Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill

I rise to take a call on the second reading of this Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. I think it is worthwhile just traversing where the Green Party is coming from, since we are the only party in the House that is opposing this bill. Originally we said when we discussed it as a caucus that our recommendation was that we would support it to the select committee. We were quite keen to support it going to the select committee because the select committee process is where we hear from the experts—that is where we would hear firsthand from Auckland Council about how this bill would impact on it, and the pros and cons of the bill. We would have the Parliamentary Counsel Office. It would devise the bill itself for us and pick up any mistakes. We would have the opportunity to deliberate and to discuss with each other what we thought were the pros and cons, and maybe we would be able to make some amendments, if that was worthwhile. It would be the true spirit of democracy.

What I have found is that it is in that select committee process, when members from all sides of the House are actually interacting with each other, that we see true democracy in action. The submission process is also where we involve our citizenship in the democratic processes of this country. We believe that that is incredibly important. So because we could not take this bill to the select committee, and because we have some serious concerns about the erosion of local democracy and the way this Government constantly tries to take over the control of democracy and power from local councils, on balance we decided that as a point of principle we would not support this bill.

I heard members in the House last night saying that Auckland Council wants the bill, and I have no doubt it does. We particularly do not want to hold up the planning process, because we recognise its importance for, basically, setting out the plan for the future of Auckland. However, we have seen in this House time and time and time again, particularly in relation to Auckland, constant incursions into the running of Auckland by this Government. Other members have said it is basically because when the Government set up the super-city, it did not get the right mayor and it did not get the right council, and we in Auckland have been punished ever since.

This is another example of a select few in Cabinet—mostly, none of them are from Auckland—trying to get their influence on to what is our major city. We know that if Auckland does not succeed, the country does not succeed. Auckland is the economic powerhouse. But if you look at the constant meddling that this House has been putting forward in terms of the running of Auckland, we have to have some serious concerns about just what this Government is up to. Since 2009 there have been 16 separate pieces of legislation dealing with the governance of Auckland.

💬 Phil Twyford: What does that tell you?

What does it tell you. It tells us that there has been a constant barrage from this Government about who runs Auckland and how it is run. So we have taken a stand that is not that popular in this House, and I can understand that. However, it is a principled position. We are not going to a select committee because, under urgency, we do not get the opportunity to do this.

We know that when the Minister put forward this bill and announced it, it was September. He was saying at the time that, essentially, the Government wants this bill in place because it wants to make sure that it has some processes in place before the expiry of the special housing accord in Auckland, which is, I have to say, a pet project from the Minister for Building and Housing. We do not see that as actually a good reason for invoking urgency. We could have gone through a process where we invited submissions, where we set up the select committee, where we got the expert evidence, and where we got a regulatory impact statement, for heaven’s sake, that actually outlined the pros and cons of this legislation. This legislation is designed to fix up mistakes from the original legislation. If we pass this under urgency without that due process, then we risk making more mistakes. If you look at those 16 pieces of legislation, a whole bunch of them are about validating stuff. It is about having another tinker because the legislation has not been true and sound. There is merit in that old cliché that the faster you go the bigger the mess. We have seen that. We have frequently seen that when it comes to Auckland and Auckland governance.

The other reason we had serious misgivings about this bill is not just the encroachment on local democracy in Auckland but also the encroachment on local democracy right across the country. I guess one of our guiding issues, one of the things that concerned us the most, was that if we allow this constant sort of undermining of local democracy—even though in this part it is just about the appointment of hearings commissioners—then we are actually saying to the Government that every single time it has overtaken due process and undermined local governance and local councils, it is OK. Well, we would like to say, on lots of issues, it is not OK.

I guess the thing that really, really brings this issue back home is what happened in Canterbury with Environment Canterbury, the regional council, which was the ultimate in this Government’s exercising its power to completely get rid of local democracy. If we just recap on that issue, we saw councillors replaced by commissioners. We saw councillors who were duly elected by the citizens of Canterbury sacked and replaced by Government appointees. That is why we have serious misgivings about this Government appointing hearings commissioners.

