that will provide for the ability for local boards to be established more widely where unitary authorities are established, perhaps through reorganisation or amalgamation. For example, an amalgamated local authority may be able to achieve economies of scale in infrastructure investment and operation, and would perhaps be better able to access specialist expertise and resources.

But we do not want to do this at the expense of community choice or identity at a local level. This is where local representation, through local boards, can perhaps provide for that. It will be up to the Local Government Commission, in consultation with communities undertaking any kind of reorganisation, to determine whether the establishment of a local board will work in a community, can be justified, and is desirable. The model is working well in Auckland, and it could be another very useful tool for more effective local government elsewhere across the country. I support this bill to the House.

I was hoping that the previous Assistant Speaker would still be in the Chair—not from any disrespect to you, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, but because I was going to acknowledge, of course, as others have, Ross Robertson’s election to the Papatoetoe subdivision of the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board, representing Team Papatoetoe. I know that Ross will be a very hard-working and determined representative of his local community. I just want to acknowledge that as I rise to speak in support of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2), which I have spoken on in every stage of this bill going through the House.

As many of us will now know, this is a very narrow bill—quite a technical bill, really—that fixes what was probably a mistake made in the rush to pass the Auckland legislation, the super-city legislation. The ability of local boards to be able to delegate responsibilities, duties, and powers confirmed or allocated to them under the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act was a transitional arrangement with a limited life, and that life is due to expire at the end of October if we do not pass this legislation. Of course, it is obviously important that we do so, and I think that every party in the House recognises the need to ensure that local boards can, in fact, continue to delegate responsibilities, duties, and powers as they are currently able to. What the bill does is say the things that they can delegate and the things that they cannot.

It is important because the local boards, as others have said, have started to take shape, really. Their role is an important part of local government in Auckland. It is a co-governance arrangement between the local boards and the governing body. That is important. It is fair to say that local boards play different roles throughout Auckland, and that may well be appropriate. It is also fair to say that some have been more active than others and have probably been better advocates for their communities than others.

It is probably also fair to say that many local residents still do not fully understand the extent of the powers and responsibilities that their local board has, how important it is, and how different it is from the former community board. So this bill is important to allow those important parts of our local government structure in Auckland to get on and do their job. Of course, they are elected to do quite a large job. The areas that they cover are not insignificant. They are larger than most units of local government throughout New Zealand, and I think that is important. When we talk about local boards, people outside Auckland may not realise what large areas these boards cover and how many people they are actually working for.

Of course, we have just had the local government elections, and I want to acknowledge everybody who stood in the local government elections throughout New Zealand. It is always a big thing to do to put yourself forward as a candidate, to go out there, to talk about what you stand for, and to seek a mandate from the public. Many people throughout New Zealand did put their hat in the ring, and, of course, we now know who has been successful.

In terms of the local boards in Auckland, my colleague Phil Twyford spent some time talking about what has happened with them. It is fair to say that for this side of the House it is a very pleasing result, really—a positive outcome for the centre-left in terms of local boards, with some very strong tickets and some very effective people elected. I am a list MP based in Maungakiekie, and in our area we have two subdivisions, the Maungakiekie and the Tāmaki subdivisions. We have got three community independents elected in Maungakiekie—Brett Clark, Bridget Graham, and Simon Randall—and in the Tāmaki subdivision Josephine Bartley, Chris Makoare, Alan Verrall, and Obed Unasa all stood as Labour candidates for that board. Across Auckland there were some very, very strong candidates. Some are returning for a second term as local board members, and some are new and exciting people coming into the local board roles.

It is fair to say that the role does need further definition, and, as I said earlier, greater understanding is required from the public about the role of local boards, what they can and cannot do, and the extent of their powers. Auckland University of Technology’s Super City? State of Auckland research indicates exactly that. It says that although the super-city is functioning well in many areas, we are still seeing a lack of clarity about the roles of the council as a governing body and the local boards. So there are still some issues there.

