Local Government (Rating of Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Local Government: I move, That the Local Government (Rating of Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 29 June 2020 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 191, 193, and 194(1)(b) and (c).

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The reason why I hesitated to rise to my feet was because I was quickly looking at my diary and trying to count out how many weeks the select committee then had to consider this bill. There has been scant information coming from the Government over what the select committee period is, so I’m feeling very confident that there are members sitting behind me who are in fact making those calculations at the moment, because one thing we do need to be assured of in the select committee consideration of this Local Government (Rating of Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill is that there is a good and thorough consideration of the issues that are flagged and raised in the bill.

So, first of all, to summarise, if you like, the provisions of this bill, the purpose and intention of this bill, according to the Minister Nanaia Mahuta, is to support the development of and provision of housing on Māori land, modernise the rating legislation affecting Māori land, and support Māori land development. Another provision in the bill is that the ratepayer for multiple rating units of Māori freehold land—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry to interrupt the member, but we are just speaking to the referral motion. If the member could slide on to that debate, which we’re on.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was attempting to give a little bit of context as to why the National Party is so very concerned that a decent period of consideration is allowed for this bill. So without delving too deeply into the detail—and I respect and understand your ruling, Madam Speaker—there are within this bill a number of considerations that need to be given some considerable time.

The bill is, effectively, about calculating rates, amalgamating rating units for the purposes of rating, allowing for separate title on multiple dwellings on Māori land so that families can access rate rebates. This is all good stuff, if you like, but it raises so many questions. And some of those questions are: is this bill not—and it is something that I will tease out in further debates—addressing the end of the problem of development of Māori land? And if I go back briefly to the purpose of this bill—supporting the development of and provision of housing on Māori land—the question is: if that is the purpose of the bill, then I would have thought that the rating mechanism, purportedly to achieve those aims, should be undertaken at the very end of all the other processes of addressing the underlying issues that surround this.

💬 Kiritapu Allan: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): If the point of order is that the member still isn’t addressing the bill, that’s my determination and I’d really encourage the member to at least make a passing reference to the bill. But that won’t be enough to satisfy the requirements of the debate. The referral motion is what we’re talking to, not the contents of the legislation.

Yeah. Just, point of order, if I may.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): It might be better if you reflect on whether that’s a good idea first.

Oh, clearly it isn’t. So I will carry on, thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Excellent.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s wonderful to have such a good understanding of the processes of this House.

So the referral motion provides for a report-back date of 29 June this year and, as I said when I got to my feet, it just seemed to be a period—did anyone do the numbers?

💬 Maureen Pugh: Yes, I did: 109 days.

109 days—and I guess that’s full days. And, if I could, I would calculate how many weeks that is and how many parliamentary sessions that is—therefore, how many opportunities for the committee to undertake the type of work that it does post the referral of the bill to the committee. It is around the calling for submissions, and the committee will need to give very good thought. This is a multi-faceted bill, and the committee will have to give serious consideration of whether or not to invite submitters—and that happens occasionally in select committees. It has identified that there are certain groups who have a particular interest in the subject of the bill. Should the committee write to them and invite them to come and brief the committee and make a submission on that aspect of the bill? Should the committee then open for general submissions and put a notice out, in the way that we do these days, inviting submissions from, perhaps, the general public and other interested people—experts, legal experts? We are often getting the Law Society making a submission.

The consideration of this in what is quite a complex bill is going to take some time and with only 109 days, which you condense that down to a number of times the committee sits, then the question has to be raised and should be raised by the Opposition: does that give due consideration to the matters being raised? I hoped I’m not straying too far from—good, it’s very good; we’re getting nods.

So that is a concern because, given the scope and nature of this bill, it could well be that the sheer volume of submissions being made from Northland, for example; from Gisborne, for example—any place around New Zealand where people have a strong view and wish to have their say on the bill—the committee should then discuss and determine whether it travels to those places to hear the submissions and, in fact, with the ratepayer, meet with the councils. One can’t just consider a rating bill, in my humble view, without talking to ratepayer groups, and there might be all sorts of ratepayer groups who have a view on this legislation—proposed legislation.

The local authority elected members will no doubt have a view on it as well, as will the view of council officials be very valuable in this because they are the ones who enact the rating legislation. What is the impact is part of the committee’s consideration, which is why I’m speaking to the 109 calendar days available. Why it’s relevant to that point is the impact of some of the provisions: having separate rating units, which will allow for rates rebate, amalgamating dwellings into one rating unit to be rated as a whole—what is the implication for other ratepayers on that in the committee’s consideration during the select committee period?

