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

I move, That the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill be now read a third time. We have now come to the third reading of the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill, and I know that there will be many officials and councillors in Richmond and the Tasman area who will be relieved to know that the bill is about to pass through the House. It has been some time in coming. In fact, it was 23 January last year, I think, when the bill had its first reading referral to the Local Government and Environment Committee. So it has taken some time to come through the process, and I am sure that the council has felt as though it is on tenterhooks since that time.

Reluctantly, I think all members of the select committee, and Parliament, of course, realised that this bill needed to pass through to rectify the mistakes—that would be the polite word, I guess—that had been made by the Tasman District Council in setting rates that were wrong not just in 1 year but, in fact, from 2003-04 through to 2008-09. Mistakes will be made and we accept that we must rectify them. Parliament does not like putting through retrospective legislation, but we will do so to assist the ratepayers of the Tasman District Council.

The lesson here for staff in all councils up and down this country is to listen a little more carefully to ratepayers who may raise issues from time to time, trying to alert them to mistakes, possibly, or to things that need improvement, more likely. All too often—and I have to say that it still occurs within the Tasman District Council—the officials and ultimately the councillors, who are supposed to run the officials, do not listen carefully enough to wise and sensible propositions from ratepayers. One of the issues at the moment, and it has taken me about 2 years to make some progress with the council, is the speed limits outside schools. I am not going to dwell on that other than to ask that the Tasman District Council and other councils take more action in a more timely way to improve the way that they operate.

When ratepayers like Mr Schmuke and his group of ratepayers at Tata Beach and Ligar Bay raise issues about possible irregularities—the possible illegal setting of rates—then they should be listened to with an open mind and not simply shut down by the council, as happened here. Mr Schmuke should be applauded. His tenacity took this issue through to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman then ruled that not only were the rates for the urban drainage area of Ligar Bay and Tata Beach wrong but, in fact, the rates relating to this longer period were wrong. That is why the Tasman District Council had to draft this legislation.

I am happy to support this bill on behalf of the ratepayers of the Tasman District Council, to move forward and to ensure that we have proper rates-setting in retrospect but also that we have a better system going forward. As I said, the comment to the select committee that this was a failure of “Rates 101” is perhaps something that council staff should not forget. It should prompt them, as I say, to have an open mind, to always be listening to the thousands of ratepayers who in their own right are astute and inquisitive and who have good ideas to improve the way we run our local government systems. Do not shut them out in the future.

It is with that in mind that I thank the House. I thank the select committee for its careful consideration. There was another hearing of both parties relating to the Tata Beach and Ligar Bay urban drainage area in an attempt to try to find some solution. I know that not all parties feel happy about the solution. In the end, politics is the art of the possible. We have moved forward, and hopefully such mistakes will not occur again. I am happy to have sponsored this bill and, as I say, to have appreciated the wider support of Parliament. Kia ora.

I am very pleased to be speaking to the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill at its third reading. I would really like to commend the work of Damien O’Connor, who is the sponsor of this bill, because he makes a very good point. This bill came to the House because of the disputes between the ratepayers and the Tasman District Council, and those things could have been dealt with earlier if those parties had been more sympathetic to each other. In the Local Government and Environment Committee we did try. We actually had the council and the ratepayers to the select committee on two occasions, and we tried to mediate something, because, of course, again, as Damien O’Connor has said, Parliament does not like validation legislation. It does not like anything that looks backwards. We like to be positive and look forwards. We have had a rash of validation legislation recently. Unfortunately, those bills do come before us, and I think really that in this case it was because of errors. There was no malicious intent that led to this situation. In the long term, Parliament has to pass this legislation for the public good.

What this bill actually does is validate the rates that were set by the Tasman District Council in the period from 2003-04 to 2008-09, and that was a while ago. That was because, during that time, the council did not follow the correct procedure in setting rates. The bill also validates the rates and penalties paid over that period and authorises the council to recover any unpaid rates. Furthermore, it ratifies the Tata Beach and Ligar Bay stormwater rate, and that is really the most controversial part of this bill. From 2003-04 to 2008-09 the Tasman District Council passed rates attached to its annual plan rather than ratifying each rate individually, and the council set the rates before it had adopted the annual plan. This was a breach of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002. There was also the debate over the consultation and the documentation pertaining to the Tata Beach and Ligar Bay stormwater rate.

The Local Government (Rating) Act does provide an avenue for councils to amend incorrectly set rates, such as in this case, but the window for that time had passed. So unless you do it immediately, you have to go through validation legislation. This validation is required in order to allow the council to recover unpaid rates and penalties. Without the validation the council remains vulnerable to legal challenges from ratepayers over incorrectly set rates.

As I have said, the Tata Beach and Ligar Bay stormwater rate was probably the most controversial area in this bill, and it boiled down to a debate between the ratepayers and the council. There was a debate over how the ratepayers should have been rated, but that was not the legal situation that led to this bill. Basically, what happened was that there was a mistake in the documentation. The process was not followed correctly, and when the ratepayers complained, they did not get a sympathetic hearing from the council. That escalated. It escalated till they went to the Ombudsman and actually dealt with the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman came back and said that, yes, the council had made a mistake, and then it had to go through all its documentation from the past, and all these other areas, again, came to light. So it was because of the ratepayers and because of this dispute between the ratepayers and the council that this situation came to pass.

