Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.

The bill makes a number of improvements to the Local Government Act to help lift the local government system. Implementing the changes will assist the Government in working constructively alongside local governments to improve community wellbeing at the local level. The bill’s main amendments address the role of the Local Government Commission, local government reorganisations, and council-controlled organisations. These amendments will reverse changes proposed by the previous Government.

Our approach to reorganisation removes the threat of amalgamation from local authorities. We will do this by reversing the previous Government’s changes which enabled anyone to request an investigation. Local authorities will still be able to request a reorganisation themselves through the Local Government Commission or undertake it themselves through the new reorganisation process. Reorganisation proposals made by members of the public will need to demonstrate significant community support at the outset through a petition of 10 percent or more of the local affected people. Additionally, once our bill is enacted, all reorganisation requests, except for those already accepted by the Local Government Commission, will need to meet the new requirements for significant community support.

The previous Government’s bill enhanced the powers of the Local Government Commission and increased its accountability to central government. Our bill has removed these measures because they would not achieve better outcomes for the system of local government. The legislation represents the start of a programme to look at the role an independent central body can play for the local government sector. Interim measures are introduced to constrain large-scale reorganisations that alleviate the local government sector’s concerns about the threat of amalgamation and to provide breathing space while new arrangements are developed.

Stage two will consider new ways of carrying out necessary ongoing functions. It will be undertaken in partnership with local government because working with councils is the best way to design effective reforms to the local government system.

Secondly, the bill makes amendments to council-controlled organisation provisions. Some of the key changes are: the Local Government Commission will not be able to transfer council services to council-controlled organisations; proposals to create an elaborate system of council-controlled organisations to deliver water, transport, and other services are withdrawn; and provisions to enhance the transparency and accountability of council-controlled organisations to councils and communities are added.

The original bill made extensive provisions to force council-controlled organisations, especially council-controlled organisations jointly owned by a number of local authorities on councils. This included council-controlled organisations with water and transport functions. Local authorities deeply oppose this approach and my proposal is to remove all of that material from the bill. Additionally, the bill retains existing provisions to improve planning and reporting arrangements for council-controlled organisations and further strengthens accountability mechanisms. These provisions aim to improve council-controlled organisations’ responsiveness to local authority direction, transparency to the local authority, transparency to the public, and responsiveness to Māori.

Lastly, at the request of the Minister of Transport, the bill also includes a provision to enable transport functions to be transferred between regional councils and territorial authorities. There is interest in Canterbury in transferring these functions between Environment Canterbury and the Christchurch City Council.

This bill demonstrates the Government’s partnership approach to working with the local government sector. Reform will not be imposed centrally but will be addressed in conversation with local government to ensure that both arms of government are working together to benefit local communities.

I commend the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) to the House.

You know, there are 78 councils and 66 water authorities around New Zealand, so local government is a very important part of our governance. Councils today are facing increasing pressure to provide better core services to ratepayers due to changing demographics and the cost of infrastructure. Now, it is a huge challenge already to local governments. Local government sits at the heart of a civil civic society. It is essential for our governance to perform efficiently. Councils these days manage roads, water supply, rubbish collection, and libraries—all those essential daily services, essential to residents. With an increasing population, these councils, local government at different levels, are under pressure.

It has long been known that there are some councils in New Zealand that have been struggling because of the lack of finance, because of some poor structure, and because of lack of efficiency, so there is a problem there. It isn’t controversial to say that some councils are not structured optimally to meet the known and unknown challenges ahead. That means we need a better process to allow councils to facilitate better delivery of service and infrastructure, even while preserving the voice and preferences of local authorities. This was the original purpose of the bill. But now, with some changes, the bill has changed its nature. Essentially, this particular bill now plans to disestablish the Local Government Commission by removing many functions away from the Local Government Commission. That is a problem for us.

So, as I said, already local government is under pressure, and the Local Government Commission plays quite an essential role, an important role, in trying to make sure that local governments in various regions work efficiently. The local government sector is already overwhelmed, and taking the commission away will not help this. The Local Government Commission is in the best position to help local government authorities. To reduce their function, to reduce the ability or power of the Local Government Commission, will not help local governments. Unless there is a proactive body that is an agent of the Government then there is no effective way of recommending, supporting, and looking at change objectively. That is why we do need the Local Government Commission there. So taking away the proactive role of the Local Government Commission and there being no other driving force for any substantive change—this is the problem with this particular bill.

National does not accept that council-controlled organisations are a bit thin. There are many examples that show that these organisations do play a very important role. In many cases they deliver a very good service, and in many cases they are quite accountable. They are not councils, though; they are, effectively, more corporate-type organisations running the business of a council, and they have a different role. They are deliberately like that to bring a more business-type focus to running the business of council.

That is why we believe that this bill itself will not really help the efficiency or the functioning of the local government at different levels. Therefore, we oppose the bill. Thanks.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker, and thank you for that call. This bill, really, is about communities. It’s about putting control where it belongs, which isn’t in the Local Government Commission; it’s in the cities and entities and the elected representatives that govern them. So the fact that there were proposals out there that would see amalgamation proposals be able to be investigated, essentially, on the whim of one citizen or another was a very bad thing, and it’s a good idea that we see that off.

We know that sometimes those amalgamation proposals can be very ill-motivated. I can remember some time ago east Auckland wanting to have its own city, not because it was a great idea but because it didn’t want to help wider Auckland by spreading the rating base. It was self-centred, it was selfish, and it was short-sighted, and that’s not the kind of amalgamation or proposal that we want to see. So it’s really good that we’ve got a Minister who’s looked at what the proposals were and has tidied them up considerably.