So National is of the view that the full six-month select committee process is needed. It might be that the committee will want to travel, and it might be that that travel has to occur on several different occasions, and there are a number of times over the years when a select committee has determined to travel all over New Zealand to hear submissions. Now, I wouldn’t anticipate this to be exactly the case in this bill, but certainly I would anticipate that there might be a couple of occasions where the committee can and should travel, particularly in our new normal environment, where travel could well become a little more challenging for submitters to come to Wellington to submit.

I am of a view that if somebody can travel and wants to travel to be heard in person, then the select committee should make every effort to bring that about and make that possible for people. If, for example, a member of the public or ratepayer group or a mayor or anyone—iwi—wish to be heard in person, and it will challenge them to travel the length of the North Island or the length of the South Island to come to Wellington, then it behoves the select committee to make every effort to travel to them. All of this to be condensed into 109 calendar days—and I haven’t had the time to calculate how many select committee days that is, but it is my strong view and the strong view of the National Party that this is a substantial bill. It does demand good, close scrutiny.

I just want to briefly pick up some comments just to help alleviate the member who just spoke, the Hon Jacqui Dean, of any of the concerns that she may have had, particularly in respect to the ability to provide members who want to speak in respect to this bill, whether they have to meet in Wellington or outside. Helpfully, the referral motion before this House right now contemplates Standing Order 193, which enables meetings outside of Wellington to occur during sitting days, which is what this referral motion is requesting, so that we can ensure that the contributions of those that the member who just spoke in this House had concerns for—that they may not be able to attend this House—would be enabled to give their considered views in respect of this bill. It is a fundamental proposition that the Minister of Local Government has turned her mind to—to enable the voices of those, in particular, that are impacted, which may be outside of this region—that this referral motion directly is attributable to. So I hope that assists the member in this House to ensure that those concerns are met.

I call Denise Lee. Could I just remind the member that this is a really narrow debate.

💬 Denise Lee: Sure.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): It doesn’t deal with the contents of the bill; it just refers to the instruction to the committee.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. So for those listening and/or watching, we’re dealing with an instruction to committee, a referral motion. We would like to go on record here, from this side of the House, that we do not think that the report-back time frames should be shortened for the Māori Affairs Committee for this Local Government (Rating of Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill, and that we don’t think that the select committee should have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting. I personally just feel a little bit miffed at this particular motion because we’ve been kicked back on my Education and Workforce Committee when we’ve asked to meet during House sitting times because we think it’s been appropriate and we haven’t been allowed to, but yet we have this particular motion being put forward.

I would like to refer to the content of the bill, not for the sake of the content of the bill but in relation to how important I think it is that we don’t try and fast track this. When we look at the regulatory impact assessment, it was very much noted there that some people weren’t able to be consulted. So I think that there are going to be a significant amount of submissions. I think there are going to be cases—even if not numerically, definitely in content—where people have not had a chance to have their say. For instance, we know that farmers and general land owners weren’t consulted in the impact assessment report.

This is 9,800 Māori land rating units we’re talking about. That’s a lot. This is not a bitsy omnibus bill, and we have some questions that people may want to submit on, some issues that are of sizable significance—for instance, the powers of the chief executive to potentially write off rates applying to non-Māori land as well. Is that an element of the bill that people may want to submit on? Is the shortened time frame the right way to go about this? Are we, in fact, in very unusual times here in Parliament and would people expect Parliament to deliberate and use its processes in a normal fashion and take its normal time frame, which, we know, everyone here in this House knows would be six months, not half the time? That’s what we are making a stand on here on this side of the House. We’re looking at half the time to take and debate and look at a bill that has some sizeable issues in it.

Something else that’s been raised is implications to landowners whose land is under the national policy statement of indigenous biodiversity. What are the implications for them? Is it right that as a House we say, “Right, well, we’re facing lots of issues at the moment, not all of them parliamentary; many of them health. Is fast tracking anything in this Parliament the right way to go about it?” I would argue no. I would argue that the New Zealand public want to see Parliament treat everything seriously and give it its due time frame. That also applies to MPs sitting when the House is sitting when, ordinarily, they wouldn’t. They’d expect select committees to behave in a very normal and process-driven fashion.

