Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill

I rise to speak on the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. The Local Government and Environment Committee gave this local bill in the name of Damien O’Connor pretty good consideration in its time at the committee. The committee listened very carefully to a number of submitters who were affected by this bill. It was really sympathetic to the submissions of the people who cared enough to put a lot of time in to coming to Wellington or perhaps giving us a videoconference in support of this bill or, indeed, in opposition to the bill.

There was the desire to delete clause 9. We decided that this would be outside the scope of the bill, so the technical amendments were made for consistency to clauses 5(a), 6, and 9 to replace “declared to have been” with “declared to be and to always have been”. Without validation of this setting of the rates, the council would be required to undergo a good deal of work that was retrospective in nature around things like determining which ratepayers had actually paid the 2006-07 rates and the amount they had paid. That time, 2006-07, was 8 years ago. It was a long time ago in the council’s record and also in the ratepayers’ records. Of course, they are not required to keep those records for that long. The council would also have to ascertain whether the current ratepayers were the same ratepayers who occupied those properties in 2006-07, and that is a nightmare in itself.

It is something we did consider. The council would be required to apportion rates if there are or were multiple owners of properties. Again, the nature of ownership of properties can change substantially over time. Then the council would have to write to each ratepayer advising them of the amount of the refund and requesting bank details for repayment. So it was decided by the committee, under the leadership of Nicky Wagner, who I know is waiting to take a call—

💬 Scott Simpson: A very good chair.

Actually, Nicky is an excellent chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee and she runs a very collegial environment in the committee, which enables the committee to discuss some quite thorny issues. I am happy to say that on this particular one the committee was pretty united in its care for this bill. The committee also determined that any merit of setting a stormwater rate was, we decided, outside the scope of the bill, and that that is a matter that the local authority would have to deal with separately.

In essence, this bill is about validating certain rates that were set incorrectly during the period of 2003-04 and 2008-09. The Tasman District Council is not alone in having made a mistake of this nature—not exactly the same perhaps. But this kind of critical decision-making, by its very nature, is critical because if it is not set correctly, then we are faced with a retrospective validation bill like this, and Parliament, I believe, is not of the mind to really support this kind of bill. It is a situation that has been brought to us on behalf of the local council and its community, so we have got to deal with it. So we are dealing with it.

💬 Maggie Barry: Yeah.

Well, where does the buck stop, you know? The council has been charged with some important decision-making. It has made errors in that, so it falls to Parliament to correct them. Damien O’Connor has done a very good job in keeping the lines of communication open between the council, its ratepayers, and the committee, under the chairmanship of Nicky Wagner.

Without doing the validation, the council will always be vulnerable to challenge from ratepayers over their incorrectly set rates. If it were me—I am a ratepayer—and my rates were incorrectly set, I would be ropeable about it. I would be ropeable about it because every 3 years I do vote for my councillors, who then select a mayor, and I would like to think that they run a pretty tight ship. I would like to say that this Government’s Better Local Government reforms have a very strong push towards enhancing the decision-making capability of councils. I would also like to say that Local Government New Zealand and the Society of Local Government Managers share that desire. I am sure that the Committee would agree that we do not need too many more of these bills, but, having said that, I believe that we have got this one in pretty good shape and I commend it to the Committee.

Let me just acknowledge my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor for ushering through an issue that is obviously very important to the people of his particular electorate. It is also an issue where nobody wins at the end. Sure, we are validating this bill, the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill, to allow the Tasman District Council to rectify a mistake it made. If we did not do that, however, the council would still need to find the money somehow, and the council would still need to depend on ratepayers.

In saying that, I have to say that from what I have heard from colleagues in this Chamber, most of us are reluctant participants in this affair. Most of us support the bill with a great deal of reluctance, particularly when we are validating a mistake made by a council. I can imagine how the ratepayers who brought this mistake to the attention of the council and to this House must be feeling at this particular point in time. I would just say to the council that despite the authority and the power that it will be able to wield with this particular piece of legislation, it is still charged with the care of, and responding with some responsibility to, the people who brought this wrong before the council.

I am not going to try to dictate to councils what they ought to be doing, but they do need to recognise that their ratepayers, the people in that city, in that town area, who are dedicated to their council—if they were not dedicated to it, they would not have brought this to their attention—will have a right to feel some sense of grievance about the wrong that has been done here. I think that the council needs to not be just holding up this piece of legislation once we sign off on it and say that this is what it is going to do but has a responsibility to meet with the ratepayers concerned and try to accommodate the circumstances they face.

Despite my name being on the committee report, I, unfortunately, did not get the opportunity to hear a lot of the submissions that were presented there. I did not get an opportunity, either, to meet the ratepayers who had brought this to our attention. So I simply say to my colleague and the council listening that I think they still have a responsibility to meet with the ratepayers concerned and to attempt to find some accommodation in the concerns or issues that they have raised as a result of the mistake made by the council.