We know that the Auckland Unitary Plan Hearings Panel that was set up by this Government to hear and develop the plan for Auckland, despite the fact that it was appointed, has actually been doing a good job. It has got a bigger job to complete. The reason this Government has got this piece of legislation here today for us to push through under urgency is that the Government has set its own deadline—July next year—by which the unitary plan hearings panel has to report back to the council on the recommendations for the plan. It has said it has got to be by July next year. There is absolutely no reason—no real reason—for that to happen. The Government is arbitrarily choosing a deadline in order to put pressure on a unitary plan process, which is, again, a democratic process. We know it is democratic because there are over 5,000 submissions still to be heard. But if you speed up that process, then what gets lost? The unitary plan is far too important for us to have a process that is lacking in democratic principles. By having the Government set an arbitrary date, we are actually starting to erode democracy in another way.

We will be opposing the bill. We are the only party in the House that is opposing the bill, and we are doing it because of the constant encroachments on the democratic processes and principles in Auckland. Thank you.

It is always a challenge, and I have said this before, when you rise at No. 7—

💬 Phil Twyford: What would you know about local government!

What would I know about local government? A teeny-weeny little bit. I have to say, in response to the question from the honourable member, if I had known as much about local government when I first entered Parliament as I know today, having spent 4 years as the Mayor of Carterton—and elected unopposed in one of those terms—I would have been a better MP.

I think that many, many of the speeches that I have heard, and, sadly, a lot of the commentary that has come from Ministers as they have sought to justify legislation that they have advanced through this House, have been made from a baseline of pure ignorance about local government matters and a total lack of understanding of the consequences of those pieces of legislation that they put through and inflict upon the ratepayers and the people of those communities—which is quite a sad thing. But I am hopeful that there is a greater degree of understanding now between Local Government New Zealand and the Government, and this bill probably gives a “smidge” of hope that there is some meaningful conversation going on between this Government and local government, which is absolutely essential given the enormous amount of damage inflicted by its erstwhile Minister Mr Nick Smith when he rammed through this House, and justified the production of, the local government amendment legislation back in 2013.

I do recall as a mayor sitting in the company of many other mayors and deputy mayors, and chief executive officers and senior managers of local government territorial authorities throughout New Zealand, the absolute anger at some of the assertions of this Government about what local government was and was not doing, how competent it was, and how capable it was. It astonished me, to the point that I actually sent an email to the Minister of Local Government at the time—who is now the Speaker, Mr David Carter—and copied it in to the Prime Minister, making the observation that I could not understand why the Government would be so rude and behave in such an ill-informed manner and be so derisive of local government, given the large number of card-carrying National Party members who were mayors, deputy mayors, and senior councillors within local government incorporated. As I said in my email, I hoped that they expressed their dissatisfaction at the next election, and I know a good many of them certainly did.

What stands out in this piece of legislation, and the point in time that we have arrived at now in the House, is the irony. I say to the honourable member Phil Twyford that I was a little bit gutted because he took my first paragraph off me when he started his contribution last night in the second reading, but I am going to repeat it here today because I think it actually says something quite pertinent.

We are in the second reading. Normally this would be post a select committee hearing—a time when this bill would have been put on the Table, and New Zealanders, and particularly the ratepayers of Auckland, would have had an opportunity to make submissions to express their views, express their concerns, ask their questions, and seek some satisfaction and some surety around any of the issues that they might have spotted in this bill. This bill is designed to enhance the hearings process. This process that we are engaged in right now, ironically, is undermining the parliamentary hearings process. I do not get it. How blatantly obvious must this have been to the Leader of the House and the Government whips when the proposition was first put to them: “Oh, we’ve got this item sitting at No. 15. We need to bolster up the urgency. How about we chuck this on the Table? We’ll just flick off the select committee stage. We’ll run it through, ram it through.”

The truth of the matter is that if the Government really believes in enhancing the hearings processes and expediting more efficiently, whilst giving people the opportunity to have their say on the Auckland Unitary Plan through their submissions—if it seriously believes that that is what it is doing through passing this bill, then why would it undermine the credibility of the process of the passage of this bill by removing the hearings process from this bill? I do not get it.