I may be a first-term MP and I’m learning all the ways that select committees operate and how the processes—all the ins and outs—work, but in this particular bill I think it’s a no-brainer, whether you’re a first-termer or whether you’re a senior MP. This particular bill—with significant issues that have been highlighted as very potentially serious and contentious issues by different councils around the country; someone’s even used the “racism” word. This is absolutely a topic that should be given the correct and standard amount of time to be analysed.

So we’re very clear on this side of the House: it should not have a shortened time frame, it should not have half the time frame that we would normally take, and we should also not give the ability for the select committee to sit during the times that the House is sitting. They should undertake their normal procedures.

💬 Kiritapu Allan: Madam Speaker.

You’ve had a call in this debate. You only get one, sorry.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Now, National believes that the six-month, full select committee process is needed to hear all views and identify any issues.

Now, I’ll give you four reasons. The first reason is that the consultation so far has not been enough. There has been limited consultation with local governments in the general election. If you look at the regulatory impact assessment, you’ll find that the department acknowledges time constraints around effective consultation. The regulatory impact assessment notes that limited recent consultation with the local authorities on proposals has led to some assumptions around the cost assessments of some options. That is on page two of the regulatory impact assessment report. So the regulatory impact assessment also says that the rating outcomes of Māori land result from a complex interaction of five pieces of legislation. I know the scope of this legislation is limited, yet that method itself is very complex. So it involves five pieces of legislation—three pieces of legislation under the Department of Internal Affairs, and the Local Government Act 2002, the rating act, and the Rates Rebate Act 1973.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry to interrupt the member. As I reminded the House earlier, this debate is about the instruction to the committee, not the content of the bill.

Yeah, I understand that. I’m just trying to say that—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): So if you could refer to the instruction to the committee in your contribution, please.

OK. So this bill itself, in terms of scope, is limited. Nevertheless, it is important for us to have the full select committee process. As I said, the consultation process so far has been limited. Why? Because the data availability has been an issue to the department. So we do have rates records in different councils—right—but we do not have a national database. These councils or local authorities have their own rates records. While these are de-centralised, that’s an issue. At the same time, these local authorities have different practices in terms of making these records or data available. So people will find it relatively easy to find the record about one particular or individual site, but it’s hard to do a mass analysis. That is why, when the officials were doing the research, they found that it was hard for them to use mass analysis to support any particular finding or identified—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry to interrupt the member again—one final opportunity for the member to speak to the instruction to the committee, please.

Madam Speaker, I was trying to say—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I was listening to what you were actually saying; I have no idea what you were trying to say, but if you could now actually say some words which relate to the instruction to the committee, thank you.

I’m trying to say that we need more time to do consultation because so far we haven’t done enough consultation. That was what I’m trying to say. That’s why we need more time to consult people.

Now, if you read the regulatory impact assessment, you’ll find that officials often refer to prior consultations. The “prior consultation” means consultation for other bills, not particularly this bill. That’s why we think we need more time, so that the committee would be able to do a better consultation process. That’s why the committee needs more time to run the whole process.

The regulatory impact assessment report itself says that the time frame for the consultation is inadequate and, therefore, the consultations are limited. Now, we have a second reason: the reason is we need to consider the implications of the bill to some people, or some actors, or some particular parties. So this bill could have some implications for general land owners. In the previous consultation we did not really have enough time to consult general land owners, and to have a shortened select committee process would limit our capability for a wider consultation. We may not have the opportunity to consult general land owners, or this bill itself may have major implications on them. For example, if rates write-offs on Māori-owned land occurred, well, this will be subsidised by general land owners, who will cover the costs of the write-offs to the councils. So the bill itself—this is only one example; there are many other areas which would have implications on general land owners, and then if we do not have this full six-month select committee process, then we might not be able to finish this particular work. As I mentioned, the farmers and general land owners have not been properly consulted so far during the regulatory impact assessment process.

The other thing is this bill—the purpose—is for the development of Māori land, but we may need to consider other issues which are related to the proper development of Māori land, and, also, we may consider what implications it may have on general land owners. I’ll also mention that this matter itself is not really a very urgent matter. We do not see any particular reason why it should be rushed. As the officials have identified and have made clear, collecting rates on Māori-owned land has been a longstanding issue, a problem for councils and owners of Māori land. So the issue had been there for a long time. What’s the rationale for us to rush and then finish quickly? It’s not a very important issue that must be done within two or three months, otherwise we would have major consequences. But that won’t happen, so why should we rush?