In this legislation, clause 9 is the clause that deals with this rate, and the select committee was very sympathetic to the proposals to perhaps delete clause 9, simply because that was what uncovered all the errors. But we found that it was outside the scope of the bill and that it was impossible for us to do. That is why we persevered with trying to come to some arrangement between the council and the ratepayers.

One of the key issues that we need to think about in terms of this type of legislation—and I echo the concern of Damien O’Connor about councils working more closely with their ratepayers—is that, when you really think about it, councils and ratepayers want the same outcomes for themselves. They want to have the same thing. We need good infrastructure and we need good, efficient services, and that is to underpin a quality of lifestyle in their area. Ratepayers and councils should be working together because, after all, they are mostly reasonable, sensible people, and together they can get a better outcome.

The Local Government and Environment Committee worked hard on this bill. As I say, we have been looking at validation legislation, and this was another case that came through. We reflected on the fact that councils do need to be very careful with their documentation, and we think that, going forward, legislation needs to be simpler so that it can be understood. National is very keen to make local government more efficient, more responsive, and better focused.

The other thing that I think is important for this bill is that it will highlight to other councils how important it is that they get their documentation correct. When you look at the errors that were made in this case, I am sure there are other councils throughout New Zealand that have probably made similar errors. They need to be very careful about how they do that. I have also heard that there are more validation bills to come to the House.

Finally, I would like to thank Damien O’Connor for his work. I think this is a very good example of a council that perhaps should have been more careful with its documentation, but also should have been more careful with its relationship with its ratepayers. In the end, this validation legislation has to be passed so that the council can collect the rates and penalties from during that time and also so that it is not vulnerable to legislation in the future. So I support this bill to the House.

Talofa lava, Mr Assistant Speaker. All that needs to be said on the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill has been said. To repeat the same thing over and over again only delays the inevitable. This House needs to pass this bill and support the Tasman District Council and its peoples.

It is a huge pleasure to rise and speak to the third reading of the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill—

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: You didn’t rise; you sauntered in.

—yeah—and with due respect to the previous speaker, Su’a William Sio, although this is the third reading of this bill, I do think that it requires a decent scrutiny by this House. I am never one to rush things. I do not think that we as members should be rushing, particularly on local bills. If I reflect on some of the local bills that I personally have been associated with—and I do hope that the House will indulge me just to—

💬 Moana Mackey: Oh no! It’s going to be like a Wikipedia entry.

Yes. I can give chapter and verse. Moana Mackey, over the other side, wants chapter and verse of some of the local bills. I do not think we should make light of the importance of local bills coming to this House, because it is a privilege for a local member to host a bill through the House. The reason it is a privilege is that a local bill will deal with matters that might not be of great moment—[Interruption] Local—thank you, Minister Tolley. A local bill deals with matters that may not be of great moment to the nation but certainly are to the local community. The Minister is absolutely right.

I can think about some other local bills that have been before this House. I brought one on behalf of the Waitaki District Council, to do with the designation of a piece of land. That sounds as dry as an old chip, and on first blush, yes, it would be as dry as an old chip, except that it did mean an awful lot to that particular local community. In fact, I venture to say that for a number of years it proved to be hugely divisive amongst that community. Some members of the community wished to see development on that land and others wanted to see the land staying the way it was and always has been, and each of them went to the council to try to clarify that designation.

That is what we want our local authorities to do. Goodness me! We stand up in this House all the time, calling on our local authorities to be precise in their deliberations and make good decisions on behalf of their communities. Sometimes, making good decisions on behalf of their communities is not helped by some little flaw in the legislation or, in fact, as with the Tasman District Council, by some slightly suboptimal decision-making processes. Going back to the Waitaki District Council example, it was not a suboptimal decision—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Speak to the bill.

Thank you. That is Trevor Mallard, over the other side, who is another member who is intolerant of local issues. I am kind of interested in local issues because I have got a pretty cool electorate, and I do want to talk about the importance of a local bill to a local community. In the Waitaki, with the local bill, it was not a matter of poor decision-making on behalf of the local authority. It was a mistake made way back in 1938 in the land registry. I know that Trevor Mallard does not have patience with this kind of detail of legislation. I think a lot of it just goes over his head, and so he puts on this big, buffoonery front—[Interruption] I will yield. There is a point of order.

💬 Eugenie Sage: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understood we were discussing the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. The Waitaki bill, which the member for Waitaki is talking about, this House passed some time ago.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you for drawing that to the House’s attention. I think the member makes a very valid point. I would ask the member to come to the bill.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I do appreciate the guidance. The connection that I am making here is that this is a local bill and it is of great matter, but not, perhaps, to the whole Parliament.

💬 Hon Annette King: Very good.

It is a good local bill—a very good local bill. It is not of great moment to the Parliament but, certainly, to the local community. So now I come, naturally, to talk about the Tasman District Council and the issues that have beset that council.

The Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill is about validating rates. If I were to expand the conversation just a little bit, the validation of rates by means of a local bill in Parliament is not ideal. It is suboptimal, but sometimes it is necessary to do that. This is one of those cases. On behalf of the local community—and I do regret that members across the House do not find value in talking about other local communities and the troubles they have had with their local bills. I do regret that people like Eugenie Sage and the member for—I do not know; Wellington somewhere.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Hutt South.