I also want to note that one of the findings from that same report was that there were too few Māori, Pacific, and ethnic peoples and younger adults holding elected positions on the council and the local boards, and women urgently needed stronger representation on council-controlled organisations. Well, can I say that one of the really positive things about this election for local board representation in Auckland has been the large number of new Pacific representatives we have on local boards in the Auckland area. It is a very, very positive outcome. There was an even larger group, of course, who stood, some of whom were not successful, but I think—and I can see others across the House nodding—that this is a very positive thing because we want local government to reflect the communities that they represent.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Ha, ha!

I am sure that is hysterically funny for the Minister. I do not quite know why it is so funny. But, anyway, let us not divert on to that.

In my own area the local board has done a number of very positive things, and it has included what you might call environmental projects and a music and arts centre. It has funded community events, improved Onehunga Mall, and worked with sports groups to improve their sports facilities. But the one I want to particularly pick up on is the housing issue. The local board has worked very hard on the idea of a Housing Warrant of Fitness. There are many renters in the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board area, and it has a rental housing quality project to improve housing quality in rental properties in our area by working with stakeholders to explore options to achieve positive housing outcomes for tenants, particularly those in areas of higher deprivation. This warrant of fitness scheme will be the first of its kind in the country and is a joint project between environmental services and community development. I want to applaud our local board for that.

Can I say that this is in the context of a housing crisis in Auckland, something that I think my colleague Phil Twyford has been doing a very good job of holding the Government to account on. There is a housing crisis in Auckland. Homeownership is out of reach for most New Zealanders, which, of course, is contrary to what the local member of Parliament for Maungakiekie thinks. He thought that, actually, $130,000 for a housing deposit—

💬 Hon Maryan Street: How much?

—that is $130,000—was not out of reach for most Aucklanders. Well, of course, he got rubbished up and down the country for that one, because, as we all know, that is an extremely large amount of money. He also talked about, I think, 1,100 affordable houses in the Maungakiekie electorate. Of course, there is no such thing. In fact, that electorate is actually probably one of the ones where housing prices are going up the most strongly.

Housing is a real issue in our area and I do want to applaud our local board for working on the Housing Warrant of Fitness issue. I would say that the Government needs to recognise—and I think it probably does and is starting to get the message—that people are very concerned about housing issues in Auckland. Housing affordability and access to decent-quality rental accommodation are two absolutely fundamental issues. Of course, another important issue is public transport. These are issues that certainly, on this side of the House, we take very seriously.

As I draw my comments to a conclusion, I again just reiterate that we do support this bill. It is necessary to ensure that the local boards can fulfil their function. I just want to make one final comment, for the record, about the local government elections, and that is to acknowledge the contribution of the former councillor in the Maungakiekie area Richard Northey, who has done an exceptional job and who has worked very hard with our local board. Thank you.

Before I call the next member, can I just ask that you make some of the conversations a little bit quieter, please, because it is quite distracting.

I rise to take a call for the Greens on the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2) in this third reading. We will be supporting this bill. I guess you could call this just-in-time legislation decision-making, really, given that the elections were held on Saturday and within the next 2 weeks local boards across Auckland will be sworn in, in their first inaugural meetings. In order for them to be sworn in, they do need to have their delegations enshrined in legislation.

I would like to start by congratulating all those people who have been elected to local boards in Auckland, and that includes the Assistant Speaker Ross Robertson. I particularly want to congratulate Vernon Tava, Deborah Yates, Shirin Brown, Steve Tollestrup, and Saffron Toms, who are all Green Party members, who were elected to three different local boards in Auckland. Local boards are where democracy happens, and from our point of view they are a place for good green change as well, so we are thrilled that we have got competent, fabulous people in those roles in Auckland.

This legislation is about the decision-making powers and the delegation powers of those local boards. It is kind of a bit worrying to know that local board members, as well as our mayor and our councillors, were voted in with a very low turnout in these elections. It was around about 35 percent. It seems to me that there is a growing disconnect between communities and their governance, but it is interesting to note that in smaller communities there was a higher voter turnout. This time on Waiheke we had a 55 percent turnout, which is actually 9 percent down from last time, and Great Barrier Island had a 67 percent turnout. But that was out of 750 voters, basically. I also note that Rodney had the next-highest turnout, with 44 percent, and there are roughly about 14,000 voters there.