Council-controlled trading organisations have an important part to play, and what we can see across New Zealand is that different cities use them in quite different ways. In Christchurch, we’ve got a number of council-controlled trading organisations, and, by and large, they operate well. One of the good things about them is their statements of intent, which can direct not only financial outcomes but also wider outcomes. Under this Government, we’re absolutely committed to those wider outcomes, and we put those wellness requirements back into the Local Government Act 2002 as well, and not a moment too soon, so that council-controlled trading organisations can take the appropriate form for the communities that they are in. If the councils want some services to be in there, that’s fine, but those kinds of things should be local decisions made by local people. That’s what local democracy really is all about, and this bill strengthens that local democracy.

I’m very pleased to see this bill introduced into the House and, in fact, to strengthen what council-controlled organisations can do, because the idea that the Local Government Commission could require a council to move its services into trading organisations was a very poor idea. The fact of the matter is that the recent study on the Local Government Commission saw that it was in fact very poorly aligned with the needs of Local Government New Zealand. So it’s great to see this now here adjusting that. So it really is about transparency. It’s about accountability.

I must say, in Canterbury we’re very excited about the proposals in respect of public transport, because public transport is at the very centre of what cities need to be doing. Of course, this Government recognises—with all of our coalition partners, Ms Swarbrick—that transport needs to be integrated with housing and integrated with city planning. So the division of transport between regional councils and city councils in sometimes bizarre ways doesn’t help. Where there are regional councils and territorial authorities, there’s work to be done. This Government isn’t one that’s going to preach to local authorities about how that’s to be done, but it’s going to give them tools to do it for themselves. One of those tools is the ability to put public transport management in the hands of territorial authorities. I know that, once again, Christchurch has been pushing for these great ideas, and this is something that is being very closely looked at in Christchurch. So this power—the ability of a local body to, again, take control, to examine what the best transport solution is for Christchurch, for Hamilton, for Auckland, or for any centre—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Auckland.

I just said Auckland, member over there. The member who—what’s your electorate? And, of course, that’s important. So this is part of local body politics being tailor-made for the locality and being in the hands of the locality.

Something that I was very pleased to see in the recent election was when we had a fully democratic election for Environment Canterbury, which currently does public transport—something that was taken away by the last Government. But now we’ve got a great council there, and I know it’s going to make huge strides—huge strides—which has a democratic mandate at last. But, again, public transport is really important, and I’m very pleased for that change.

Of course, the whole idea of reorganisation coming from the top down is a very bad idea. Of course it’s important to recognise that if there’s good reason—for example, if a local body itself suggests a reorganisation—that’s still permitted. That’s still fully within the bounds of this legislation. Or, if some citizens are keen enough, they can go out, they can get 10 percent of the electorate, and they can initiate that study themselves. But the idea that it can be done on a whim—well, we don’t need that. This Government isn’t happy with that, and that’s why the Supplementary Order Paper here is doing that.

So this really is about partnership. This is about central government recognising the important relationship it has with local government, supporting innovation at a local government level, but not imposing, because taken together the original proposals were essentially two things. They were a centralisation of power—taking power away from local bodies and putting it at central government level. That was the first thing, and that was a bad idea. The second thing was a corporatisation of city councils’ operations—the ability to, by stealth, quietly, incrementally push operations into trading organisations. We know what can happen with trading organisations, don’t we? Put on the block, Mr Henare. Yeah. We don’t want to see that, because that is taking away important assets, because on this side of the House we recognise that it’s about much more than rubbish and roads; it’s about communities, it’s about protecting people, and it’s about enhancing wellness, and this bill, under the great Minister Mahuta, is absolutely doing that. So I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Pleasure to speak to the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2). I’ll start with a truism, if I may. All politics is local—as ascribed to US House of Representatives Speaker Tip O’Neill. I’ve got a tip for him in turn: not all Government is local. So while Government should always be responsive to local needs—and we see that played out across the electorates, so-called, across the land, in a way that we’re very familiar with in this House—of course, in relation to local government, it’s important to have a balance between responsiveness and efficiency. That is at the heart of the disagreement between the two sides of the House tonight in terms of the support that we feel that we cannot offer to this legislation, in the sense that we believe that the balance has not been struck in the ideal fashion.

So it is that regional solutions need to be gained, and it might be that areas desire that for themselves, but it might also be that some assistance is needed to rationalise and reorganise. We have a situation where currently, in certain parts of Auckland—those that I represent—the question is not so much who can make the trains run on time but who can make the trains run at all, and that’s something which, as an advertisement for myself as local MP, I remain very firmly engaged with in Auckland’s north-west.

I won’t take too much more of the House’s time, but I would just note that the Local Government Commission may not be perfect—and few institutions populated by humans are, by definition—but one does not discard a leaky life raft merely because it is leaky if one does not have some substitute means of keeping oneself afloat. Council-controlled organisations should, of course, be controlled and controllable by councils, and you’ll find no argument from us there. But, unfortunately, as my colleague Dr Jian Yang has indicated, as a whole we cannot support this legislation tonight.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Thank you very much for the opportunity to stand and speak on the third reading of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2). First and foremost, big congratulations, as the numbers are almost confirmed in many respects, for the members across the country who put their hand up for local government. We know it’s not easy. But what we see as the results start rolling in is that people are finding their voice. Sure, some will argue that a low voter turnout questions mandate. But what is clear is that where communities are unhappy or communities certainly have a particular strong view about the way that their local councils should be running, they turn out. We have seen some changes and we have seen in some councils the status quo remain. But, first and foremost, to the many people that do put their hand up, I think it’s important to acknowledge them. As members in this House will know, it’s not easy.