Oh, Hutt South. I do regret that they do not see value in talking around the wider issues that beset local communities.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know you are not allowed to draw attention to members reading their speeches, but I think you are allowed to draw attention to people reading speeches on the wrong bills. Maybe she should read the speech for the right bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just thank the member and tell him it is for the Speaker to recognise whether a member is reading from the bill.

Thank you so much, Mr Assistant Speaker. The Assistant Speaker is quite right, and, of course, he himself is shepherding a local bill through the House. At least the Assistant Speaker, unlike the member for Hutt South—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The member cannot bring me into the debate.

Of course. I do thank the Assistant Speaker for allowing me to continue with this speech. The Tasman District Council has brought in a bill to validate rates that were incorrectly set in the past. The reason Parliament is taking so much time, and the reason I have tried to give some context around this—which I suspect will be appreciated more through the wireless than in the House, because the mainly list members on the other side of the House are not as well connected with their communities—is that when a rates validation bill is brought to the House we are not quite having to paper over the cracks, perhaps, but we are being asked as parliamentarians to put right, by means of a local bill, mistakes that were made at local authority level.

It is an important function of our Parliament, and speaker after speaker—those who understand the issues; the Hutt South member excepted—know that Parliament is uncomfortable picking up the pieces from local government. It is our desire to have strong local government that is efficient, on behalf of its ratepayers. Why do we want that? Quite simply because it is ratepayers’ money. Ratepayers deserve good, decent decision-making from their local authorities, because it is their money, it is their rating, and it is their services that we are dealing with.

Although Parliament is sympathetic to the Tasman District Council bringing the bill to us, we certainly do not want, as a Parliament, to see—and I think for once I speak for most of us—too many bad decisions being made at local authority level that Parliament is then required to redress, as is the case here. What we are dealing with here is the validation of rates. I pay rates. I pay lots of rates. I would like to know that the money that goes to my local authority quarterly—and I sure notice it going out of our bank account and into the district council’s—is being spent well. I want to know that the money that is going out of my bank account and into the council’s account is being wisely spent, based on good decision-making.

If the members across the House think that the context around that, which I have spoken about today, is irrelevant or outside the scope of this bill, well, I disagree. I think we must never forget the functions of local government, and when we have a case like this, having to deal with some mistakes, we should always remember that this is not Parliament’s money that we are dealing with. This is not the Government’s money we are dealing with. This is the money of the people of New Zealand. This is ratepayers’ money, including people like me and, no doubt, Louise Upston. This is our money that is being spent by our local authorities, and we want that money spent well.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Argh!

Again, poor old Trevor Mallard just cannot cope. It is because he is not in touch with his community. I think that that is the basic problem with a lot of the Labour members of Parliament, actually. Most of them are list MPs, but those who are constituency members just are not in touch with their communities and do not understand the importance. I have great pleasure in supporting this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker, and thank you. I will make a very short call on the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. This bill deals with the funding of stormwater infrastructure in several small Golden Bay settlements. It corrects mistakes that the Tasman District Council made in the way it set its rates to fund that stormwater infrastructure from 2003-04 to 2008-09. The council is embarrassed by those administrative mistakes. It has apologised for those errors.

In the Committee stage we had National members reading at length from the bill itself, so I think members of this House and any listeners are very familiar with the content of the bill and what it does. We should simply get on and pass it. Thank you.

I have to agree with the Green member who has just taken her seat, Eugenie Sage. We have gone over and over the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill numerous times. We had extensive discussion in the Committee stage. We know the issues. None of us likes to be passing retrospective legislation to validate rates that were set unlawfully, but we need just to get on and do it.

It is a pleasure to be giving this speech on the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. I have had a significant number of meetings with constituents about the bill and this issue. The Tasman District Council is part of the Nelson constituency. About half of the people who actually live in the Tasman District are constituents of mine, and I have taken a strong interest in this bill over the last 5 or 6 years. There has been a group of quite aggrieved ratepayers who do not agree with the way in which the Tasman District Council chose to levy them for stormwater rates in the area of both Tata Beach and Ligar Bay—a truly beautiful part of Golden Bay, an area where there are a number of baches and holiday-type homes, a place where I have often gone with my family and holidayed. At the core of the issue for that Ligar Bay community is that there are different levels of stormwater risk. There are some of those property owners who are at some elevation and overlook Ligar Bay, and there are those who are right down by the estuary and beach and who are subject to quite a lot more stormwater risk. At the core of some of the local argument has been whether everybody should pay equally, relative to the value of their property, or they should be paying a different amount depending on what level of stormwater and flood risk they have.

A number of homeowners have raised concern with the council. They think the rate was levied unfairly. The view that we on this side of the House have taken is that we do not want to usurp the job of the Tasman District Council and its community board in Golden Bay to resolve those tensions and those inevitable arguments about where the money should be spent. The real question for us relates to the administrative anomalies in the way that these rates were struck, and I would note that these were years when we were not the Government. During the period all the way through from 2003 to 2008 the Tasman District Council did not follow the right procedural routine for striking those rates. I think there is a legitimate question, and that is whether when the previous Government passed the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002 it invested sufficiently in communicating to councils at both an administrative and an elected-officer level and whether it put in the necessary resources so there were no mistakes of this sort made. The fact there were mistakes made not just in 2003-04 but in, frankly, every single year following that suggests that there was an under-investment in communication and around the new requirements of that 2002 Local Government (Rating) Act.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Why did every other council get it right?