Someone over there—maybe Mr Seymour, because he is, to paraphrase him, sometimes a very, very bright chap. But, as we know, very, very bright chaps can sometimes be quite amazingly thick, very intelligent people—

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: Ron Mark would know about that.

Well, there he goes, “Mr Mouth”—what is his name? I keep forgetting it, but he is a “whipper”, apparently, in the National Government. But someone surely must have understood the irony of the situation—

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: You’re proving the thickness argument.

—that they were putting on the Table, right now. That man will find out just how stupid his statements are come 2017 when he wants to come talk to me, will he not? But we will hold it until that day. We will move on from here, because the ignorance of that man is not worth commenting on.

I would only say to the Government that it is sad that we are pushing this bill through under urgency. We could have actually had the first reading done a month or so ago. We could have moved it through to select committee, and even if we had said—well, it is a very small bill. It is a very tight bill. It has got the support and, looking at the departmental disclosure statement, there has clearly been some very good conversation with Auckland City. Auckland City is on board with the bill—it has been involved in it. I read in the departmental disclosure statement that its consultations have been done via emails and other communications.

It would appear that if we had had a select committee process, it would have been a pretty straightforward matter from the Auckland City side. It most certainly would have given the citizens of Auckland an opportunity to come along and voice their concerns. What would their concerns have most likely been? If one takes 5 minutes to have a look at the Auckland City website and look at the unitary plan and the processes it has to go through—I mean, it is very clear that Auckland has decided on a vision statement, which is to be the world’s most livable city. Of course, to make a vision statement worthwhile there has to be a plan. This is the unitary plan we are looking at. The plan has to determine what can be built, and where.

There is no shortage of controversy in Auckland around that very question of what can be built, and where. Auckland is suffering right now from a massive housing shortage, and it is very clear that the initiatives of the Government have not done anything to alleviate that problem. Auckland people, quite rightly, in their submissions on the unitary plan, would want to have those conversations. To “create a higher-quality and more compact city … provide for rural activities”—under the Auckland Unitary Plan and the hearings that would be heard on this, I have no doubt that there are some serious concerns being raised out of Rodney and out of rural Auckland. Although people might say that their plan needs to provide for rural activities, that mere statement suggests to me that the people who wrote it actually do not understand rural New Zealand.

It is not just about rural activities—being able to get down to the river for a picnic. This is about how the economic units within the rural part of Auckland City actually operate and are permitted to operate under the unitary plan. I have no doubt that amongst those 5,000 submissions that are yet to be heard there will be some very strong views from rural Rodney.

The bill, as it lies on the Table right now, is designed to expedite the hearings process. New Zealand First has already said in the first reading that it has no trouble with those provisions. The only concern we have is around reducing the quorum from three to two—it seems a bit strange—but having concurrent committees running, under different chairs as well, seems to fill that gap. It seems to make up for some of the concerns we have. I will leave it there.

In conclusion, let us have a conversation during the Committee stage. We will have more talk around the quorum and why the Minister thinks that is OK, and we will take the bill from that point. Thank you very much.

E Te Mana Whakawā, tēnā koe; e ngā mema o Te Whare Pāremata, tēnā koutou katoa. In the second reading debate on the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill, I just want to say that I am astounded that members opposite can take such a long time to say that they will vote for, and actually agree with, what we are trying to achieve with this bill, because it is a very clear and simple piece of legislation. The key provisions are that it will reduce the quorum of the hearings for the Auckland Unitary Plan from three to two members, allowing up to four hearings to be held concurrently. This should allow the council to complete its Auckland Unitary Plan hearings by July next year, which is the legislated deadline.

I see no need to filibuster this bill—it is a very simple piece of legislation. So I will not be giving one of the waffling speeches that we have heard from members opposite. This is an excellent bill. I commend it to the House.

This is a 5-minute call on behalf of the Green Party.

I rise to take another short call this evening—in this alternate universe of urgency—on the second reading of the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. Of course, in the normal progression of legislation we would be, in this speech, reading sections of people’s submissions to the select committee and using departmental advice to support our presentations, and potentially supporting, presenting, and explaining the amendments we might be making to this bill. But we cannot do that today because the use of urgency by the Government has again denied people that ability to participate in this decision-making process and has thus removed the depth from this discussion in this House. We do not even have a regulatory impact statement to support this piece of legislation, to be able to add even a little bit more depth. So we have been given this legislation—as was the previous piece of legislation under discussion, the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill—under urgency, with no clear rationale for the urgency.