I’m reminded of a visit recently to Wairoa and the words of the deputy mayor, who I see was re-elected in the recent elections, who said to me and the group I was travelling with, “Welcome, Minister, to Wairoa, and don’t bloody tell us what to do.” I think that this particular bill encourages what was mentioned by my colleague Dr Duncan Webb about the desire for communities to find their voice in how local councils are run.

I want to touch on a couple of things as I continue my contribution on this particular bill. I made a point of it during the process, but now I want to just state it again but also express my joy in seeing a stronger provision for Māori in this particular process. Māori often find themselves isolated when it comes to the goings on in local government, regional, and even central government in many respects. So the opportunity, in the absence of Māori being voted in to councils, to have a voice in the operations and the running, the planning, and the strategising of the job of a council, I think is something worth celebrating. One, that acknowledges not just the aspirations of the local hapū and the iwi but also the knowledge and mātauranga that they bring. There was an aspect of the bill that talks about those with the knowledge of tikanga Māori and, as an exponent of tikanga Māori, the role of Te Reo Māori in the way we shape our communities and we lead our communities. That’s one case.

The other one is to allow iwi, whānau, and hapū to find their voice in the planning and strategising for the council. I think those are seriously exciting opportunities for Māori communities, and I think of myself in Tāmaki Makaurau and the multiple tribal interests across Tāmaki Makaurau. Many have overlapping interests, and if there’s one thing I look forward to, in seeing how this process evolves, it is how those with overlapping interests are engaged by council. We know in the past, and myself being involved in some Treaty settlements, that there are always issues around overlapping interests, and one of the issues isn’t that there is an overlapping interest but that the person in power or the organisation in power will choose the rights of one over another.

I am interested to see at a local government level, with this bill, the opportunity for iwi, whānau, and hapū to find their voice, but equally, in particular, in cases of overlapping interests in, like I say, my electorate of Tāmaki Makaurau. We know that in legislation there are 14 tribal entities recognised in one piece of legislation and in others it recognises many more. So in terms of the way that local council and regional council run their matters, I’m really curious to see how this evolves, but I do want to commend the Minister and her bold approach to ensuring that that particular opportunity is afforded to those groups.

The other one is, of course, the reorganisation, and it was mentioned how council-controlled organisations (CCOs) are supposed to run like a business. One of the things I am truly encouraged by, in particular, being an MP in Tāmaki Makaurau is, of course, the opportunity for the public to have far more accountability and transparency in that process, the dealings, and, of course, the strategising that is being done by CCOs.

It’s well-known in Tāmaki Makaurau—the issues around the CCOs in Tāmaki Makaurau, the demands of the public, and the huge gap that sits in between them both. The gulf is in fact so huge that many of the ratepayers and many of the voting public in regional and local government simply don’t feel a connection, simply feel that their voice and their aspirations aren’t heard in the management of those organisations such as Auckland Transport agency and many others. I think that the provisions that are set out in this bill offer the opportunity for far more accountability and transparency.

It will be interesting. I want to acknowledge the relationship between central government and local government, and I think that this particular bill will strengthen that; the same again with the provisions around tikanga Māori and also consultation with Māori on matters relating to areas in local government. I’m also curious to see, with the recent local government elections having concluded, how the relationship will continue, in the hope that we can make sure that the suite of work that’s being done in this space by Minister Mahuta actually is all aligned well.

There were questions recently in the House about the wellbeing objectives being put back into the local government space, the cost and the impact on local governments. We’ve made it clear that a stronger working relationship between central government and local government will go a long way to ensuring that we’re all on the same page in striving for wellness and wellbeing in our communities.

One of the final ones, and Minister Mahuta mentioned it in her contribution, was that on the request of the Minister of Transport the bill includes a provision to enable transport functions to be transferred between regional councils and territorial authorities. Of course, my colleague Dr Duncan Webb talked about the situation in Christchurch and perhaps its possibility and potential. But, you know, I often think once again of my own electorate of Tāmaki Makaurau and wonder exactly how that might fit. Quite often we’re maligned in Tāmaki Makaurau for the issues around traffic and the troubles with public transport, and, in recent times, other regions have had the unfortunate opportunity to experience many of the frustrations that Aucklanders have when they are dealing with public transport. Many people have already said they’re more than happy to engage in public transport, but what we need is one that runs on time, one that is reliable, and one that is affordable.

So, perhaps, as we look to this particular provision in the bill, there might be some opportunities not for horse trading but for the ability to look across what or how each of those authorities might better manage the system, and the ability to transfer the authority between them. I’m not too sure what that will look like, but I look forward to the opportunity of seeing how that might play out into the future.

Just in conclusion, I want to once again commend the Minister for her fantastic work. This is, and it already says it in the title of the bill, number two. There has been a suite of bills put forward by the Minister to better align local government with the ambitions and the aspirations of central government. We believe they are in line with the community and the desires of those communities to have far better communities—ones that are full of wellbeing, have aspiration, and meet the connected needs of the community that reside within local and regional authorities. It is my pleasure to commend this bill to the House and the work of the Minister.

Thank you. Can I just apologise. I got distracted and didn’t give you the two-minute warning bell. My apologies for that.