Well, there is a question for Parliament, having had the Tasman District Council members at the Local Government and Environment Committee, which my colleague noted. They were embarrassed by the mistake and they apologised for the mistake, and Mr Trevor Mallard, from the other side of the House, would be the last one to be standing up in this House and say he has never made any mistakes.

💬 Maggie Barry: Tens of thousands of mistakes. He’s an expert on mistakes.

My colleague quite rightly refers to Trevor Mallard as an expert on mistakes. We are a forgiving Government, a kind Government, and in the case of Tasman District Council there is no question that it was an honest mistake. There is no question from the evidence the select committee heard as to what the intent of the elected council was when it struck each of these rates in the period from 2003 through to 2008. That is why Government members are saying that, yes, we acknowledge that there are some grumpy ratepayers, we acknowledge that it is pretty arbitrary in terms of how you allocate the stormwater costs for that Ligar Bay and Tata Beach community, but to be pragmatic we need to pass this bill. We need to look at what the counter would be.

If we did not pass this bill, what would be the consequence? There would be a huge administrative burden on the Tasman District Council to go back to each of those ratepayers over each of those 5 years and to then give them a rates refund. Some of those properties have changed hands since, and it would be necessary to try to find where those owners are, and then, of course, the council has got the difficulty that it needs to fill that financial hole. That would be a cost that would sit on a good number of my constituents in the Nelson electorate who are ratepayers to the Tasman District Council, and that would be a very unsatisfactory outcome.

So it makes sound sense for Parliament to do the generous thing, to accept the apology from the Tasman District Council, to ensure that it has got its system sorted so that mistakes of this sort are not repeated, but taking that pragmatic view to allow those rates in that community to stand. I would note that although the focus of the submissions and the angst have been around the issues of rates for the Ligar Bay community, there are actually other communities who are also affected by this bill. We are dealing with river works around the community of Māpua. We are dealing with the ASB Aquatic and Fitness Centre in Richmond and the way in which rates were struck in the 2008-09 year. We are dealing with rates not just in 1 year at Tata Beach and Ligar Bay but actually over 5 consecutive years.

One of the things that the Government does take a sympathetic view of in respect of ratepayers is that if we look over this period not just in Tasman District but across New Zealand, we see that there were excessive rate rises. Over that period we had rate rises going up by 8 to 9 percent every single year, year on year. We would say on this side of the House that the previous Government was far too cavalier about the cost on ratepayers of that Local Government (Rating) Act 2002, and that is why this Government is making changes to that Act to get a greater degree of financial discipline so that we have councils not contributing to the cost pressures. I was quite pleased to see the latest rates data, which has shown that rate increases over both the last 2 years since this Government has advanced local government reforms have come down quite significantly, and I think that is a positive in terms of the underlying tensions from those ratepayers who were concerned about these illegal rates and the ongoing increase that has occurred.

In conclusion, this is an unfortunate bill. It is not the sort of bill that Parliament likes to advance, but it is pragmatic legislation that recognises that there were mistakes made, that there was no question as to what the intent of the council was, and that there would be a very significant cost to the ratepayers not just in Golden Bay or in Ligar Bay but throughout Tasman District if this bill was not passed. My view is that Mayor Richard Kempthorne and his council have taken a pretty conciliatory view. They have apologised to their ratepayers, they have apologised to Parliament, and that means that the passage of this bill puts right that administrative error in the way that incurs the least ongoing cost to the collective ratepayers of Tasman District. I think there is a challenge for the Tasman District Council to rebuild the confidence particularly of the people in Ligar Bay and Tata Beach. I do think they need to go back to that community and, having raised these rates, work through in the longer term to ensure that the rates are spent appropriately—that the money is invested in proper stormwater systems for that Ligar Bay and Tata Beach community particularly—so that those ratepayers who inevitably had to pay these charges, albeit unlawfully and now to be made lawful, actually see some of the infrastructure that they would have expected from those rates contributions that they made between 2003 and 2008.

This is a bill that Parliament should pass in the interests of pragmatism, so that the Tasman District Council can get on with the business of trying to provide efficient services for the communities it serves, without these sorts of errors being repeated. Thank you.

I recognise the honourable member Andrew Williams.

Thank you for recognising me, because you did not in the Koru lounge on Tuesday morning, calling me Brian once again. So thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I think that is about the fifth time you have called me Brian in the last 2 months. But as you did say in the Koru lounge, you do always recognise me correctly in the House.

Having said that, Brian—sorry, Mr Assistant Speaker—New Zealand First does support this bill, the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill, and we commend Damien O’Connor, the local member for Labour there, for bringing this to the House and helping to sort this out on behalf of the Tasman District Council and, indeed, its ratepayers. At the end of the day, there were some administrative errors made. Everybody makes mistakes. It would appear, listening to the speeches of the National Party members, that nobody in their party makes mistakes. They seem to think that they are perfect and that people should not make mistakes.