I have looked and I have listened to try to understand where the urgency is in this, and I cannot see how the changes that are in this piece of legislation could not have been anticipated and brought to this House in time for at least a truncated select committee process to have happened. One of the provisions in this bill seeks to validate 28 February 2014 as the closing date for submissions, so that submissions received between 14 January and 28 February can actually still be considered, as they have been. The need to do that surely could have been anticipated fairly early last year. It also, I understand, validates a practice of hearings panels holding concurrent sessions, which has been common for quite a while. So I again cannot see how the Government could not have recognised that earlier and brought it to the House to enable submissions.

There is even the fact that Minister Nick Smith announced his intent to introduce this legislation back in September, and now we are in mid-November rushing this through under urgency. If the key provisions of this bill were identifiable early last year and announced in September—only in September, but still—I cannot see why this is happening under urgency, and that is a key reason that the Green Party is unable to support this piece of legislation.

We feel as if we need to actually make a principled stand in support of people’s ability to participate in the decision-making process. This, at the heart, refers to the Auckland Unitary Plan and the process for developing that, and that plan is no small thing. That plan is responsible for the future shape of Auckland.

The Auckland Unitary Plan covers building regulations for mixed housing zones, where public open space is and what it looks like, building height, and the character of our houses in the different areas—the very, very heart of what makes a city. It defines the urban boundaries. It puts the rules around sustainable urban design. It puts in protections for fresh water and significant ecological areas. It covers the heritage, nature and protections for Auckland, the provisions for mana whenua, and then, as well—something so close to the heart of Aucklanders—all of the transport infrastructure around where transport corridors are, the air quality provisions, and the parking spaces, which is something very dear to my colleague Julie Anne Genter’s heart.

This is such a significant plan, with such deep meaning for Aucklanders. It is the future of the economic powerhouse of our country, and this is legislation that relates to the delivery of that plan. It is no small matter, and the bill should not be passed through under urgency.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. The purpose of this bill is to refine the massive Auckland Unitary Plan hearings process so that the panel can deliver all of its recommendations on the proposed unitary plan to Auckland Council by the statutory deadline of 22 July 2016.

Labour is supporting this bill, which will, amongst other things, drop the panel’s quorum. Clause 4 of the bill will amend the principal Act, section 136(1), to reduce the quorum for a three-member panel to only two. This should provide enough flexibility to deal with the thousands of submissions on site-specific issues that Auckland Council deals with.

As everyone in this House knows, Auckland aims to be the most livable city in the world. Auckland is a city that is growing really fast at the moment. Consequently, it faces a number of pressing issues, including a serious housing crisis issue, and my office in South Auckland sees the fallout from this every day.

The unitary plan that is proposed by this bill is a tool that would assist Auckland to meet its economic and housing needs. It is an appropriate and balanced way to deal with this issue, while protecting and enhancing what is most important to Aucklanders. The unitary plan will determine what is to be built and at which location, as well as create a higher-quality and more compact Auckland.

The Government still seems to have absolutely no firm idea of what to do to tackle the housing crisis in Auckland, in the face of the most urgent housing need that is happening there right now. Just yesterday Simon Collins in the New Zealand Herald reported that every 3 days in Auckland at least one family is seeking housing help because they do not have any other place to live. They are homeless and they are living in cars. Many families are homeless and living in cars right now in Auckland, and 50 percent of the people in those families are children. This figure, he reports, is likely to be an underestimate.

Just last week in my electorate office in Manukau East, in South Auckland, our office saw three families who were homeless and living in cars and who were in desperate need of assistance. Two of these were families with young children, and the other was a man in poor health and with disabilities, and he has a young daughter. It is appalling that there is nowhere for these families that are living like this—living in cars in this First World country, Aotearoa New Zealand—that is a permanent place for them to call their home. For mothers, and especially for women with young children, it seems that it is only in occasional circumstances—where they are victims of domestic violence—that these families can actually go into a house right away.