I think that what I am saying is that the closer people are to their elected representatives, the more engaged they are and the more likely they are to participate in their civil society, and that includes their responsibility of choosing their democratically elected representatives. Where I live we share a councillor with the Waitematā Local Board, and that had the lowest turnout. That was about 33 percent, but that local board has the highest number of voters in that area—47,000 voters in the Waitematā Local Board area. But the population is around about 80,000, so when you are looking at it as a ward, you are looking at an incredibly large area. If you look at what councillors and local boards have, you see that they do not have the same types of resources that MPs have. I wonder sometimes whether that is one of the reasons why there is a lower turnout for local government elections.

The role of local boards is to maintain democracy and to advocate for their communities. I disagreed with the Minister of Local Government when he said that it might be a good thing to roll local boards out to other places in the country, because if that is about replacing councils and their decision-making powers, then we are entering a time of reducing local decision-making, not increasing it. In my community we were opposed to the super-city amalgamation. We fought hard to get our own local board, and we got it because we rallied round it. We were going to have one member on the Waitematā Local Board. That was going to be our local representation until we fought against it. And to reduce the number of people who represent our communities by introducing local boards and getting rid of councils I think does everyone a great disservice.

What we have in Auckland is a co-governance arrangement, and I do get really cross with people calling local boards community boards, because they are not. I know, because I was on two community boards and I was on a local board as well, so I know the difference. This legislation that we have for local boards ensures that local boards can delegate some of their decision-making abilities. They can delegate them to staff and they can delegate them to members of their board or subcommittees of their board in order to get work done. I am assured that the governing body is now looking at delegating more powers to local boards, as well. Local boards are able to advocate for their communities, even on regulatory matters. They do not have the decision-making power, but they certainly can advocate, and that is what our communities want.

I guess that is why I have got really, really cross sometimes with the local board that we have had on Waiheke, which has been one of those boards that has not been as effective as others. It has not been doing what the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board has been doing in terms of addressing the issues in our community. It has said that, quite frankly, it would sit on its hands rather than get involved in negotiating and facilitating discussion around a proposal for a marine reserve on our island. It would rather sit on its hands—that is a direct quote. The chair, Faye Storer, has also said that it was not her role to advocate on regulatory matters over the biggest development to happen on our island in the last decade, which is the proposal for a marina at our gateway in Matiātia. I suspect that it was her decision as the planning spokesperson not to give a view from the board on that issue because of her role as the hearings commissioner and the potential for her not to be called for hearings commissioner duties as a result if she were to comment.

What we have now, though, is a new board that has been elected, so I want to congratulate those people. They are Paul Walden, Becs Ballard, Beatle Treadwell, John Meeuwsen, and Shirin Brown—a clean sweep of new blood into our community as our community leaders. They have already proven that they can engage with the people in our community. They have been listening. They have been picking up ideas. I feel quite confident that they will also be able to harness the creativity and expertise that we have in our community to deliver really good decisions that will keep us going forward on Waiheke. I am also pretty sure that they will be good negotiators, and that is the partnership between local boards and the governing body that makes up the council. It is a negotiation about not just delegating powers but also budgets and plans. I am really, really thrilled that we now have some talented people who will be able to negotiate for us, and I think they will do it effectively as well. I am also really pleased because this is the first time we have had somebody under the age of 40 on the local board for about a decade. In fact, when I was on the local board, I was the youngest, which is a bit scary when you think about it. So congratulations to Becs Ballard.

Local boards are important. I am pleased that we are supporting this legislation through the House. I do not believe that local boards are the cure-all for local government throughout New Zealand, but I am glad we have got them in Auckland and I am glad that we are going to see a change on Waiheke, where our local board is working for us. Thank you.

I also rise to support the third reading of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2). Members will be aware that on 31 October the transitional powers actually expire. So the powers that local boards are quite happily and successfully working under at the moment expire in a matter of days, and this bill replicates the current provisions. It does not add any new provisions. It does not change the way that the local boards operate. It simply extends into, well, you could almost say perpetuity what they do now, until Parliament decides to change that.