It is my pleasure to stand and make a contribution to the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2). I’m going to take this opportunity to pay tribute to our newest community leaders in West Coast - Tasman: the new Mayor of Tasman, Tim King; the new Mayor in Buller, Jamie Cleine, Grey District’s Tania Gibson; the really re-elected Mayor of Westland, Bruce Smith; and I’m looking forward to the selection by the West Coast Regional Council of their new chair. Now, these people dedicate their lives and their time to local government and they do it with a passion.

In 2016-17, the National Party actually introduced this legislation. Parts of it were actually already being modelled in the area that I was actively involved in, in local government. One of the things that we were very keen to do was to use some of the attributes out of this legislation to what we call shared services—across the councils, actually sharing our services. That means that, for instance, instead of having three or four small councils that were each replicating activities, we could perhaps have one centre of excellence. One of them would maybe, for example, do payroll. One may have the mapping services and have all the geographic information system data on one programme and have all the licences there. Others may be consenting, so sharing services across the region. The one that worked really successfully for us was in civil defence.

But, unfortunately, some of that good work that was done in the previous readings of this bill has been undone through the committee stage of this bill. Unfortunately, because of that, the National Party feels disinclined now to support this legislation, which is a real shame, because there was real potential in here to support those activities and share those services across councils.

I’d just like to make a very quick comment too about council-controlled organisations (CCOs). CCOs do have a place in local government, and if we’re going to operate some of those activities in a commercial way, then they do need to have distance between the politics and the activity. And I know in my own area that CCOs work extremely effectively. They provide a higher level of service and they also have higher levels of satisfaction from their user groups. Unfortunately, we will not be supporting this piece of legislation. Thank you.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It is a pleasure to rise in the House on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand to offer our wholehearted support, as the Green Party, to this Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2). It is unfortunate to hear that members of the Opposition will not also be offering their wholehearted support. I haven’t heard much rationale as to why they won’t be, except for the fact that we have crossed out quite a lot of the things that they wanted to do in the form of amalgamation through the likes of council-controlled organisations, but also the likes of concentration in power through the Local Government Commission or the Minister of Local Government.

To trace some of the history of this legislation, when it was first introduced, as was mentioned by the former speaker Maureen Pugh, it was, of course, introduced under the former Government. It then went to select committee and was met with strong opposition from the likes of those who Maureen Pugh and members of the National Party have invoked in their speeches—those being National Party - aligned mayors and local government elected members. Importantly, it was actually only as a result—and I would mention my colleague Lawrence Yule, who probably learnt some of that in his time at Local Government New Zealand. I’d love to hear his contribution to this debate and where he now falls, given that he has pinned the blue colours very profoundly and explicitly to his chest.

None the less, this piece of legislation, under the National Party Government, that being the prior Government of the 51st Parliament, was met with strong opposition from Local Government New Zealand and, of course, actually, as well from the three parties who now form Government. There was a staunch and quite detailed minority view authored by the Green, Labour Party, and New Zealand First parties from the Local Government and Environment Committee, returned to this House in 2016.

Just for the sake of the historical record and putting it in Hansard, because I think it’s a really important thing to note in tracing the lineage as to how we got here today, some of the remarkable members of this Government within the coalition and confidence and supply were on that Local Government and Environment Committee. They were the Hon Ron Mark, obviously with his previous experience in local government; the esteemed and brilliant Mojo Mathers, who unfortunately didn’t make it back in with us, the Greens, into Parliament this time around, but has authored a legacy in the form of the Election Access Fund Bill, which I am now proud to champion. Of course, now the Hon Eugenie Sage, our now Minster of Conservation but formerly one of many of the Greens who held the local government portfolio; so too the Hon Meka Whaitiri; and the Hon Dr Megan Woods—so quite an all-star line-up there. But I would, however, note that sitting in and participating on this item of business, and, I believe, to a certain extent, co-author of this minority view, was the now Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Justice, Jan Logie, my esteemed colleague. So quite a lot of weight, actually, in the minority view, which opposed the National Party’s legislation as it was drafted. It’s been knocked into quite a bit of shape by the Minister of Local Government, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta.

Just to try and point it out to those who may be watching at home on the television, these here are all of the sections—all of this page here, all of this page, all of this page here, all of this page, and pretty much all of that page and that page have been crossed out. That is the madness, the badness, that we are undoing, which the National Party sought to rort on our local governments, on the councils and local bodies across this country, met, I would again emphasise, by staunch opposition from Local Government New Zealand, which I believe was led at the time—and I’d love you to correct the record—by my esteemed colleague Lawrence Yule, a former mayor amongst local government in New Zealand.

It’s now been knocked into shape. It does slightly less things, because there’s a much broader work programme that this Government has towards fulfilling that kaupapa of subsidiarity, which my colleagues in this Government have spoken to at length so far. There is also, as has been mentioned, the greater handover of control to making decisions on transport in the hands of local bodies, a critically important piece of decision making for communities, because they are actually those who will be interacting on a daily basis, tangibly, with those transport options and, obviously, so too do they have a vested interest in the likes of housing decisions that are made around those transport nodes.

Just in closing the Green Party’s support for this much-improved at third reading—subsequent to Supplementary Order Paper 323, in the name of the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, at committee of the whole House stage—Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2), I would also like to make note of all of the incredible individuals of all ideologies who put themselves forward for election at these local body elections just this past weekend. There were some incredible people elected who have the mandate and the backing of their communities, and we believe, on this side of the House, that it is those people who are closest to their communities, who are elected directly by their communities, who live and work and play actively on a weekly basis in those communities and don’t find themselves siloed—unconsciously, subconsciously, or consciously—in this very literal ivory tower, who should be making those decisions.