But in this situation, quite simply, what happened was that a map was not included when the council sent out the advice with the official documentation to the ratepayers, and the map did not determine exactly where the rates were being struck in terms of Ligar Bay and Tata Beach. It was simply the omission of that map that meant that the rates that were struck for the area were not deemed to be valid. We need to rectify that so that for those 4 or 5 years that the rates were taken, the rates are not required to be clawed back. To try to claw them back and to try to refund those rates to those ratepayers would be almost impossible, because properties change hands, owners change, people come and go. Therefore, it would be virtually impossible.

At the same time, if those rates were refunded, the burden of the cost of those rates goes on to the remaining ratepayers of the district, and why should the remaining ratepayers across the Tasman District pick up the tab for what was simply an administrative error? It is a lose-lose situation for all, in a sense, and we have to validate it to turn it into a win-win, so that everyone can just get on with it.

At the end of the day every council has a collective responsibility across every community to provide for stormwater and all sorts of other services. In this situation there was a collective responsibility to provide the infrastructure in this area. They have had some significant flooding through this area at different times. They have had some terrible disasters and storms that have gone through the Tasman District. At the end of the day they are very dependent on having stormwater provisions, and this is just one of them.

Also, we heard today some interesting comments from Nick Smith. He said—and so did some of the other National members—that councils are responsible for making sure this all happens, and that there is a responsibility on both councillors and the council staff to ensure that this all goes tickety-boo and goes to plan. However, much of this is also on the basis of what is handed to them in terms of the legislation from this Parliament—from central government. Councils have to work within that legislation. Too often, central government politicians, particularly National Government politicians, criticise local government and say that it is not fulfilling its requirements. Yet what local government is doing most of the time is actually carrying out what is required of it under legislation.

It is very interesting when the Hon Nick Smith talks about the rate rises running at 8 or 9 percent in some areas of New Zealand in the early part of the 2000s. One of the reasons for that—for instance, in the Auckland situation; and it was identified in a number of reports—is that Auckland, for instance, received $7 billion of underfunding for its roading and infrastructure over a 15-year period from central government petrol taxes. That is one of the reasons why Auckland got into an incredible traffic jam. Had Auckland received the amount of petrol taxes that the people of the Greater Auckland region had paid over that 15-year period, there would be $7 billion more in the kitty to spend on roading and transport infrastructure in the Auckland area.

As a result, today much of the roading that was started under a Labour Government, with support from New Zealand First in the mid-2000s, is now being finished. It should probably have been finished 10 years ago. Also, as a result, much of the other public transport infrastructure would have been completed. So we cannot always point the finger at councils.

In the present situation, again, regarding Tasman District Council, the Hon Nick Smith says that councils like the Tasman District Council and others have to cut their cloth and work on behalf of their ratepayers. Nicky Wagner, the chair of our Local Government and Environment Committee, said the same. However, this very same National Government, which is at the moment looking at the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3), is in the process of removing development levies from how the councils operate and how they take their revenues. It is removing development levies from the provision of community infrastructure.

Community infrastructure covers things like sports grounds, recreational facilities, libraries, swimming pools, and all sorts of community facilities. Those development levies that are taken on new subdivisions—on sections, on subdividing properties, on new builds, and all that sort of thing—go towards the overall kitty. It is a little bit like the collective kitty for Tata Beach across Tasman Bay. They go into the collective kitty that provides for the councils to then provide the necessary infrastructure for their community.

But the National Government is at the present time looking to remove that. It is very interesting, as a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee, to sit on the hearings at the moment. We have had hearings in Wellington and in Auckland and we have heard from councils, developers, associations, and all sorts of organisations across New Zealand. At the moment it is running at about nine to one in terms of opposing what this Government is doing and in terms of removing those development levies from community infrastructure—nine to one. There are very, very few in support of what the Government is doing. As usual, it is the Government’s old mates—the ones from the Business Roundtable, and those sorts of people—who are supporting that. But, in fact, most of the authorities throughout New Zealand and most of the people who know—in fact, indeed, developers have come along to the Local Government and Environment Committee and have said that this is not on. They have said that this is not good legislation and that removing development levies from community infrastructure will be a retrograde step, and that what it will do is to put more rates on to the ratepayers. It will result in more rates on the ratepayers.

In the case of the Auckland Council, it submitted that as a result of this legislation from the National Government, the rates will have to increase by something in the order of 8.5 percent over the next 10 years if the development levies are removed from community infrastructure. That is shocking. We cannot have the likes of Jacqui Dean, Nick Smith, and Nicky Wagner pointing the finger and saying that rates have to come down. We will probably hear shortly from the toxic one, Maggie Barry, about the same thing. We will get a rounded round-up from Maggie Barry very soon. We are bound to have an attack from her on local government again. She will pour borax all over local government and attack it for rates rises, while she sits on the very same Local Government and Environment Committee that is about to remove the ability of councils throughout New Zealand to levy development levies on developers for community infrastructure.

💬 Maggie Barry: You’ve got that wrong, as usual, Brian. Wrong, Brian.