I want to turn to the technical amendments and ask my colleague this. The technical amendments suggest that the committee looked at clauses 5(a), 6, and 9. However, I would like to know whether my colleague and the council—which is his council—are OK with clause 9. The committee did consider it and it was advised that that was outside the scope of the bill, but I am wondering why it was raised in the first instance anyway.

I want to respond briefly to the comments made by the previous speaker, Jacqui Dean, about Better Local Government. This is not the time to be promoting a policy—[Bell rung]

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I apologise. I got a little bit confused as to where I was and I gave the member a 1-minute bell. It was my mistake. I have been under pressure lately. I apologise. You have 1 minute.

I accept your apology, Chair, and thank you for giving me that 1 minute’s notice. I would say to the previous speaker that I would be very careful about promoting Better Local Government, because as I go around the country and meet up with mayors, what they are saying to me is something very, very different from what the previous speaker said. In fact, some have said to me that the Better Local Government policy is really quite deceptive because it is more about removing democracy from local government. At a period of time when local government is under attack, these kinds of bills just do not help the cause of local government. Just briefly, this is a period of time when local government is under constant attack by the reform that this Government is driving. It was only the other day that mayors felt that they had to meet in secret to try to force the Minister of Local Government to come and listen to their concerns. That is not a good sign. It is not a good sign when local government mayors have to try to force the Minister of Local Government. It is her job to be listening to mayors, and I understand that she did not bother.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Who is the Minister?

The Minister of Local Government now is Paula Bennett, but I think she is just the face of local government. I think there are probably others behind the scenes who are trying to drive this undemocratic what they call Better Local Government.

Coming back to the bill, though, these kinds of bills do not bode well for this House, and for local government in particular, particularly at this time, because I suspect that members of this Government would probably be going around the country holding up these bills as examples of why they feel vindicated by not trusting local government more and more.

Anyway, I commend my colleague again, the Hon Damien O’Connor. What a wonderful member of Parliament he is, championing the cause of ratepayers and recognising his duty to those voters in the district of Tasman, and may I wish him all the best in the coming election on 20 September.

Back by popular demand, I would like to thank the Hon Damien O’Connor for bringing this Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill to the House on behalf of his constituents. As I spoke about in the first and second readings, it is very important that we put to bed this particular issue and the issue around the rates payments in the Tasman District from 2003 through to 2008. Of course, the preamble neatly summarises the mistakes—what ought to have happened in council meetings in that period, what actually did happen, and where the faults are. So, essentially, this piece of legislation and preamble talk about the 2003-04 years right through to the 2008-09 years when the council passed rates attached to the annual plan rather than ratifying each rate individually, which needs to be done under the Local Government (Rating) Act, and setting rates before the council had actually adopted the annual plan. That was the second big mistake; it was also in breach of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002.

The rating Act provides an avenue for councils to amend and correctly set rates, but the window for that has now passed. Whether that was because the errors were not picked up quickly or because they were set aside as unimportant or were, in fact, ignored, we do not know. What we do know is that this House reluctantly now needs to pass this retrospective legislation to ensure that what is unlawful in that rates setting is now lawful. So the bill is needed to validate certain rates set incorrectly during that period. Without validation, the council remains vulnerable to legal challenge from ratepayers, and validation is also required to allow the council to collect or recover unpaid rates and penalties for expenditure that it has undertaken during that period.

Looking at the preamble here, I think that by way of example it is worth working through the errors that were made in that 2003-04 rating year. I am not going to go through the 2004-05 year, or the 2005-06, 2006-07, 2007-08, and 2008-09 years, but I think that by way of example the 2003-04 year is a good one to start at and to examine. In that particular year a special council meeting was undertaken. It was held on 26 June 2003—the birthday of many New Zealanders, I am sure.

The Tasman District Council resolved amongst a whole bunch of things, first of all, that the general rate including the utilities rate be adopted as proposed in the council’s draft annual plan. So that was the first thing. It proposed that that general rate be adopted. Secondly, there was this Motueka business rate, which the council voted to be approved for that particular financial year. There was the Richmond business rate, which it wished and, in fact, voted to be increased in that particular year, and the council also voted to adopt a community facilities rate. So there you have just four actions in that particular year: to adopt a general rate, to approve the Motueka business rate, to increase the Richmond business rate, and to adopt a community facilities rate. And I am sure the council meant well. I am sure there was some consultation about that. I am sure there was much debate in the council chambers before it voted.