If I may, I’d also just like to shout-out to our first ever explicitly Green mayor—that is, the mayor of Dunedin, Aaron Hawkins; absolutely stoked with that win—and, of course, for the other 41 Green Party members who have been elected on that Green ticket, and all of the other wonderful progressives who have found themselves in, to championing ending inequality and getting some real climate action under way around their communities. The Green Party is proud to commend this bill to the House.

It is my pleasure to have a right of reply to the previous speakers and all others on the other side of the House who wish to impugn my character and the roles I had as the leader of Local Government New Zealand. That was an important role I had, and I’m very proud of that role and the role I now have in this Parliament.

Despite what members of the other side might say, things are not all as they are portrayed by the previous speakers and others. The reason I say that is that this side of the House would have supported this bill had it not been for the complete gutting of the Local Government Commission in this bill. That’s what the Government has done and not replaced it with anything.

I want to give members of the House a little bit of history here. It is very hard to change structural arrangements in New Zealand—very hard—without a little bit of push or a little bit of an agency to lead that change. There was massive reform in 1987—massive reform. Many people thought the world would end. You know what? The world didn’t end, and many people would say, if you asked them now, do they like the change, they would say yes and they wouldn’t go back. Now, what I’m saying is that people resist change. It’s a normal facet of life, but things do need to change with time, and if the Government takes the Local Government Commission out of the loop and not give them any role whatsoever to look at structures and reforms and the way things are organised, it is my view that there will be very little change.

Then, I say, what is the role of the Local Government Commission? There is none. Effectively, what this bill says: we will have a commission, we’ll have one board member from time to time—more could be co-opted—to redraw wards and the number of members of wards in local authorities every three years. We’ll run a bureaucracy in Wellington and we’ll have a commission. In my view, it’s a complete and utter waste of time. If the Government was really strong about this, it should’ve just simply abandoned the Local Government Commission, given that role to the Department of Internal Affairs or somebody else to fulfil it, because all we’re doing is wasting their time. My point is that’s really why this side has objected. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry to interrupt—I omitted to say this is a split call. My apologies.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, it’s a pleasure to rise and speak, particularly after the former speaker Lawrence Yule, our friend and comrade-in-arms across the aisle, having, I guess, followed his esteemed career as a leader of local government at a national and at a local level—I’m not jesting now; he was very, very good in his former role. It’s interesting watching how this place can change people and, you know, take you away from those things, those values, that you held dear, and see how people have to redirect. So I guess I just want to reach a hand across the aisle and express my condolences that you had to just give that contribution in this House, because I know, as this side of the House does, that you actually really probably, most likely, support this bill.

Like some of the former speakers have said tonight, this is a redirection in terms of, I think there’s about—I’m not going to do the same thing, but there’s about that many pages tonight that we are scrapping from the amendments that came through under the previous Government and that the former head of Local Government New Zealand opposed as well—Lawrence Yule, in his previous role. I guess, for us on this side of the House, what we’re trying to do is empower those local decision makers at a local level to ensure that their towns are the best towns.

The local government elections were the substantive political event over the weekend. I want to acknowledge the three new female mayors that I have in the East Coast electorate. We have just a fantastic, really broad range of incredible candidates that put their hand up. So, yeah, I think, you know, across the country we saw an incredible shift of a lot of younger elected candidates. That excites me for next year’s election in terms of who we might see enter into this House come the general election.

But turning to this bill and these substantive amendments, I guess this bill, championed by the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, goes towards making a number of improvements to our Local Government Act in terms of streamlining and ensuring that local government will, I guess, work constructively alongside central government to improve community wellbeing at that local level. Previous speakers have said in this House that this Government—we, across the coalition, pride ourselves on focusing on the wellbeing of our citizens, focusing on the wellbeing of our communities, and, I guess, for us, ensuring that the wellbeing is at the forefront in terms of the decision-making frameworks for all local body councils, and that those visions are aligned with us is something that we’re very proud to be seeing enacted through this piece of legislation this evening.

This bill brings about fundamental reorganisation, and our approach to reorganisation is to remove that threat of amalgamation from local authorities. The member over there who spoke just prior—I remember living in the Hawke’s Bay for a couple of years and seeing the constant conflict between the communities and the fear, I guess, that many—there was a constant debate. Fear’s a bit of a heavy word, actually, but just the consistent debate in that area about what it meant to lose some of that local identity for some of those councils. So in this bill we are reversing the previous Government’s changes, which enabled that anyone could request investigations. Local authorities will still be able to request reorganisations themselves through the Local Government Commission or undertake those things through the new reorganisation process. The proposals will be made by members of the public, and they must demonstrate significant different community support, and you have to get that 10 percent threshold of those people to actually get in behind you.

Look, there’s a whole range—it is a substantive piece of legislation. There are a whole raft of amendments that have been made this evening and that will become law very shortly. So, without further ado, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is, of course, a bill that this side of the House started back in June 2016. Its second reading was in June 2017, and here we are tonight debating one rather large Supplementary Order Paper, Supplementary Order Paper 323, from the new Government. Whereas in our day we were seeking to give local authorities flexibility in how they looked at and combined resources and infrastructure networks across regions and towns, making sure that it was a flexible arrangement giving greater use of the possibility of council-controlled organisations to councils and so on, what we’ve got here now is a change at the committee stage by this Government—and we’re on to our last and final reading here tonight—reversing some of those changes.