So the bill amends the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act to enable local boards to continue to delegate various functions and powers to committees of the local board or the council office. There are certain duties that they cannot delegate—for example, the duty to identify and communicate the interests and preferences of the people in the local board area. Of course, it is the board’s job to reflect its community of interest to the Auckland Council. It should not be able to delegate those powers, and it will not be able to. It cannot delegate powers to confirm or to modify or to propose in any way a by-law. That is a local board’s job; it cannot delegate that. The duty to adopt a local board plan for its area is something that local boards also cannot delegate. But those powers that they are currently delegating—and, as I say, are delegating quite successfully—need to continue after 31 October. So I support the bill.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to provide New Zealand First’s contribution on the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2). New Zealand First will be supporting the bill. First of all, can I also add my congratulations to Ross Robertson, who had a landslide victory in the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board elections, 2000 votes ahead of his closest competitor. Knowing the job and knowing the man, I know that he will do an exceptionally good job at representing that local board area and the work that it must do. Can I also congratulate Penny Webster, who is the Rodney councillor, the returning local board members for the Rodney Local Board—Steve Garner, Brenda Steele, James Colville, Thomas Grace—and the new member, Phelan Pirrie.

It was interesting that Mr Twyford—and I just want to make some comments about Mr Twyford’s contribution to this bill with regard to the delegations and with regard to him minimising the true powers that the local boards have. Ms Beaumont, I think, better summarised, actually, the work that certain local boards have done. For example, although there certainly are delegations around parks, libraries, and reserves, the land-use delegations are often held by local boards.

The local boards do have budgets in their own right, which they use for things. The Rodney Local Board, for example, is funding night schools. In 2009 the Rodney Local Board area lost all night schools and all adult and community education with the cuts by the National Government to that particular budget line. The Rodney Local Board has funded, in the last financial year, the restarting of adult and community education in the Warkworth area. This year it will restart adult and community education in Helensville, and next year it will restart adult and community education in Wellsford. So those are the budget lines that the local boards have. It is also dealing with youth employment issues in its area. It is partnering with Ngāti Whātua Ngā Rima o Kaipara around a joint housing project where the Unitec will be coming into Helensville. They have purchased some of the houses from Hobsonville, which are now behind the college there. The Unitec will come in and, partnering with Ngāti Whātua, will be running its pre-apprenticeship building course in Helensville, because there is no public transport out of Helensville for anybody to go to any technical college.

So there are many, many things that the local boards do. They have done well in the 3-year period that they have been in place. They certainly need the delegations to continue, and, as my colleague Ms Roche said, particularly as the new board members will be sworn in within the next 14 days. However, I know that the governing body and the local boards in the non-hierarchal co-governance model, which is Auckland, is not a two-tier model. It is not a senior-lower model. We certainly do not need a parliamentary model, because this is about local communities, not about party politics. Again, I disagree with Mr Twyford. I think if you have a local ticket, that is fine, but I think it is deeply saddening that party politics from Parliament have actually ended up around what are local body electorates, which are supposed to be about communities and people who work hard in their communities representing them. So, again, I disagree with Mr Twyford on that. I think perhaps Mr Twyford needs to talk to somebody on the local board, outside his own party possibly.

I would recommend that during the discussions that the next governing body and the next local boards have around these delegations—and the movement of more boards coming to the Government asking for more delegations to be handed down to the local boards, which is a conversation that has been taking place over the last 3 years—that the staff inside the amalgamated city do not continue moves to have the chairs of the local boards created into mini-mayors. This is a move that is concerning around these other conversations. It might be administratively easier, but it is certainly not democratically better. So I think the new board members and new governing body members need to strongly watch for those sorts of moves.

But, at the end of the day, this system—although the two rural areas should have remained out of the amalgamated Auckland; Rodney should not have been pulled into Auckland, nor should have Franklin—for the more urban part of Auckland, this is working well. The two rural areas have been exceptionally effective in taking that voice to the governing body and making sure that we argue back for the things that our rural areas need, but there is a lot more work to be done there.