Unfortunately, the funding impact statement provided that rates be paid by instalments. It set out the penalties and it set out all those rates that the council had proposed. However, the resolutions did not, in fact, comply with section 23 of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002, because the council failed in several ways. First of all, the council failed to state clearly that it was setting rates as required by that section. So the vote on the floor should have relayed the setting of those rates as associated with that section under the Act. Secondly, it failed to refer to all of the rates that were purported to be set when the resolutions referred only to the adoption of some of the rates. So it referred to a few of the rates, not all of them. It should have individually set out each of the rates that it wished to be set for that financial year.

The council did not comply with section 23 of the Act by purporting to set the rates before the council had resolved to adopt the annual plan. It should have adopted the annual plan and then set the rates, so there was an issue of order. The council failed to state the financial year to which the rates applied—a simple thing, we might think in hindsight. It did not actually state in its resolution as to which year these rates would apply. It failed to say that the rates could be paid by instalments. Lastly, it failed to resolve to authorise that penalties be added to the rates if they were not paid by a due date. So I think those are quite simple things that the council overlooked to do—say what year the rates related to, say that they could be paid in instalments, and actually say that, in fact, there were penalties that could be added to the rates if they remained unpaid.

So there we have it. Many years after the 2003-04 financial year, we are now reluctantly having to pass legislation because of the oversight of that council at that time. Of course, those oversights ran into the 2004-05 financial year, the 2005-06 financial year, the 2006-07 financial year, the 2007-08 financial year, and, lastly, the 2008-09 financial year, which we are dealing with this evening. As I say, I will not go forward and explain in detail the errors made in those subsequent financial years. Members can be assured that I know what they are, and that I know here and here what they are. I encourage members to read for themselves the preamble in the legislation to get a good understanding and grasp of what those errors were.

What I can say is that National is comfortable with passing this legislation to validate in law what should already be lawful had it been done properly and had due process been undertaken properly in the council chambers when those motions were debated, voted for, and passed. We are going to pass this legislation through the House. It is our intention in National to make lawful what should have been lawful. We do it reluctantly, because it is retrospective legislation. We understand there are still aggrieved ratepayers in the Tasman District. We know that Damien O’Connor, in a sense, was reluctant also to bring this bill to the House, but we feel that it is the right thing to do.

I do support this preamble. I challenge other speakers to perhaps go through the 2004-05 year and explain to members and to colleagues the errors that were made there. Perhaps Damien O’Connor could do that off the cuff for the 2005-06, 2006-07, 2007-08, and 2008-09 years. I will leave him to make that choice. I have highlighted the difficulties. I have highlighted what are quite difficult errors to make. Those things should simply have been passed by resolution. They were not. That is why we are here today.

I commend Mr Heatley for his detailed reading of the preamble of the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. There are eight and half pages that set out the errors that the Tasman District Council made in its rating resolutions in relation to the urban drainage areas in Tata Beach and Ligar Bay. I will not go through any more of them, because I think we would be here all night. The Green Party is supporting this bill, which the Hon Damien O’Connor has reluctantly brought to the House as retrospective legislation, because stormwater infrastructure is important. The council was trying to ensure that those growing settlements in Ligar Bay and Tata Beach had an adequate stormwater infrastructure. It made a number of mistakes, which are itemised in some detail in the preamble, in failing to ensure that the rating resolutions were separate from the annual plan, and in failing to include a map of the area that the rates would apply to. It was the detective work of Mr Schmuke and other residents of those communities who brought this to the council’s attention.

As the Hon Damien O’Connor said, the council really failed “Rating 101” in terms of the stormwater infrastructure and the rates, but there was a very concerning and quite dismissive attitude by the former chief executive officer of the council, whom Maryan Street quoted in her second reading speech, that it was cheaper to come to Parliament to get these errors fixed than it was to be involved in legal action. I think subsequently the council has realised—with a number of trips to appear in front of the Local Government and Environment Committee, a lot of meetings with the affected ratepayers, and the time that this House has had to spend on the legislation—that this is not a cheaper way of doing things. Certainly, the council has promised that it will improve, and it has improved, its processes so that it will not be guilty of making errors in the form and content of rating resolutions again and will ensure that they are in the correct form.

Stormwater infrastructure is essential for healthy communities, and the stormwater club approach that the council operates in all 16 communities in the Tasman District, where it spreads the cost of providing and maintaining this infrastructure over everyone and rates against the capital value of properties, is a fair system, so it is really unfortunate that the council made these errors in the way the rates were levied or resolved. We certainly agree with the National member for Waitaki, Jacqui Dean, that we do not want to see many more bills like this one, because they are retrospective. But we disagree with her claims that the Government’s changes to the Local Government Act will improve the way councils operate and enhance their decision-making capability, because the Local Government and Environment Committee, which considered this bill, is also considering the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3), and that legislation will make councils much less democratic and much more reliant on rates to fund community infrastructure as well as three waters infrastructure, which this bill largely deals with, and it will reduce the opportunities for public participation, which tends to then alienate ratepayers from their councils. It was only last week that we had quite a prominent National Party supporter and former Christchurch councillor Margaret Murray telling the select committee that the Government’s changes were tearing the very heart out of local government for no good reason.