I’d like to back up the eloquent words of my colleague Lawrence Yule around what it does to the Local Government Commission. Now, many of us who’ve had a track record in local government would know quite well the role of the Local Government Commission and the ways and the means in which it has been around to assist people, sometimes to assist local authorities with what I’ll call, loosely, healthy tension. When there has been tension, when there has been roles that are not clarified or issues that need a little bit of mediation, the Local Government Commission has had a very distinct role, and what we have here tonight is the Government unpacking it—I think you used the word, my colleague Lawrence Yule, “gutting”, what the Local Government Commission does and is. So down from three commissioners to one—goodness knows what that one person’s going to do, because it’s actually not clear. If the Government is going to do this, what is the next role for the Local Government Commission? It is unclear. What is going to be the replacement? We would like to know, on this side of the House, and I think that local government land in New Zealand and New Zealanders would like to know as well. If you’re taking away the proactive role of the Local Government Commission, then what is it that you want to do next? What’s the future reform? There is a vacuum. We don’t think that’s good leadership. It’s not good governance, and the local government sector is crying out for good governance.

We oppose this bill for very practical reasons, even though the genesis started with us. Thank you.

Thanks very much, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this great bill that really restores the ability for local government to take some control in their space and have the confidence to make good decisions for their communities. I’m most proud of the fact that it works so well with other legislation that has restored the four wellbeings and is focusing on what makes communities happy, healthy, and function well.

This is a really good area, in a way, because there’s three main points that I’d like to touch on in terms of what this bill does. The reorganising factor—that’s the threat of amalgamation that no longer hangs over the heads of so many local governments and has caused friction so much. Auckland was not alone in that one. The second one I’d like to talk about is the role of council-controlled organisations (CCOs) and how those have been made more transparent—in particular, in the areas of those vital services like water provision and transport to make sure there’s increased transparency. Thirdly, I’d like to look at how we’re working better to have partnership, and that’s the one I’ll pick up on now.

It’s been really interesting how we’ve heard this criticism around removing those powers of the Local Government Commission and how that’s going to be such a big problem, but what happens when you give local councils that ability to take control and to be able to work with their communities more fluidly? It demonstrates our partnership approach in terms of working with local government, and it’s that partnership approach that really epitomises this Government and what it represents.

When we look back to other areas where the National Government has tried to micro-manage things like national standards and tried to performance-manage teachers—well, that went down really well, didn’t it? So what this Government demonstrates is being able to work in partnership to get best outcomes for our people and best outcomes for the communities, and that’s exactly what these changes in local government demonstrate. By having increased transparency, increased partnership, and the ability to work collaboratively, we believe that that’s the way that benefits the wellbeing of our community far more.

I would like to pause for one moment, as other members have, and congratulate some of those candidates who were successful in the recent local government elections. In particular, I would like to take a look at Hutt South, very briefly, and congratulate the new Mayor of Hutt City, who happens to be not just a Labour mayor, by coincidence, but also the youngest mayor in New Zealand, which is Campbell Barry, who is 28 years old. I’m incredibly proud to see the good work that will be done on transport, housing, water, and all those important issues, and how we’re working so well in the Hutt. It’s a big Labour team all round out that way, and I’m very proud to be part of it.

So looking forward to how we’ll be working in terms of some of the key parts of this, let’s take a look in particular at reorganisation and what that approach really means, and what it means by removing that threat of amalgamation that’s hung over the head of local authorities for far too long. As Ms Swarbrick has already mentioned, we’re reversing the previous Government’s changes which enabled anyone to request an investigation, and that’s really good because it gives local government a bit more confidence in terms of where the future lies—a bit more certainty.

Local authorities will be able to request a reorganisation themselves, so they can do that in their own right through the Local Government Commission. So that ability is still there, but it’s more on the side of working collaboratively. They can undertake it themselves through that new reorganisation process. Reorganisation proposals made by members of the public will need to demonstrate that there’s significant community support, and that’s done by introducing, on Supplementary Order Paper 323, a requirement for a petition of 10 percent or more of the local people affected. So that right is still there, but there’s a requirement for a 10 percent threshold in order to make sure that there’s a little bit more autonomy based in those local government organisations.

Additionally, once the bill is enacted, all reorganisation requests, except for those already accepted by the Local Government Commission, will need to meet the new requirements for significant community support. So it’s still keeping in mind that you need to work with communities, but it’s giving a threshold there at the same time.

The previous Government’s bill enhanced powers of the Local Government Commission and increased its accountability to central government. But our bill removed these measures because they would not achieve better outcomes for the system of local government, and that gets back to my main point of partnership and working in collaboration to make sure we get the best outcomes for our communities.

This legislation represents the start of a programme to look at how central government and local government can work together well enough to increase the wellbeing of our communities. So these interim measures are being introduced to constrain large-scale reorganisations and also to alleviate the local government sector’s concerns about that threat of amalgamation. Having that constant fear on your shoulder can really impede the ability for local government members to be able to work within their communities and feel like there’s a level of certainty going forward. It is also to provide breathing space while new arrangements are being developed.

Let’s take a look at CCOs. I’m always interested in CCOs. We’ve got a couple out in the Hutt City and I’ve always been interested about how they have operated, and from my experience, they haven’t been that transparent. I’ve attended a few annual general meetings that would have taken place in the blink of an eye, with minutes that lasted about four words, so no one actually knows what’s happening behind those scenes. It’s also interesting to see how much some of those boards and chairs get paid. I’m always interested in those sums as well, to see where that benefit is going.