She cannot deny it, but that is what is going to happen. So Brian—sorry, Mr Assistant Speaker, HV—New Zealand First supports this bill. We commend the member Damien O’Connor for bringing this forward. No one likes to look at retrospective legislation. It is always a difficult thing in the House to have to validate situations like this, but in this case New Zealand First is of the mind that this legislation is necessary and valid. We must do it and we must allow this community to get on. We wish the Tasman District Council and all those in Ligar Bay and Tata Beach all the best, and we hope that we can put this behind us and get on, in the best interests of that community. Thank you, Brian.

I too rise to support Damien O’Connor’s Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill in its third reading. Although Andrew Williams gave a reasonable address, it was a little bit simplistic, and I would like to lay out a bit more detail as to what we are doing here in this legislation. So I am back by popular demand, and the House has asked me whether I would do this.

I will just lay out a bit more of the detail and undercurrent that are happening in this legislation, for the general public. Essentially, though, in summary this bill is needed to validate certain rates set incorrectly during the period 2003 through to 2009. It was not just a physical map being sent out to ratepayers as part of the consultation period, or lack of a map, that brought about the incorrect setting of rates in the district, although that, I acknowledge, was part of it. In fact, over those annual periods between 2003 and 2009 there was a large number of rates set incorrectly, not just those ones in relation to that smaller area in the Tasman region.

Without validation, without this legislation, the council remains very vulnerable to legal challenge from ratepayers over the incorrectly set rates. Court action would, of course, result in further ratepayers’ money being spent by the council in its defence. Individual ratepayers taking the council to court would, of course, again, end up adding to the financial burden of those individuals, who rightly bring a challenge, because even this Parliament has established that those rates were set incorrectly. So validation is also required in order to allow the council to recover all unpaid rates and penalties, something we considered in depth.

Some residents have objected to details of the stormwater rate. They were not properly consulted on the urban drainage area and are being charged for stormwater services they are not using. That is what Andrew Williams was directly referring to when he talked about the map not being sent out. But Damien O’Connor, the bill’s sponsor, has discussed their concerns and is himself convinced that the Local Government and Environment Committee will provide residents with an opportunity to express their views, and for any appropriate changes to be made. That is what he himself assured would happen. It is what happened. The select committee did consider the concerns of residents and we landed in a place—although not ideal, because this Parliament, as a general rule, does not like retrospective legislation—where we believe that the right decisions have been made. So Damien O’Connor can be assured that the select committee did listen to ratepayers in the electorate that he represents. We heard from them. They put through sound arguments. We took on board many of their suggestions but, unfortunately, not all of them.

National does want to give affected ratepayers and residents the opportunity to engage. We did, and we supported this bill to select committee and took it through that process, and we are now on the third reading. It should be noted that, at a higher level, a key part of National’s Better Local Government reforms is the monitoring and improving of council performance. Publicity about the bill will show other councils that their own processes may come under greater scrutiny, and so they should. The reality is that far too often we see across New Zealand rate increases, or increases in development levies, or whatever the charges may be, and the decision makers not being held to account. The need for this legislation just goes to show what can go wrong if councillors, decision makers within a council, are not held to account.

The bill will validate rates set by the Tasman District Council from the period 2003 through to 2009. One of the big issues here, of course, is that in each of those years individual rates were passed through council processes and the rate charges were set out on that annual rate demand. By way of example, in the 2003-04 year—and this is where I get down into the detail, which I am so familiar with; I share it with the House—the Tasman District Council resolved that the general rate and the uniform annual general charge be adopted, that the Motueka business rate be approved, that the Richmond business rate be increased, and that the council adopt a community facilities rate for that year as well.

As it so happened, the resolutions did not comply with certain sections of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002. The council had to state clearly that it was setting rates as required by the relevant section; it did not. It had to refer to all of the rates that were purported to be set when it did that. It actually referred specifically to only those ones that I read out and a couple of others. The council did not set the rates before it had resolved to adopt the annual plan, and it failed to state the financial year to which the rates applied, which is an unusual oversight, I must say. It failed to say that the rates could be paid by instalments—which, of course, is usual right across New Zealand—and it failed to resolve that it could authorise penalties to be added to rates that were not paid by the due date. That was just the 2003-04 year.

As members here are clamouring to hear about what happened in other years, I will go over—members in the House, do not worry; I will come to it—how the 2004-05 rates were set. Well, in that year the special council meeting did, in fact, resolve that the charges, including the uniform annual general charge and targeted rates, be adopted, and that the Tasman District Council set rates under the Act for the financial year. It did a detailed impact statement. The council said that except for metered water rates, it would invoice rates quarterly, so that is good, and that the council would adopt its long-term council community plan. The council did all those things but, unfortunately, the council did not comply with section 23 of the Act by purporting to set the rates before the council, again, had resolved to adopt the long-term community plan. So it made that mistake again. It failed to resolve to authorise that penalties be added. Again, it made that error.

That, of course, leads me to the 2005-06 year, which I think members are most interested in, if I can gauge the interest of the House here. Members are most interested in what happened in 2005-06. Well, at the council meeting that resolved issues around rates in 2005-06—and, incidentally, that occurred on 24 June 2005, for those members who want to take a note of that. It was on 24 June 2005. The council said that the refuse recycling rate would be adopted, that the general rate would increase, that the uniform annual general charge for that financial year would be set at, incidentally, $160, that targeted rates would be set, and so on.