Our office works on a regular basis with Housing New Zealand as well as with Work and Income. I must say that our office works quite well with them. However, the highest priority that they can give a family is A20. In the whole year that I have been a local MP in Manukau East we have only given a family an A15 as the highest priority. I do not actually know what it would take for a family to get to an A20, but our office in South Auckland has not actually seen a family with a priority of A20, not even families with children who are homeless.

The special housing areas have been a complete flop. We heard last week that only 102 houses have been completed, even though Nick Smith had promised 39,000 such homes would be built. The latest Quotable Value data in Auckland tells us that housing prices have risen by $22,000 in the month after the Government announced its brightline test coming into effect. Yet again, an attempt to control the speculation in housing that has been a notable failure.

The average price of a house in Auckland is $918,000. There are so many families in Auckland that cannot afford that in Auckland. Right now, the Government needs to urgently establish effective measures to control the housing crisis in Auckland. May we recommend that a solution could be a large-scale, State-backed affordable housing development, as well as a ban on foreign speculators buying existing homes in Auckland. Thank you.

Ata mārie e Te Mana Whakawā, ka huri au ki ngā mema o Te Whare Pāremata, ka nui te mihi atu ki a koutou.

[Peaceful morning to you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I turn to the members of the House of Parliament: much appreciation to you collectively.]

I rise to take a very short call on this bill. I am really pleased to hear that the Opposition supports this bill, because the amendment bill is about the ability for the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel to hear all submissions on the unitary plan and it is about the housing issues in Auckland. It is an opportunity, as I said last night, for people who have some of these idealistic ideas about what Auckland City should look like into the future, whether it is a “Kumbaya” State or whatever it ends up being. At the end of the day this is a very short bill and it allows local government to get on and do what local government is going to do into the future for the benefit of Auckland. I am pleased to commend it to the House.

Before I launch into my comments about the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill, can I state for the record that today marks 5 years since the tragic deaths of 29 miners at Pike River. Can I state for the record my acknowledgment of that Pike River community, my acknowledgment of all the families who have lost loved ones, and my acknowledgment also for the Hon Damien O’Connor, who has been a consistent voice on behalf of that community. Sadly, the tragedy is more enhanced because, on reflection and after the royal commission report, we know that those deaths could have been prevented. This House needs to take note that we have to unite ourselves around ensuring that we have legislation that protects the lives of all workers throughout this country. I want to table that for the record.

I initially raised that acknowledgment of the Pike River community because legislation arising from the tragedy would have been a piece of legislation that I think this House would be united about if it came through urgency. However, that is not the case.

I now want to get on to the bill. I want to respond because last night members of the Government continued to crow about the fact that this bill would enable Aucklanders to have a view, to have a say. The fact of the matter is that the Auckland Council has already heard 9,000 submissions with regard to the Auckland Unitary Plan, but what this bill does is it prevents Aucklanders from having a view on this piece of legislation. It prevents Aucklanders also from giving this Parliament the benefit of their experience, knowledge, and expertise.

The reason why I say it prevents them is that under normal democratic processes—and we have one of the best in the world—in the first reading the Minister in charge, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, would have referred the bill to a select committee. The second reading would have enabled us to begin to talk about what Aucklanders submitted on this particular bill. It would have enabled us to thank them for their submissions and thank the members of the committee, but that is not the case—that is not the case here. So we do not have the benefit of receiving the views of Aucklanders with regard to how they see things happening already under the structure that this Government forced upon them back in 2010.

This is where, I think, Ron Mark made it clear that nobody can figure out this Government. On the one hand, the rhetoric was that it is giving Aucklanders a view, but in this particular case it is not. It is not going to give anybody a view, and that is quite sad. So we miss out on that opportunity, and I suspect if this went out for public consultation we would have heard, like many of our colleagues, the voices of the people of Auckland tell this Government that it has screwed up. It is its cock-up, which we are now having to deliberate on with this bill.