The bill makes amendments to council-controlled organisational provisions to make a greater level of transparency, and it’s important that if these are used by local government—if these are facets of what ratepayers are contributing to—it’s important that those people who are living within an area, whether they be ratepayers or not, have an understanding of what those functions are and how that money is being spent. So when there’s multiple ownership or when there’s work going on with transport or with fundamental services like water provision, it’s incredibly important that people know what’s happening and have the ability to have access to that information.

The Local Government Commission will not be able to transfer a council’s services to CCOs. The next change is that proposals to create an elaborate system of CCOs to deliver water, transport, and other services are withdrawn, and we’ve seen that in some of the bigger centres in New Zealand. Provisions to enhance the transparency and accountability of council-controlled organisations to councils and communities are added. That’s really important—that those elected members sitting around the council table have a good handle on what’s going on—and that is one area that I think could be really improved in this space.

The original bill made extensive provisions to force CCOs—especially council-controlled CCOs—jointly owned by a number of authorities, and this includes CCOs with water and transport functions. So local authorities deeply opposed this approach, but this amendment—this SOP—makes those changes by removing that material from the original bill, and I think that’s a real improvement. If we’ve got increased accountability and increased transparency in terms of how those CCOs are operating, that’s got to be an improvement on the previous bill.

Additionally, the bill also retains the existing provisions to improve planning and reporting arrangements for CCOs and further strengthens accountability mechanisms. As I’ve said before, some of the ability to report back to the public, whether it’s an AGM or making minutes available—those can be really difficult to get hold of for the average member of the public. So having some bottom lines in terms of what’s happening and how that money is being spent, how those services are being delivered, and how they can reassure communities that they’re getting access to the services that they’re essentially funding is quite important.

To finish off, I would like to say that it is important that there are areas that the bill demonstrates the Government’s partnership approach in working with the local government sector, and fundamental to that is trust. It is working together and having a level of trust that we work with each other, and to have a country where our local government is empowered to help people. That might be through additional funding through areas that we haven’t seen before, and I look forward to seeing developments in that space. Housing is one of those abilities that we can work closely with local government to make sure that there’s a range of housing options. Whether they be rent to buy or a cheaper rent, if there’s council-owned property and if there’s Government initiatives to work together, those are some of those areas that could really increase community wellbeing, and having this strong partnership in this space is a strong platform for those future developments to happen.

I’m proud of this bill. It’s a good piece of work and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would like to start by echoing, as some other members have, congratulations for those successful candidates in the recent local body elections, in particular the three mayors whose districts cover part of my Waikato electorate: Allan Sanson, Mayor for Waikato, re-elected; Jim Mylchreest, Mayor for Waipā, re-elected unopposed; and the new mayor for the Matamata-Piako district, Ash Tanner. I’d also just like to take a moment to thank Mayor Jan Barnes for her service to Matamata-Piako as well.

Look, in relation to this bill—this was a National bill that was put forward, had its first reading, went to select committee, had its second reading in the previous Government, but we’ve seen now a significant Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) put forward by the current Minister, which has changed this bill drastically. Now, the previous bill provided greater flexibility, and as Mr Yule pointed out as well, it actually gave the ability for the Local Government Commission to influence change, to assist where necessary. I think the previous member’s comments around the constant threat of amalgamation hanging over and being a constraint on the ability to conduct business for councils was a somewhat exaggerated position. I don’t suspect that’s actually the case that these organisations are constantly concerned that one day they will receive a phone call that amalgamation is happening imminently.

However, though, the reality was that it was about trying to provide greater flexibility allowing or facilitating change through that Local Government Commission. So instead of a new bill being put forward, as this Government seems to be developing a trend of doing, they are putting forward a significant SOP at the committee of the whole House stage, bypassing that select committee process altogether, and, actually, just assuming they know best and will ram it through without consultation. We’ve seen that on a number of pieces of legislation under this Government, actually, which is a worrying concern.

💬 Jan Logie: Ha, ha!

And we hear laughter from members of the Government as they realise that this is a process that isn’t quite appropriate but they’re still using it anyway. Regardless of that, it is disappointing to see some of these changes that have been made to what was a good bill that we did support at the first and second reading but are now unable to support any more.

Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take a call on this bill, the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2), particularly, obviously, talking to the Supplementary Order Paper. As the final speaker, I will attempt to sort of sum up some of the arguments that we’ve heard, and finish this debate. I’d also like to begin by acknowledging all those who stood in the recent local body elections. I was a candidate myself, back in 2013, in the Hamilton East ward. Unfortunately I missed out, and now I’m in Parliament, which I’m enjoying.

Now, we have a new mayor in Hamilton, Paula Southgate, and I’d like to acknowledge the previous mayor, Andrew King, for the work that he did. If you could indulge me briefly, just before I get to the bill, if the House would indulge me, I would like to place on Hansard congratulations to my wife, Angela Strange, for being elected to the Waikato Regional Council. I know some would say that is a bit shameless, but no—she deserves strong congratulations. Our family was very proud of what she achieved. There you go, Angela—you’re on Hansard.

💬 Hon Members: Angela Strange.