But, unfortunately, once again, it did not state clearly that the council was setting rates as required by the Act. It did not refer to all of the rates that it meant to set but just cherry-picked, if you like, and it did not resolve to adopt the annual plan before it set the rates. Once again—once again—it did not name the financial year to which the rates applied and it did not say that they could be paid in instalments, and once again it did not include the provisions around penalties. That is very disappointing. It brings us to a point in the third reading where we simply have to, as a Parliament, support the passing of this bill to resolve what were serious mistakes by the council at that time.

Mr Speaker—

💬 Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do apologise to the member Maryan Street. I am very much looking forward to hearing what she has to say, and I apologise for interrupting her before she has even got under way. I noticed from the speaking list that ordinarily at this point, Mr Assistant Speaker, you would indicate that this is a split call. I am just wondering whether that is the case. Are you able to clarify that for us?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The call is a call to the Labour Party. In the past it has had the right to share that call with the Green Party, with 5 minutes each. I understand it has chosen not to do that and the Green Party is not going to take its 5-minute call. That is why, when I announced the Labour speaker, I did not say that this was a split call of 5 minutes. I have just allocated the call to the Hon Maryan Street, and it is a 10-minute call.

Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. This is enough. The time for filibustering is over. For those interested people in Tasman District and the people of Tata Beach and Ligar Bay who may be watching this debate at the moment, be aware that the Government is simply filibustering on this piece of legislation, the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill, which affects those people, because it does not wish to debate Sue Moroney’s Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill before the Budget. That is the kind of disdain in which the Government holds the people of Tata Beach and Ligar Bay and the Tasman District Council. Nobody likes retrospective legislation, but this has to be done, and I support the bill.

I rise with great pleasure to speak—

💬 Hon Maryan Street: At length.

—to the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. If I choose to speak at length, I say to the member, Maryan Street, who has just resumed her seat, then I shall do so. I would have to say that the flawed logic and manipulative nonsense that we have just heard from that member is entirely inaccurate, as is much of the nonsense that she peddles.

But staying with the point, which is what I would like to do, unlike that member who just resumed her seat, I do respect the need for a local community to have their voice heard and to have their message put through Parliament in the way that it needs to be done. I must say, I am a little bit surprised that someone from the party of the member who is actually putting this bill through would take such a jaundiced and really quite a cynical view. But, I suppose, given that member’s stand on a number of issues, that is not surprising.

💬 Tim Macindoe: Particularly cynical from the cynical.

Particularly cynical from the cynical. [Interruption] Oh, they filibuster about everything. This is not such a silly exercise as all that.

I return to the subject in question. As someone who has recently had a member’s bill drawn from the ballot and who has also been sitting on the Local Government and Environment Committee for a couple of years now, I am very well aware of how important it is for local bills and for members’ bills to reflect what their community wants and needs. That is a very important issue. When we look at the validation and recovery of certain rates, which is what this bill of Damien O’Connor’s is seeking for us to do, I am reminded of Kaipara, and I am reminded again of the need for local government reforms.

The New Zealand First individual, whose name escapes me for the moment—it has been got wrong a few times in this House this afternoon. He is not a very memorable individual, and what he says is not particularly memorable either. That is probably why he was the lowest-polling candidate and did not get his deposit back at the last election, nor was he voted back as the mayor, or as—[Interruption] The Life of Brian. That is very good. It is very good. I think that was something like his name.

When we look at what is the substance of this piece of legislation, one of the submissions that really brought home to me how important it was that we do this thing thoroughly was from the Mayor of Tasman District, Richard Kempthorne, who had spoken at length to the Labour member who was somewhat jaundiced just a few moments ago, Maryan Street, and, as well as that, to Damien O’Connor. He talked about the problems that the council has had and the various solutions that it put forward. I would like to go through those, because I think they are vitally important. Unless we learn from the mistakes that have been made in places like Tasman and Kaipara, and unless the local government laws are changed to make the processes more rigorous, then there will indeed be a need for more validation bills of the nature of this one and the Kaipara one.

Nobody in this House—with the possible exception of that member, whatever his name is, from New Zealand First—would want that to happen, because it does waste the time of the House and that does cost a lot of money for taxpayers. When you add up all the advisers who have worked on these things, all of the plane fares bringing people up from the West Coast, and all of the expense that individuals have gone to, then you can see that there is a real need to listen and to pay proper attention to what goes on with these bills so that they do not ever happen again. Nobody—with a couple of exceptions—in this House wants to see people go to this sort of trouble.

When I heard Richard Kempthorne talking about the idea of remitting rates, which was one of the things that was put forward as a potential solution, I wondered just how much rigour the council had put into that progress. As it turned out, it had deliberated over it for more than a couple of years and it had worked out that remitting rates over more than 2 years with the ratepayers was not going to be a lawful, let alone a practicable, solution—plus, it would cost a great deal of extra money. That is what the mayor said in his submission to the Local Government and Environment Committee, which I must say was very ably chaired by Nicky Wagner, as is everything that she chairs.