This bill is something that the Green Party supports—reluctantly, like everyone else—but the changes to the local government legislation are anti-democratic in rolling out the Auckland super-city model of a big unitary council with local boards with quite limited powers. So we support this bill, but we will certainly be strongly opposing the major changes to the Local Government Act unless the select committee is able to recommend changes there. Thank you.

I take a call on the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. For those of you who suffer from insomnia, which I do at times, I recommend that you get a copy of the Hansard of Phil Heatley’s speech and take it. I am certainly going to take it home tonight. [Interruption] No, it was an interesting speech, but I say to the Hon Phil Heatley, my goodness, it was full of all sorts of facts and information that probably we did not need. At the end of the day, this council made a simple—

💬 Hon Phil Heatley: That just hurts.

—mistake, Phil. It made a simple mistake. It omitted, basically, to include a map with the information that was sent out with its annual plan. That map would have, had it been included, designated where these particular rates were going to apply. Therefore, the people in this particular area of Tata Beach and Ligar Bay were not fully aware that it applied to them. As a result, this all blew up.

The mayor of Tasman District Council, Richard Kempthorne, sent a letter on 27 August to the Hon Damien O’Connor, who is sponsoring this bill—and congratulations to that member of Parliament on bringing this through. The mayor summarised it very well. He said that the council “fully acknowledges that we made an error in setting the 2006-7 rate for the Tata Beach and Ligar Bay stormwater urban drainage area. We regret that the error was made.” He went on to say: “We also note that if we had included the required map, the rate would have been lawfully made and the rates would have payable. Therefore, passing the bill in its current form would validate a rate that would have been made lawfully if the map had been included.” He said: “We are not asking to validate something that council could not have done lawfully if we hadn’t made that mistake. The extent of, and amounts of, the rate was clear in the 2006 long-term community plan (LTCCP). When we discovered the error, we undertook a review of the inclusion of Tata Beach in the stormwater urban drainage areas (UDA) and consulted the ratepayers in Tata Beach on the options of being included in, or excluded from, the stormwater UDA. More people preferred the option of staying in the UDA, otherwise the status quo, than any of the other options.”

He said: We’ve explained to you”—this was to the MPs and to the select committee—“that Tata Beach and Ligar Bay ratepayers receive a service from the stormwater infrastructure provided in their communities, and they pay for this through our club approach. In our view, not only is there no legislative power to remit the rates but it would also be not equitable to remit the rates to the Tata Beach and Ligar Bay ratepayers. A reason for this is that it would mean other ratepayers in the district would then have to pay for stormwater services, including those in Tata Beach and Ligar Bay, while the ratepayers in Tata Beach and Ligar Bay do no pay for any.

There is a heavy demand for stormwater infrastructure across the district following recent flooding events. This is particularly prevalent in Ligar Bay following the devastating flood flow in December 2011. In the end council came to the clear view that remitting rates over 1 or more years with these ratepayers was not a lawful or practical solution.”

So in terms of that, the Local Government and Environment Committee had no alternative but to accept this information and acknowledge the fact that if there was going to be any form of remittance of rates, it would have been a burden on the rest of the ratepayers in the Tasman district, which would have been unfair. Secondly, if you then have to go and try to find ratepayers over a period of several years—and properties change ownership; they change in terms of their titles and all that sort of thing—it would be a nightmare trying to refund rates or return rates or pay out rates to whoever owned the properties at the time, and all that sort of thing. It becomes a nightmare simply because of the fact that a map was not included. It was an administrative error.

Mistakes happen. Mistakes happen in central government and mistakes happen in local government. This is a very minor mistake, a very small one. Again, as some other speakers have said, we would hope that this National Government does not again use this as an example of local government in terms of wanting to try to highlight inadequacies in local government when, in actual fact, like any organisation, there will always be human error. This was a case of human error, and we would hope that we do not for the next 6 months, while we are going through the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3), hear these sorts of excuses as justification for the National Party and the National Government kneecapping and undermining local government in this country.

We have two tiers of government. We have central government and we have local government. We do not have three, like they have in Australia or the United States or many other countries; we have only two. Our local government is very much the grassroots delivery agent for what the Government needs to roll out around this country. If this Government continues to undermine local government, as it is doing in the latest local government amendment bill, then all we will see is simply a breakdown of much of the infrastructure of New Zealand and the support infrastructure of New Zealand, which is so vital to making New Zealand a success.