Angela Strange, my wife, yes—the top polling candidate, but we don’t need to. I would also like to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, who since she has become Minister of Local Government has engaged very closely with councils, and I’ve heard from a number of councils right around the country that they’ve been very impressed with the engagement from this Government. They often felt at times the previous Government effectively sort of made a decision and then told them what to do, which relates to this bill because, you know, the previous bill was effectively telling councils what to do, whereas the amendments that we have made are about central government and local government working together. It’s around collaboration, and we’ve heard that theme come through a lot from different speakers.

Now, the aspect around amalgamation. We heard from the member opposite in the previous speech that he believes there isn’t the threat of amalgamation hanging over councils. Well, I disagree with that. I hear from a number of councils, and speakers from this side have noted in their speeches, that there is an uneasiness around amalgamation potentially being forced on them. Now, there were some recent comments from the chair of the Chamber of Commerce in the Waikato region, who publicly said our councils should amalgamate, and the councils almost en masse across the region rose up against this viewpoint and said, “No, we don’t want to be amalgamated. We don’t want this. We are happy to work together, but we don’t want amalgamation forced upon us.”

So I believe that is a very real and present either threat or perceived threat within the council, and what this Government does is provide certainty for those councils—certainty around them being able to carry out their functions in the way that they see fit. The aspect that relates to that is that the bill states that if a reorganisation is to take place—effectively, another word for amalgamation—that if somebody’s going to put that forward, somebody from the public, they need 10 percent of the electors to sign, effectively, a petition, which they then present to local government. Now, it would be interesting to see how this piece of legislation is interpreted, because is that 10 percent of the electors within one ward or is that 10 percent across both the two wards that are going to amalgamate, so, therefore, 5 percent of one ward and 5 percent of the other? But we will see, if somebody chooses to put that forward, how that is interpreted.

I’d like to give a couple of local examples. Now, it must’ve been about one year ago. Three councils within the Waikato region were talking about sharing water services. They got very close to the point of combining as three councils and providing shared water services, and there were obviously some benefits around that, particularly in terms of cost. What happened, though, is that at the last minute that arrangement failed. It basically fell over, and, as I interpret it, it fell over because some of the smaller councils felt a little bit uneasy about engaging with a larger council and the idea that possibly they could therefore be amalgamated into some sort of large council. What this bill does is basically remove that threat to those councils, and it actually encourages councils to work together without that threat, without that sense of potential insecurity, for councils to represent their own areas, to understand their own issues and serve their own people, but also work collaboratively together and with the Government.

The second local example is from when I was first elected to Parliament as a list MP covering Hamilton and, loosely, the wider Waikato region. I pulled the mayors together from all of the councils and I said to them, “What are we going to focus on as a region?” And we talked through it for a while, and then we settled on the corridor between Hamilton and Auckland—the fastest-growing growth corridor in New Zealand. So we settled on that piece of work, and then that piece of work has since grown over the past couple of years—I might elaborate on that a little bit soon. But the key point I want to bring out of that is that after that meeting, I vividly remember one of the mayors saying, “This is the first time we’ve met like this for 10 years. It’s the first time we’ve done this for 10 years.” As someone who came to this House out of the education sector, where collaboration is sort of taken for granted, it’s really sort of second nature.

Tim van de Molen: I don’t think any of those mayors were there 10 years ago.

I found that surprising, and I said to the mayor—no, no, one of them was. One of the mayors was there 10 years ago, and that was the mayor I spoke to.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Name names.

I don’t need to name names, but it was the first time that they collaborated for 10 years. It took me by surprise, because I just assumed that this was happening all the time. Anyway, the good work that’s come out of that collaboration is that now there’s a piece of planning linking the Hamilton-Auckland corridor—effectively, working on linking those two labour markets into, essentially, one labour market, which will be fantastic for GDP in our country. Some of the work that’s been done is around transport networks, urban growth, and water. That’s an example of councils coming together and collaborating. If there’s that threat around amalgamation, then the councils are a little bit less willing to do that.

The second point I’d like to touch on here—and it has been spoken about, so I’ll just touch on this one briefly—is around the council-controlled organisations (CCOs). The CCO provisions in the Supplementary Order Paper, they aim to improve council-controlled organisations’ responsiveness to local authority direction, transparency to the local authority, transparency to the public, and responsiveness to Māori. Just to highlight some of these key changes, the Local Government Commission will not be able to transfer council services to council-controlled organisations. Secondly, proposals to create an elaborate system of council-controlled organisations to deliver water, transport, and other services are withdrawn. Thirdly, provisions to enhance the transparency and accountability of council-controlled organisations to councils and communities are added. I’d just like to highlight the point of the speaker Ginny Andersen, who basically gave the example around how at times there’s not the amount of transparency within CCOs that people desire, and so this is certainly addressing that.

The final point, in closing, is there is one other aspect—and I haven’t heard it spoken about yet, so it is a new point in the debate—and that’s the provision in this bill to enable transport functions to be transferred between regional councils and territorial authorities at the request of the Minister of Transport. I know there’s interest in Canterbury transferring these functions between Environment Canterbury and Christchurch City Council. Just to give an example of how that can work well is in the Waikato region—obviously, the region I live in, so it’s easy for me to speak about that—an example of a passenger rail service which will be going middle of next year, which I’m sure everyone in this House is very excited about, so the middle of next year. We’ve had collaboration between the Waikato Regional Council, Hamilton City Council, Waikato District Council, and Government. When that collaboration occurs, we get the kind of outcomes that people want—you know, we get the aspects of economies of scale and people playing to their strengths. So, look, hopefully I’ve sort of summed up the bill, and I commend this to the House. Thank you.