The true place that the Government and the Parliament need to set their minds to is around the council-controlled organisations. If this model were to be rolled out anywhere else in the country, firstly, I would strongly suggest they wait another 3 years and see how Auckland works. But the model around the council-controlled organisations must be altered. The governing body and the local boards seem to have lost control of what are called council-controlled organisations. So when this bill comes back, because I believe it will, then that is one of the things I hope to see in the amendments. But at this stage New Zealand First will definitely be supporting this bill.

I rise to speak to the third reading of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2). Having spoken in the previous readings and having had many of the points covered tonight, I am going to focus my call on really looking at some of the aspects of this that need to go through. I sit on the Local Government and Environment Committee that heard the single submission on this particular piece of legislation. Everybody supported it. The Auckland Council, which was the only group that submitted, was very happy about it. The Local Government and Environment Committee reported the bill back without amendment. All is good there.

The model of the local board is working well in Auckland. It needs to before it can work well anywhere else. Auckland is crucial to the success of New Zealand. The local boards being able to delegate authorities, which is the pretty narrow focus of this bill, is very much what it needs to do if it is going to continue its business. Those transitional powers that it has been operating under expire in 16 days, so, naturally, this piece of legislation has to progress through fairly rapidly. It does enjoy a certain amount of support from opposing members around the House, apart from a bit of griping around the way that local boards might or might not, you know, conduct themselves. I guess we all have our views on that. I am particularly surprised, I guess, that an individual could be elected to two local boards at the one time and serve on them. I think that is one of the things that surprised me the most out of the local body elections, which, of course, were concluded this last weekend.

So the transitional powers expire. This needs to be done. Everybody agrees with it. I will not take up any more time in the House than that. I commend this bill to the House. Thanks.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute to this Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2). I am not a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee, but I am a proud and staunch member of the Manurewa community. Obviously, I want to take the opportunity to congratulate all those who have been elected on to various boards, whether it be the local board, the district health board, the Wiri Licensing Trust, or the other governance boards that empower people to represent their communities.

Essentially, we are here because there is a transitional piece of legislation that enables local boards to delegate responsibilities to certain members. Without this piece of legislation going through, the irony is—well, I do not know whether it is an irony, but the reality is that those people who currently have delegations will keep them. It means that local boards cannot do the work they need to do. In some instances, those people are no longer on local boards. The person whom I have been working with in my area, whom I want to highlight, has been local board member Colleen Brown, who did not stand at the last election for the local board. I want to congratulate particularly Simeon Brown, who as a previous member of our Manurewa Youth Council has made the transition as a young person representing the youth specifically to now being a member of the Manurewa Local Board. But the irony of that is that Colleen has had delegations around developing the local alcohol policies for Manurewa. She is no longer on the board, so it makes it very difficult, I guess, for the board to delegate to somebody else—maybe.

What I do know is that local boards are actually performing a very important role in our communities. So I am really standing here in this third reading to support this piece of legislation because, from my perspective, local democracy is really important. When I look at my local board and the connection and relationship it has to the people of Manurewa, it is really important that it has all the tools it needs in order to do the best job on behalf of the people in each of our respective communities. For it to be able to have those tools means that it does not have to have full board meetings, which, essentially, would have to take place if this piece of legislation did not go through the House tonight. It is timely, given that we had the elections on Saturday, for us to have prioritised this piece of legislation. Obviously, for me, it is really important that we conclude this debate tonight and that we support this piece of legislation.

What I really wanted to highlight in my contribution tonight is a concern I have about voter turnout. It has been very interesting, I guess, to look at some of the different local body turnouts. I know that in Manurewa it is probably going to be as low as 25 percent. I think that is really concerning. But it is interesting to look at research from an associate professor who works at Massey University, Christine Cheyne, who has basically said that New Zealanders are able to identify with the district council or the mayor but beyond that there are really real gaps in people’s understanding about the people who represent them on either local boards or other such constituent groups. There is a poor overall understanding of the role and nature of local government. If people do not understand the significance to their lives, then they are not going to vote. So I think we have a particular challenge in some communities.

