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

I would like to reiterate that the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill will validate the rates set by the Tasman District Council for the period 2003-04 to 2008-09, during which time the council did not follow correct process in setting rates. The bill will also validate rates and penalties paid over that period, authorise the council to recover any unpaid rates, and ratify the Tata Beach and Ligar Bay stormwater rates. This bill is, as we have heard this evening, retrospective legislation, but it is very necessary legislation in order to set the foundations for better local government going forward.

This National Government is about Better Local Government reforms. It is about allowing those councils to make those very hard decisions, especially under increasing pressure. However, mistakes like this do occur and we are hopeful that this legislation will minimise the risk going forward and will ensure that other councils learn from this mistake. Better Local Government reforms include work streams to monitor and improve council performance. This legislation will reinforce to those councils that they will be monitored and that compliance must be met. Although those viewers at home may find that this is very technical and rather dour and boring, it is absolutely necessary that we get this right for the sake of the Tasman District Council and all other councils going forward. I say again that this is retrospective legislation, but it is necessary. Of course, it is being supported across the Committee, albeit not overly enthusiastically, but, again, the bill has got to be given its due diligence.

For the sake of consistency, technical amendments will be made, as we have heard this evening. The Local Government and Environment Committee was sympathetic to the proposals that were brought forward by members of the Tasman District community to delete clause 9. However, it must be reinforced that the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill is absolutely necessary for the Tasman District Council to go forward in a robust fashion. The committee noted that there would be many practical implications of deleting clause 9, which is actually quite important. It needs to be reiterated and reinforced that the time that had passed since those rates were set compounds this. Without validation of the stormwater rates, the council would be required to determine which ratepayers had paid the rate in 2006-07 and the amount that they paid. I am repeating this because although this bill may seem to be technically very detailed, it is absolutely crucial that clarification around these technical details is had. The merits of setting a stormwater rate were found to be outside this bill and I think that that needs to be reiterated as well, given the submissions that wanted that to be done.

From 2003-04 to 2008-09 the council passed rates attached to the annual plan rather than ratifying each rate individually, and that is something that this council will need to do going forward. To ensure that this does not occur again, the council will need to implement procedures to ensure it meets compliance with the legislation. This was in breach of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002.

The Local Government (Rating) Act provides an avenue for councils to amend incorrectly set rates, but the window of time had passed. The bill, as we have heard, is needed to validate certain rates that were set incorrectly during that period. Without the validation, the council remains vulnerable to legal challenges from ratepayers over incorrectly set rates. Validation is also required to allow the council to recover unpaid rates and penalties.

Some residents have objected to details of the stormwater rate. They were not properly consulted on the urban drainage area and they are being charged for stormwater services that are not being used. The committee noted that aspects of the council’s consultation were not ideal, but steps taken—

We are dealing with clauses 1 and 2, I believe, of this bill. The title, which is the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill, could, I suppose, just as easily be the “Tasman District Council (Recovery and Validation of Certain Rates) Bill”, but I think the word “validation” probably should come first, followed by the word “recovery”. If we were to have the word “recovery” before the word “validation”, we would get ourselves into a terrible pickle. So I agree in essence with the title as it is laid out. It has to be the Tasman District Council, because that is the council that is affected by this bill. It cannot be any other council. What puzzles me, however, is that the bill says “2013”, because, as we all know, it is 2014 at the moment. But I presume that that is part of how it is operated.

So we are dealing here with the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill, and that, I suppose, in essence, is the problem that we had with the legislation—that the rates were not certain at all because they had been incorrectly rated. So this bill here is indeed attempting to validate what had been made uncertain by the poor process. If we can make those rates more certain, then we can give certainty back to the people of the Tasman District, who have been going through a difficult time because of this bill.

The second clause relates to when the bill comes into force. Again, the suggestion is that it would be the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent. Again, that makes perfect sense, because you certainly would not want it to take force the day before it received the Royal assent, because that would not be appropriate. It could have been considerably later at any particular given time and, indeed, a number of people considered various options. It could have been 1 January 2015, for example, but, in essence, the Local Government and Environment Committee was persuaded that it did not make any sense necessarily to stick with 1 January, but, rather, to go with the date as suggested so as to come into force exactly on the day after the date on which this bill receives its Royal assent. On that basis, I think I will leave it. I just wanted to make a short call on these clauses 1 and 2. Thank you.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment presently.