In terms of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3), which is very much in line with what we are seeing in this situation, we have to support local government to do its very best, because at the end of the day there is $100 billion of assets out there in local government, and the assets in the Tasman district are just part of that. They are vital to ensuring the future success of this country, and we cannot have central government undermining the efficient delivery of service by local government throughout New Zealand.

We are hearing more and more feedback from around the provinces, around the rural areas—and these are in National Party electorates—that mayors who you would think were National Party mayors are saying enough is enough. They are getting tired of the National Party and the National Government undermining the good work that local authorities are doing throughout the country. I think it is time the National Government looked at itself seriously and asked whether it wants to bring local government to its knees, and whether it wants to end up in a situation where New Zealand communities are broken up, where communities of interest are destroyed, and where it is all about the dollar and about making money out of local government rather than making good communities and good communities of interest.

It seems to be that at the present time this National Government is wanting to drive down the council-controlled organisations route, to have decisions made behind closed doors, to have decisions made by unelected people, and to have decisions made that are in the interests of its mates, big business, and people with interests in commercialising local government rather than ensuring that local government is there to deliver on behalf of the people.

So New Zealand First supports this bill for the Tasman District Council. This is a very, very minor blip in terms of the significant work the Tasman District Council does. It is in an area that has suffered significant storms and significant flooding. There have been all sorts of significant events in the Tasman district in the last decade, and this is a very minor aberration in terms of the council’s overall work. We commend the Tasman District Council for its ongoing good work and we support this bill.

As we have heard in the Committee tonight, the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill is about validating the Tasman District Council rates from the period of 2003-04 through to 2008-09. That is when the council just did not follow correct procedure in setting its rates. It also validates the rates and the penalties paid during those periods. Then—perhaps most controversial of all—it ratifies the Tata Beach and Ligar Bay stormwater rate. As you have also heard in the Committee tonight, Parliament and parliamentarians do not like validation bills. We would much rather that councils got it right, that they used correct procedures the first time. But every now and then, just as the member Andrew Williams has spoken about, a bit of logic and a bit of common sense demand that we pass a validation bill. These bills always come to the Local Government and Environment Committee, and we work really hard to get a good result for ratepayers.

The test we apply when we are looking at these breaches is whether the rates would have been valid if the processes were followed correctly. In other words, is this a technical breach? Maybe the council used the wrong words, maybe it did not consult properly, maybe it left out a map, or maybe there was incorrect timing. Is this a technical breach rather than something that could not have been valid even if the council had done everything right? In this case these rates could all have been levied correctly. The errors were technical, and hence the Local Government and Environment Committee—because this test was passed—supported the bill.

But the committee was very sympathetic to the arguments from the ratepayers in the Tata Beach and Ligar Bay drainage area. There had been debate around what rating category was correct for the area, and why the stormwater levies were necessary when some of the houses along the beach were sitting on free-draining sandy soils and did not get affected by the severe flooding. There was also debate about where the levy money would be spent and the quality of previously installed drainage work. This had been a long and bitter debate between local ratepayers and the council, and so the committee did encourage them to try to find a negotiated solution outside the bill. We wanted them to see whether they could sort this out at a local level. In fact, we had two attempts to get some agreement between the parties, but we were unsuccessful. We considered deleting the relevant clause, which was clause 9, but that was outside the scope of this bill. So the committee decided that the time, the efforts, and the cost to the council—and so, in turn, those are the costs to the ratepayers of the Tasman District Council—far outweighed the benefits to a small number of ratepayers.

The philosophy we used when thinking about this was the fact that we all live in communities. We all pay our rates for a suite of services from local government. Individuals and neighbourhoods use more or less of those services, but by sticking together we get the best outcome for everyone. So, although some of those properties of those ratepayers in the Tata Beach and Ligar Bay area are less prone to flooding, and were not flooded during the last flooding event, the roads that led to that area and that they drive on, the community facilities that they use, and their neighbour’s properties still need to be protected from stormwater and everyone needs to contribute to the community’s solution.

We also note that this bill has required a large amount of work, effort, and expense for the Tasman District Council. We hope—and we have heard from it—that it has improved its processes and that it will be able to manage its rating decisions more efficiently. We do expect it to lift its game because we hope that it will never again require further legislation in this House. Therefore, despite our dislike of validation legislation, the Local Government and Environment Committee—after much thought, much debate—supports this legislation. Thank you.

I will just take the opportunity to perhaps summarise a few things. I appreciate the help of the Local Government and Environment Committee members and those who have spoken before to outline—some of them in much detail—what is in this legislation, the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. I would like to acknowledge Nicky Wagner and all the members of the committee, who were so cooperative. They really did try to do their best for the ratepayers of the Tasman district.