In the discussions, the council canvassed a lot of different ways of compensating people—in particular, Bob Schmuke. For those of you who are not familiar with Bob Schmuke, he is something of a local hero, but he has gone beyond that, really. He was an individual who was told no—that it was not possible. He was an individual who stuck it out and stood by his convictions and principles, which is something that New Zealand First, particularly the member who was speaking earlier, could take note of. Bob Schmuke—unlike the lily-livered, spineless people—was somebody who would not take no for an answer. The council and the mayor actually apologised to him. They wrote to the committee and, through Nicky Wagner, our chair, enclosed an apology to Mr Schmuke and to the community for their failings in the whole matter. When we look at accountability and transparency and, really, I guess, stepping up to the plate and acknowledging when wrong has occurred, this is a very good example of what could and should happen.

When we last debated this bill in the House some weeks ago, I asked Damien O’Connor, the sponsoring member, whether he felt that the residue of bitterness had gone. He talked a little bit about that and said that he felt that some of those old wounds had been healed. I guess, over an issue like this, that ratepayers really have their opportunity at the time of the local government elections. They did take action and they did vote out many of the people.

I suppose it is fair to say that as a result of this piece of legislation coming through, there has been a healing of the community and there has been a sense that the wrongs have been put right. I think that as a select committee we comforted ourselves with the thought that at least that community was going through a proper process. Mr Schmuke’s costs in coming up to Wellington to the select committee hearings—which he did, I think, twice at least, if not more—and the expense he went to in getting laminated photographs done, such was the courage of his convictions, were met by the council. I think, in the words of Alan Martin, it is the putting right that counts. That is what Richard Kempthorne and the others on the Tasman District Council tried to do with the guidance of Parliament.

When we look at the wrongs, they were really simple, actually. It was about not giving a map at the right time. It was a sort of basic mistake. It was not about the sort of worrying levels of incompetence and difficulties that we saw in Kaipara in some detail. It was more that just genuine mistakes were made and it was a blunder. It became more and more difficult to see how people on the council could work their way out of it and work their way through it. I know that Damien O’Connor spent a lot of time talking to them and had several meetings. These are not easy exchanges. They were, I think, probably quite tense, judging from some of the discussion that we had at the select committee. The implications for ratepayers generally are horrific, and I think it is really important that ratepayers understand that when things have really gone awry, when they have been let down by their council, as in this case, and when things do need to be set straight, it can and will happen. This is a bill that does highlight to other councils the importance of proper scrutiny when you are setting rates. There are a lot of lessons to be learnt for underperforming councils in this, and one is pretty much “Be warned.”

When we looked at this bill and the changes that came through at the select committee, some of the provisions that we really needed to address were clauses 5(a), 6, and 9. Their language needed to be tidied up. These sorts of technical amendments may seem boring to the members of the Opposition who are not really paying attention, but they are certainly very much an important part of what went wrong and then how it was to be put right. We as a committee were very sympathetic to the proposals to debate clause 9, but ultimately found that that course of action was really outside the scope of Damien’s bill, and it did not appear a good idea to go back and revisit it after all the hard work that had gone on.

The committee also noted that there were going to be a lot of practical implications of deleting clause 9 in particular, because that really, I suppose, set us on a different course and a different path of things that might need correcting. So we erred on the side of caution and we determined that what the ratepayers had paid in the rates for 2006-07 was all right. They ascertained throughout our committee discussions that the current ratepayers were the same ratepayers as those in 2006 and 2007. So we went through the detail of it in some detail, I would have to say, and really arrived, I think, at a bill that does satisfy all parties.

This piece of legislation is absolutely essential to validate those certain rates that were set incorrectly. Without that validation the council remained very vulnerable to further legal challenges from ratepayers over incorrectly setting rates. Those legal challenges, of course, would have had to be paid for by the ratepayers, who would be again penalised for that initial blunder.

Some residents objected to the details of the stormwater rate, as I indicated. Mr Schmuke and others addressed those concerns very well. The committee also noted that aspects of the council’s consultations were not ideal, but that the council was to be commended on the steps that were taken to improve the way that rates are set so that similar rates are not made in the future. That is why I commend this piece of legislation to the House. Thank you.

Labour supports the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. I just want to say that although the filibuster is a perfectly legitimate tool of debate in this House and part of the democratic process, it is a shame that the Government members in this debate—

💬 Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have been in the House for the last hour or so and I have been particularly concerned by some of what is happening, and I am going to seek your guidance. During the course of that time we have had Mr Andrew Williams, when he spoke, in his contribution implying that the National Party was improperly guided or influenced by the Business Roundtable. Subsequently, we had Maryan Street, a Labour list member, implying that the—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No. The member will sit. Look, this is a debating chamber and, so long as it is not unparliamentary, members will make the comments that they make. They can imply things. It is up to Government members, if they take offence, to rebut those in their speeches. I have not heard anything during the course of my presiding at the moment that is unparliamentary.

I was simply going to point out that in choosing to filibuster their way through this members’ day, the Government members are showing their own desperation to avoid debating Sue Moroney’s Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. They are so scared of the political embarrassment that they face by a majority of members in this House voting for Sue Moroney’s paid parental leave bill that they are willing to sacrifice the interests of the members of this House in having a productive members’ day. They are willing to filibuster—

💬 Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would invite you to require this member to direct his comments to the nature of the bill, because so far we have heard nothing at all about the Tasman bill—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I thank the member. Mr Twyford has been going for less then 30 seconds. I will be asking the member to come back to what this bill is about.

I support this bill.