The other challenge I want to highlight is the complexity for some communities in the voting process. You have two types of processes that you use currently in local body elections. Obviously, for the local board, you just tick however many members of the local board are in your area. In our area we had to pick eight people, so you tick eight boxes. But for the district health board selections, if we want to use that as a comparison, it is a preferential voting system and you have to rank members. I think for some of our communities it is really confusing. I think we have to rethink how we present these democratic opportunities to our communities. Maybe for the boards where we want to tick the number of people we want on there, whether it be the local board or the licensing trust, they should be on a separate form. And possibly the district health board form should be—

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: Could you talk to the bill.

I am talking to the bill. Maybe the district health board form should be on its own and we should enable our communities to have different mediums to be able to engage in the process.

Obviously, we support the bill. It is a piece of legislation that has unanimous support across the House. We realise that it is a piece of legislation that needs to go through so that our local boards can do the job they are empowered to do. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

I wish to make just two points on this legislation, the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2). The first point is that this legislation is necessary to allow local boards to continue to work as they have done for the past 3 years. The second point is that as the National list MP based in Epsom I have worked closely with three local boards, particularly with Desley Simpson and her group in Ōrākei, Greg Moyle in Waitematā, and Tim Woolfield and Lee Corrick in Maungawhau. I was glad to see them all re-elected on Saturday, and they are doing great work in the community. Amongst the many benefits that there are for the super-city there is the real risk of a lack of responsiveness to local communities, so an effective local board is an important conduit between the community and the vast bureaucracy. On that basis I think good-quality local boards are important. This legislation continues the work that we have done, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

I understand the next call is a split call.

Yes, that is right, a split call with the Green Party. I would also like to congratulate all those successful candidates who stood in the local board elections. We had some very good results from that, and as some of my colleagues have already pointed out, a number of the centre-left groupings—Labour-Greens centre-left groupings—were successful in getting across and getting into local boards. We look forward to some progressive policies being pushed through the local boards under their leadership.

I would also like to acknowledge the work of Richard Northey, who worked very hard as a councillor, and I also congratulate Chris Darby, a friend of mine who has made it as a councillor on the North Shore. I think he will provide a real boost to the council with the passion and drive that he has for Auckland.

The unified Auckland City has been a success. We look back to 3 years ago, when there was a great deal of trepidation about what was going to come about when all those local councils were amalgamated. We look back now and it is almost difficult to believe that there was so much naysaying and doomsaying about where we were going to go with that. The change and the positive outcome of the Auckland Council has been a response, really, to a couple of things. One has been the effective leadership of the Auckland Council. I would like to pay tribute to and congratulate Len Brown on his re-election and acknowledge the drive, energy, and passion he has shown for bringing the various components of Auckland together into one super-city and having that functioning as it has.

It has had some huge successes in the work that it has done: the Auckland Unitary Plan, which has been controversial, is still open for submissions, but will, nevertheless, transform the way that Auckland looks at itself and the way it plans its future; the unification of the rates and the various other types of administrations that were so divided and split and differentiated between the various councils and that have been brought together in one entity; and the council-controlled organisations, and I think there is still some work to be done around those. But that is all a tribute to the Auckland Council—the fact that it has been able to bring that together.

The second thing that I think has been effective in making sure that people still have a voice is the local boards. I have to say that in the first year or two I think they struggled to find a place for themselves and how they were going to operate and how they were going to represent their communities adequately. But over time they have bedded in their role. I still think that their role is somewhat superfluous. It is not linked in strongly enough to the council. It is still in some ways out to one side. They are seen somewhat as the poor cousins of the actual council itself. But, however, they have been successful in being the focus for advocacy, for ensuring that local issues are being brought to the attention of the council, and they have acted on things themselves.

I would like to congratulate those local boards in my electorate of Mt Albert that have done so well, the Whau Local Board and Albert-Eden Local Board, and wish them all the very best in the next 3 years.

The Green Party will be supporting the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2) and it joins with others in congratulating everybody who stood for election this month, whether they got elected or not. It is a lot, putting yourself out there to be decided on by voters, so congratulations to everybody who stood, and congratulations to those who were elected and will do their best to represent their communities over the next 3 years.