I hope that each and every councillor is actually listening to this debate. It may seem long and difficult, but they should learn from it. We do not like retrospective legislation and I have to acknowledge that the House has committed quite an amount of time to sort out a problem that was basically developed because the Tasman District Council made basic mistakes—both by the staff and in the oversight by the councillors. I would just like to say that in the preamble to the bill here, the wording is pretty much perfect except for one word that I would like to change. It does say here in recital 37 of the preamble that it is “desirable” that the irregularities relating to all the rates be fixed—no, actually it is necessary. I do not think it is desirable that the Committee should have to commit to fix this.

I think we would be sending a message quite clearly to the councillors at the Tasman District Council and to the staff in particular that they pay attention to detail. I would like to send a clearer message to some of the staff that in their dealings with the ratepayers, who are ultimately the people who carry the cost of these mistakes, they should be more cooperative. From time to time I hear stories where forms that might not have the right signature or something are rejected and sent back, and not in a helpful way but in a rather hindering way. In the spirit of the passage of this legislation, I hope that the staff at every level of the Tasman District Council acknowledge that mistakes can be made and that they are there to help people, not to hinder them.

I will just go through a couple of other things. The Tata Beach situation has been mentioned, of course. The maps were mentioned. Yes, it is true that that particular incident was incorrect and that the determination and the tenacity of Bob Schmuke and a few of those ratepayers saw them take that issue that they claim was incorrect to the Tasman District Council, which rejected them out of hand in a rather arrogant fashion. They then took that through to the Ombudsman, who ruled in their favour. In looking at this case, the Ombudsman then found fault in other areas of rate setting. Again, there is a lesson for councils. Sometimes the ratepayers—although they might seem a little obnoxious and they might seem difficult and persistent—are right. In the spirit of democracy we have to respect those people who put time and effort into trying to keep democracy open, transparent, and accountable.

In summary, I will just once again thank the Local Government and Environment Committee. There is a message here. The staff and the councillors of the Tasman District Council have to show a little more attention to detail around things like, as I have said, speed limits around schools, where they, again, have an attitude that in my view may not be correct. There are community facilities that they are not supporting because of various issues. They have got water management, they have got support for information centres, and they have got internal processes that are sometimes not helpful. What I am saying is that the consideration of Parliament and the passage of this legislation—and I thank members for their support for me and the bill—should be acknowledged by consideration right through every area of the Tasman District Council for their ratepayers, and that should flow on to the rest of the country, for people who pay hard-earned dollars to support infrastructure, to support their communities, and, sometimes, to invest in areas where councils may have some unease about that. So on this particular first part in the preamble, I guess that I have summarised some of the points that I would like to make.

I rise to speak about the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. This is, of course, a piece of legislation that should never have happened. Other speakers before me have alluded to the fact that it is a series of mistakes, incompetence, and silliness, and that is generally a darn good reason why these local government reforms that we are putting through ought to be put through in extreme haste. What we had here was a council that was, in the words of the sponsoring member of the bill, Damien O’Connor, arrogant, and it was not treating its ratepayers well. I commend also Bob Schmuke for his tenacity. I think that he is an individual who decided he would make this something that he would not let go of, and I commend his tenacity and the rigour that he brought to this particular case. Had he not persevered—as Damien O’Connor said—taking it through to the Ombudsman and really persisting when he was given the cold shoulder and every discouragement possible, then we would not be here today.

On some levels, of course, we regret being here today, because we have lived through the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill, and it is a bit like the Jaws movie, is it not—just when you thought it was safe to come back into the Chamber, another validation bill comes its way. I guess none of us want that. As other members have pointed out, not only has the council’s and ratepayers’ money and everybody’s time been wasted over a long period of years, but now taxpayers are also bearing the burden of this having to come to the House, of the waste of the House’s time, and of the waste of effort that all the advisers and everyone else—let alone the sponsoring member—have had to put into this.

I have to say that it is a little ironic when we hear the “Winston First Party” member Andrew Williams, who has a former association with the North Shore, trying to teach us—

💬 Denis O’Rourke: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I object to the term “Winston First”. That is not the correct name of the member.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Members must refer to honourable members of this House by their correct name. So in future that will be abided by.

As I was saying, for someone like Andrew Williams, who failed so spectacularly on the North Shore, to attempt to give us lessons—for the North Shore’s most famous irrigator to dare to try to hand down a few lessons from, or hand up a few lessons—

💬 Scott Simpson: What was he called?

North Shore’s most famous irrigator. Surely you have heard the stories. Everybody on the North Shore has an Andrew Williams story and most of them could not be repeated here in the Chamber. I would not waste the Committee’s time going through them yet again. They have been well-tracked through. It is interesting to see that he talks about his insomnia. I think his treatments for it were the traditional ones, which had then enlivened his late-night texting and caused him the sort of infamy that even he will never live down. But it is ridiculous to—

💬 Tim Macindoe: Probably just lemons.