So these are the three main reasons, but there is one more reason I need to mention. That is that last week, I noticed that there was another bill where the select committee process was shortened. That was the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Bill. So I want to make sure that we do not fall into a habit of having a rushed process. We want to make sure that each bill would be able to have this normal standard—you know, six months, full process. We’re not saying that we have no exceptions. We can have exceptions, but we need to have good reasons for those exceptions. So that is why I believe that we, in this particular bill, cannot see any particular reason to justify a shortened, a truncated, select committee process. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a short call on the debate on the referral of the Local Government (Rating of Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill today. As we’ve heard, the first reading of this bill took place in this House on 12 March and the report-back date is 29 June, so that does, from first reading to report back, give us a time frame of 109 days, or 15 weeks. So it’s gone from the select committee process, which is normally around six months, and been nearly cut in half to just over three months.

I’d like to refer to the Minister of Local Government’s speech in the first reading debate, where she actually omitted giving any rationale for why there was going to be an instruction to the select committee for a shortened report-back time. It’s hard to understand, without that rationale being given by the Minister, why we have to rush this particular bill through the parliamentary process. In fact, the same Minister, in Opposition—Nanaia Mahuta—said when we were debating the Te Ture Whenua Māori bill, and I quote, “There were issues around levels of participation and levels of real input and engagement into the process but also death by iteration in the legislative process.” So the Minister opposed the rushed process while in Opposition but, now that she is in Government, is very happy to instruct the committee to have a shortened report-back time.

It makes no sense to rush this through the process, because there is no time constraint on this particular bill being enacted this year. I’ll explain why: it’s because in the local government environment in New Zealand—and the Minister will know this—the new financial year starts on 1 July. That’s no surprise, because it’s the same every year. Now, the local government process in setting its rates starts at the end of a calendar year. So when we get to the end of the calendar year, staff within a local council will be starting to pull together all of their deferred works, all of their planned maintenance, their upgrades. They will be looking at projects they want to fund, they’ll be looking at debt servicing, and, as a result, they will pull together a draft annual plan. That happens at the end of a calendar year. So in the new year, that draft will go out to ratepayers for consultation, and the councils will then hear and read submissions, and, based on all of that, they will set the rates.

The rates are struck in time for the new rating year that starts on 1 July, so regardless of whether this bill has passed its third reading on 29 June or not, it is not going to be able to be considered by councils in time to strike the rates for the new financial year that they work to, which starts on 1 July. They simply won’t have time to include all of the calculations that they’re going to need to work around in terms of how the rates are going to be impacted on for other ratepayers as a consequence of this bill, because, as we’ve already heard, this is going to increase the rates on other ratepayers.

So if there’s no ability to influence the striking of the rates at a minimum at the end of this calendar year, or, as a maximum, the consultation period in 2021 that councils will go through, it’s very difficult to argue that there’s a time imperative that justifies instructing the select committee on a shortened report-back date. We’ve actually got, if we are sticking to this time frame that’s proposed, 25 sitting days—25 sitting days—to consider all of the impacts of the rates implications across the country.

The only rationale that does make sense is that this Government has sat on its hands for 2½ years, and now, with an election looming, it’s dangling carrots simply as a political ploy. There will be ratepayers who simply will definitely want to contribute to the debate on this. They will want to consider the bill, and they will certainly want to submit on it, and especially if their rates are going to increase as a consequence of this bill.

Now, the committee deserves the time to accommodate hearings for those submitters, and we simply don’t know what we don’t know yet. I imagine there’ll be organisations like Local Government New Zealand or SOLGM, the Society of Local Government Managers, that have expertise in this field that will have a huge contribution to make. They too deserve the time that is required to make considered submissions and to consult with their sector, because they won’t, probably, make those submissions on their own; they will want to go back out to their membership, and that will take time. It is certainly going to take more than 25 sitting days in this House.

I find it very difficult to find any rationale that justifies the instruction to the select committee that is going to consider the Local Government (Rating of Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill to have a shortened report-back time. It is certainly not justified, and no rationale has been given by the Minister. I thank you, Madam Speaker.

I move, That the question be now put.