As I itemised last night, Government members can crow all they want, but the reality is that this bill fixes the errors that the Government made back in 2010, again because of a collapsed democratic process that it undertook during that period. This Government has a habit of believing that it knows best. And let me give you an example. You see, prior to this Government changing the legislation it was councils that had the powers and ability to appoint hearings commissioners. What the principal Act did was it took that power away from Auckland councillors and gave it to the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Conservation. So now we have the Ministers appointing the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel—and this is not to denigrate the members of the panel, because I have the deepest respect for the members of the independent hearings panel. What I am pointing out is this Government did not trust Aucklanders enough to choose their own panellists on the hearings panel. It could not trust them, because it believes it knows best.

So the Government gave itself the power to appoint members of the hearings panel. It thinks it knows best, but here is an example—and this is one of many examples of the cock-up. When it repeats the same mistake over and over again, people are inclined to say how incompetent this Government is. You know, it attempts to provide this image of itself as some kind of master of the universe when it comes to running this country, but these little things add up. I would say to Aucklanders, take note. This is not the only mistake or cock-up that this Government has made; there have been several. And it has not just been for Auckland; it also applied, as we saw, in the bills that we debated last night.

I want to say that the bill enables the Ministers to add other members to the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel, and I do not have a problem with that. But here is another example of this Government not trusting Aucklanders. If I were to view the membership of the independent hearings panel, the only two people who I would recognise as Aucklanders—and, again, you know, I have the deepest respect for the membership that is there; they are professional people with lots of expertise—are Desmond Morrison and John Kirikiri. I do not know the other members, but I would have thought, given they are hearing the unitary plan of Auckland, that the membership should, by its very nature of overseeing the unitary plan of Auckland, have an interest in Auckland and should live in Auckland. I have no disrespect for the others because I know that this is an area that requires expertise, but as an Aucklander I feel, surely, there are enough Aucklanders with the same expertise and the same professionalism who can deal with this.

Again, by giving itself the power to appoint members of the independent hearings panel, this Government sends clear signals that it does not trust Aucklanders. It does not believe there are any Aucklanders good enough to make up the bulk of the panel. So by way of advice, I would ask about that.

I am glad that the legislation does say that the Ministers must consult. Well, I am not sure. I will have to look during the Committee stage at whether the word “must” is in there or whether it is up to the Ministers, but I would think that if they really trusted Aucklanders and valued the views of Aucklanders, then they would be consulting not just with the chair of the independent hearings panel but also with the Māori Statutory Board as well as with the Auckland Council. But I would imagine, in my gut, that Aucklanders would want to see more Aucklanders on that panel, because this is about our lives and this is about our neighbourhood. And, as parochial as that view may be, it is rightly so, because we are talking about Auckland now and in the many, many years ahead. When the Government members got up last night and crowed about this bill being a bill that provides Aucklanders with the ability to share their views, the Hon Phil Goff said it was a cock-up, and that is what it is. It reminds me of a Samoan saying: “E fiu lava e nana le tamaimoa i lalo o le tanoa, ae ioio mai lava.”, meaning that the hen could attempt with all her might to cover up the little chickens but we will hear the little chickens making their noise. We know they are there. So as much as that Government attempts to try to cover up its cock-up and cover its mistakes, we all know—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No, no. Order! I know that the member is using fowl analogies, but that expression is not one that can be used.

The point I wanted to make is that this Government continues to try to cover up the mistakes it has made, but we know—Aucklanders know—that this is a consistent pattern of an incompetent Government that attempts to rush things in and attempts to prevent Aucklanders from having a view, and the mistakes have revealed themselves in this House.

I am rising in support of the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. I must say in response to that last speaker, Su’a William Sio, that if I am fortunate enough to be in the House for the length of time that colleague has, I hope I do not end up being as cynical and as unconstructive as that last member who spoke.

Quite often in the last few weeks I have got up and spoken about bills pertaining to Canterbury. It is great to see the Government supporting Canterbury, and in response I want to get up and support another region that is important for New Zealand’s growth and development—that is, Auckland. I think it is only fair enough to support the biggest city.

When I look at this bill, I think I look at it in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, and economics. When we look at the detail, we see the efficiency of reducing the quorum from three to two members, the effectiveness of increasing the panel size, and the economy of scale of allowing the panel to report back in stages. Overall, I support this bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.