Auckland’s local boards were set up with the express purpose of enabling democratic decision-making by and on behalf of communities within their local board area, but they cannot do that very well unless they have a strong mandate from voters. The range of concern that has been expressed about the very low voter turnout in these local body elections is obvious, because that does undermine democratic decision-making and the mandate that the boards have and that councils generally have. In Auckland we saw the turnout drop from 55 percent to 33 percent, one of the lowest on record.

Just as smaller rural councils tend to have a higher voter turnout than larger urban ones, so it was with the smaller local boards in Auckland. They had a much higher turnout than some of their more populous neighbours. Two of the standout performers here were the Great Barrier Local Board and the Waiheke Local Board—67 percent of the electors on Great Barrier Island voted for their local board and 55 percent of the more than 6,500 electors on Waiheke Island voted for their board. Yet when you compare that with some of the larger boards such as Manurewa, where you have an electoral population of over 53,000, the turnout there, as Louisa Wall noted, was quite low—around 29 percent.

So it is for this reason that the Green Party will likely oppose the proposals to amend the Local Government Act to enable local boards to be rolled out in other parts of the country where there is currently a cap on using local boards—that they can be used only in communities of over 400,000 people if a unitary authority is established. The local boards, as Phil Twyford noted, have substantially lower powers—smaller powers—than the councils that they replace. They can certainly recommend by-laws, but they cannot sign those off. They have an oversight and a recommendatory power in relation to budgets, but they are not the main decision maker.

So the approach that the National Government seems to have is that bigger is better when it comes to local councils. We do not agree with that because bigger organisations tend to be more remote from electors, there is less ability for electors to see that they can influence decision making and influence change, and people tend to feel more alienated from big, centralised agencies. That is why this move to have local boards replace councils and have a big unitary authority in the proposed changes to the Local Government Act to be rolled out later this year is of major concern, because that will not necessarily improve democracy or lead to more voter engagement.

There have been a range of commentators on the low turnout. Associate Professor Christine Cheyne from Massey University was calling in this morning’s Dominion Post for an independent inquiry to address this deepening malaise affecting local elections. Certainly, the Justice and Electoral Committee looks at turnout after each election, but I think we have got to do much more because we have a very casual attitude to democracy in New Zealand. Although electronic voting is going to be trialled in 2016, that is not a silver bullet. We need civics education in schools so that students understand the institutions of democracy, and so that they get into the habit of voting when they turn 18. We need a much more proactive effort by councils to publicise the fact that there is an election. I commend the Hamilton City Council. Its local electoral officers were out on the street with ballot boxes, encouraging motorists to drop their ballots in. It estimated it got an extra 1,000 votes by doing that. But on some councils’ websites it was not even obvious that there was an election. We need to do much more to improve the turnout. Local councils are a way of doing that, not just changing councils to boards.

I just want to round out the Government’s contribution on the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2) by thanking the Opposition for some of the comments that have been made about the bill. I want to particularly thank David Shearer, because today David Shearer admitted, on behalf of the Labour Party, that the Auckland Council has been a success. I just want to put that on record because David Shearer might have forgotten that the Labour Party spent many, many hours in this Chamber opposing the Auckland Council legislation. It kept the House going into the early hours of the morning opposing the legislation for the Auckland Council, and now it is claiming it is a success. So I just want to congratulate the Labour Party on coming full circle and agreeing with us that the Auckland Council reforms were a success. Rodney Hide will be sitting at home with his new babies up in Auckland, thanking David Shearer for that grand admission.

I also want to acknowledge Louisa Wall for her comments, because she is right—local boards do play an important role. In Manurewa right now, deep Labour territory, the centre-right has just had a clean sweep on the Manurewa Local Board, which just gives an indication as to how the people of Manurewa are feeling about local government.

I am going to be brief and just finally say that this bill simply continues the delegation authority for local boards. Local boards have been a success story in the Auckland Council make-up, where local communities can have a real say. I am just glad the Opposition now agrees with us that the Auckland Council was a good change, and long may it be a success for all Aucklanders.

Bill read a third time.