Lemonade—well, whatever it was—who knows? You do not want to go to into those dark thoughts of what he might have had. I guess that—

💬 Tim Macindoe: Aiding the lemon.

Aiding the lemon. Yes, he would have had something to go with the lemons—you are quite right. There is some very helpful advice coming through.

When Andrew Williams talks about people making mistakes at the local government level, he is after all the expert in that matter, because, you know, mistakes, he has made a few, and they continue to haunt him to this day. So there are layers and layers of irony that such a failed individual, who has so conspicuously not delivered in his own area—the lowest-polling candidate and the guy who never made it back as mayor—did not even get back on one of the local boards. This is the kind of individual whom we will not be taking notice of, and we will certainly not be following any advice that he gives. In fact, I am surprised that we did not have a “North Shore Council Validation Bill”—from mistakes that that man would have made when he was the mayor. [Interruption] No, no. That has all been abolished now, partly because of people like himself.

As I have said, the local government reforms that this Government is putting through at the moment are, of course, absolutely essential, when we look at what has happened with Kaipara and with the Tasman District Council. I think that when you do look at incompetence and slack councils, the ratepayers are in a position where they really do need central government to step in and lead the way. It is disappointing—very disappointing—that it has to happen, but this is a Government that does not shirk from its responsibilities. We will absolutely ensure that the legislation goes through with due consultation and through due process, unlike what happened with the Tasman District Council.

I look at some of the submissions that we had—Lindsay McKenzie, the chief executive, came to us. This was the council that was actually part of the problem. Perhaps the sponsoring member might like to clarify this point for us, but in terms of the people who were in positions of responsibility when this mistake with the map was made, it would be interesting to know just how many of them were still involved, or did the ratepayers get their way, ultimately, and do what all people need to do when they do not like people in public office and vote them out? We have seen that, of course, with Labour, which had, I think, its lowest polling ever. Would it have been in the last elections or was that in 2008? Anyway, voters, whether they are paying their rates or paying their taxes are absolutely within their rights to exercise their democratic right to vote people out. So I am assuming that most of the people who caused the problems at the Tasman District Council were thrown out on their ears.

The background of this bill is indeed interesting. I think, when you look at the options that the council left itself, there were not too many. Three, in fact, were outlined to us by the chief executive of the now Tasman District Council. An Order in Council was one of the things that the council could have been given, according to its legal advice. A replacement rate was the other option. Then there was a local bill, and that is when Damien O’Connor took up the challenge of putting this bill through. The council had no choice. It had boxed itself into a corner, and that is why the bill is here today.

I think the other standout submission for me was from the office of the Mayor of the Tasman district, Richard Kempthorne. He wrote us a submission, of course, and then he came and saw us as well and talked about the fact that the council did admit and acknowledge that it had made an error in setting those 2006-07 rates for the Tata Beach - Ligar Bay stormwater urban drainage area. The council regretted that that error was made and it fessed up to it, but it also noted—and I think this is an important point—that if it had included that map, the rate would have been lawfully made and the rates would have been payable. Therefore, passing the bill in its current form would validate a rate that would have been made lawful if the map had been included. It was not asking the select committee to validate something the council could not have done lawfully if it had not made the mistake. So when we look at the facts of the matter, as they were outlined and as admitted by the mayor, the facts were very clear and very straightforward. The enduring miracle—

💬 Andrew Williams: Nice compliment to repeat.

—apart from the fact that the person who is trying to interject at the moment was ever elected mayor, let alone thrown out on his ear after one term. Apart from that miracle of silliness from the ratepayers—a momentary aberration—the fact that this council did actually get up and admit that it had done wrong, and admitted and supported what Damien O’Connor has done, is ultimately a commendable thing.

I think when we look at this bill, it is pretty straightforward. There are a number of things that need to be learnt. And I must say, when the Local Government and Environment Committee was presented with some of those laminated photographs of the beach area and we looked at the Ligar Bay area, in particular, we could see that it was a pretty straightforward sort of solution. Ultimately, I guess there are silver linings to this particular cloud, and one of them is that, basically, this will not happen again—certainly not in this neck of the woods, in Tasman, and, hopefully, not in Kaipara either. I think that once we look at what we can do as a Government to continue on with local government reforms, we can ensure that ratepayers are protected from the sorts of silliness that we have seen in both of these places around New Zealand that have resulted in members’ bills, which are expensive, time-consuming, and, ultimately, things that we would rather not have to go through. But we are here.

There was unanimity across the select committee.

💬 Scott Simpson: The price of democracy.

It is the price of democracy and it is what we need to do really to ensure—as Alan Martin used to say—that it is the putting right that counts. And that is what is happening, so I commend Damien O’Connor for putting this bill through.

I would be very interested in the sponsoring member’s response to the question I put to him about how many of the councillors remain and whether there is still a residue of bitterness and anger in that community, or whether, by putting this validation through, it will put things right for a community that has suffered. For someone like Bob Schmuke, I hope that the slurs on his reputation, the put-downs, and the arrogance that he had to endure have been worth it. I have not heard back from Mr Schmuke at all, but I did commend him on his tenacity at the time and welcomed that he had come through to us, and I hope that Mr O’Conner will pass that on.

We do need more Mr Schmukes. We could have used them on the North Shore a few years ago, but we have come right now and it is all working terrifically well. I think that they are very well represented by Jonathan Coleman on one side at Northcote. Once again, a Labour seat briefly, but people saw the light and Jonathan Coleman was then introduced.

I will have to leave it there—all choked up. Thank you very much.

Kia ora, Mr Chairperson. I stand to take a call on the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. Like my colleagues here, I would like to reiterate that the bill will validate rates set by the Tasman District Council for the period from 2003-04 to 2008-09. I think that it is really important to reiterate that because it is just for that one period of time. As we heard, this is retrospective legislation. The member Damien O’Connor brought it here. He was supportive of the legislation but not overly enthusiastic, and I think that we have got a sense of that here from the debate this evening.

The council did not follow correct process in setting the rates, and we have also heard that this was a mistake. However, we would hope that, being retrospective, it will not happen again. Therefore, we are going to ensure that with this legislation going forward, these kinds of things will be put in place. In respect of the local councils, National’s Better Local Government reforms will help make local government more efficient, responsive, and well focused, which is another reason why we have given support to this bill, and it deserves to be given its due diligence. Better Local Government reforms include a work stream to monitor and improve council performance to help prevent future procedural errors. Again, this is not the only council where this has happened, so we are hoping that the council going forward will ensure that these types of mistakes do not occur again.

This bill will highlight to other councils, as I have said, the importance of proper scrutiny when setting rates. For the sake of consistency, a technical amendment will be made to clauses 5(a), 6, and 9 to replace the words “declared to have been” with “declared to be and to always have been”. The Local Government and Environment Committee was sympathetic to proposals to delete clause 9 but found that this course of action would be outside the scope of the bill. As such, the committee recommended only the technical amendments discussed in its report. Clause 9 seeks to validate targeted rates set by the council for the 2006-07 financial year for the purposes of stormwater works in the Ligar Bay and Tata Beach urban drainage areas.

The committee noted that there would be many practical implications of deleting clause 9. That time has passed since the rates were set, compounds this issue. Without validation the council would be required to determine which ratepayers had paid their rates in 2006-07 and the amounts that they had paid; to ascertain whether the current ratepayers were the same ratepayers as those in 2006-07—and I think some of my colleagues have already talked about that too—to apportion rates if there are or were multiple owners; and to write to each ratepayer, advising them of the amount of their refund and requesting bank details for those repayments. The merits of setting the stormwater rate were found to be outside the scope of this bill, as well.

In 2003-04 and in 2008-09 the council passed rates attached to the annual plan, rather than ratifying each rate individually, and it set rates before the council had adopted the annual plan. This was in breach of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002. That Act provides avenues for councils to amend incorrectly set rates, but the window of time has now passed. So this bill is needed in order to validate certain rates set incorrectly during that period, and without validation the council remains vulnerable to legal challenge from ratepayers over incorrectly set rates. Validation is also required to allow the council to recover unpaid rates and penalties, and I think, again, that my colleagues across the Committee have already talked about that.

Some residents objected to details of the stormwater rate, and they said that they were not properly consulted on the urban drainage area—that was a really big concern for the select committee—and that they were being charged for stormwater services that they were not using. The committee has noted that aspects of the council’s consultation were not ideal, but steps have been taken by the council to improve the way the rates are set so that similar errors are not made in the future. A key part of National’s Better Local Government reforms is monitoring and improving council performance. Publicity about the bill will show other councils that their own processes may come under greater scrutiny.

I just want to reflect on the whakapapa of that area and to put it into some kind of context historically, in terms of its whakapapa. In respect of Tata Beach, that is also part of an area next to Pōhara. The area of Golden Bay that we know now as Golden Bay was identified as the area where first Pākehā-Māori contact was had, by crew members of the ship of the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. Unfortunately for those crew members, the local Māori there killed them. So I think that was just something that was very much an aside, so that there might be some kind of historical context regarding Pōhara in that area. I commend the bill to the Committee.

Preamble agreed to.

Part 1 Preliminary provisions