Local Government (Customer Focus) Amendment Bill

Madam Speaker, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to this particular bill in the name of the Hon Jacqui Dean. I appreciate her intent, her strong intent, to bring a customer focus—literally, as the title says—to this particular piece of legislation.

What the opening purpose of the bill refers to is the current requirement to not have, under the Local Government Act 2002, local authorities taking a customer-focused approach to all that they do to delivering public services and regulatory functions. It might sound pretty ABC that that is something that they should do, but it is not actually there in plain, simple language and sight for all to see. So I really applaud Jacqui’s deliberate, measured approach to make sure that intent translates into action—that there is a culture that requires local government to look at processes and systems to be timely and effective, to have a value-for-money approach. All of that, of course, is wrapped up in the term of “customer-focused”, because when we keep our eyes on what people actually need from Government, and in this case local government, it’s where we can see quite clearly where the frustrations come, and I want to touch on a couple of those in the short time that I have.

Resource Management Act application processes—I almost need say no more: a shining example of why this bill is necessary. Also, I think, when it comes to talking on legislation, it’s always good to have a personal approach, right? I asked my staff in my office, knowing that I’d be speaking on this, “Remind me again what we’re seeing through our doors on a regular basis and where the largest set of complaints and frustrations come from.” and it’s council-related processes. I’m no longer a city councillor, but I still have many, many, many constituent cases that cut across council issues.

One particular example, and I’ve had quite a slew of these recently, is not having a case manager or a one-stop shop or a point of contact for something like the consenting process. For many, many people, the consents that they apply for—large or complicated or small—should be straightforward, but when you have something like staff turnover, it’s a huge source of frustration, almost mind-blowingly so when you can’t have consistency. Yet if we were able to bring a customer focus to what local government does, you’d see things through a different lens: perhaps with a case manager, a consistent case manager, not just in consenting, but in other departments that councils have, we may see a reconnection or a renewal of trust in local government, and we all know that that’s lacking.

I don’t particularly like holding up papers in Parliament, but I’ll just do a mini hold-up here. I’ve got in my hands the Citizens Insights Monitor, Auckland Council’s own Colmar Brunton regular quarterly survey where they survey themselves on their trust ratings and rankings. I went straight to the back page and highlighted a couple of things here where satisfaction—does council advocate for Aucklanders and do they have examples of good value for ratepayers’ money? Shocking results, absolutely shocking. The most recent PR’s all about all-time highs. In these categories, an all-time high is 26 percent of satisfaction with the way Auckland Council runs—all-time high. Normally, they’re ranking around—and I’m just looking at the last three years—16 and 18 percent. That’s our largest council; in fact, Australasia’s largest council. So thank you, the Hon Jacqui Dean, for doing something really thoughtful and full of intent, and the right intent, to bring back customer focus. It’s what New Zealanders deserve, at the very least, from the world of local government.

We here at the National Party have over this term being looking at different ways to address this. I ran a “Rate your council” survey for which we received many, many, many respondents who are raising the same thing—

I’m sorry to interrupt the member. Her time has expired.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. Firstly, just rising to speak to this member’s bill, the Local Government (Customer Focus) Amendment Bill, I want to acknowledge my colleague the Hon Jacqui Dean, who I actually sit in postgraduate class with. We have explored in this class lots of approaches to governance, different forms of management, and how we can better deliver services, particularly in the Public Service.

I do, however, want to let the Hon Jacqui Dean know that the Green Party will not be supporting this bill. The reason for that is that this Government seeks to amend the Local Government Act 2002. The Local Government Act 2002 actually already sets out how local authorities should serve their communities. I’d note that the former National Party Government, in fact, took away the four wellbeings, which was much to the upset of local governments around this country, because that enabled local governments to change, or rather, to provide services looking at a number of the different variables that are critically important to their local communities.

I also want to say, just really critically, that the Greens’ position is that local government across this country is requiring reform at a much larger scale, and it definitely shouldn’t be sliding in the direction of a more commercial focus. Because when you start to dive down this rabbit hole of talking about customers as opposed to citizens all of a sudden you start having these questions such as who is this so-called customer? Is it solely those who could be characterised or caricatured, even, as ratepayers? And if that’s the case, is it only those who own a home? What about those under the age, for example, of 18, whom historically haven’t been particularly well catered for when it comes to the development of infrastructure, of parks, of walkways, of safe cycling, and pedestrian access across this country, its cities, towns, and regions?

So, with only a few moments left, I want to acknowledge the fact that we are tonight in this Chamber debating local government and how we can potentially reform it. It looks as though my colleague across the House, former head of Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ), Lawrence Yule, is preparing his papers to get up and stand and speak to this bill. I hope that he brings to this contribution, which he seems to imminently be making, the same kind of passion that he brought as the head of LGNZ when he opposed, within LGNZ, the approach of the former National Government and the revocation of the four wellbeings.

We absolutely need to be taking greater focus to local governments across Aotearoa. It is absolutely in need of reform, but this is not the direction that the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand believes it should be headed. It is with sadness that I think that we are missing an opportunity to reform this area of governance in Aotearoa. But, again, I applaud the Hon Jacqui Dean for bringing the conversation forward none the less.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a short call on this bill. First, can I acknowledge the honourable member Jacqui Dean, who was fortunate enough to have her bill drawn from the ballot. I reflect on my time prior to coming to Parliament. I was a local councillor for the Far North District Council for one and a half terms and then I was fortunate to come to Parliament, yeah. So I looked at this bill with interest.

I wasn’t here for your first speech and the first debate on it, so I went to the Hansard and had a look at what everybody was saying from all sides of the House. I think, rightly so, in the Minister Nanaia Mahuta’s contribution, she raised the point that it isn’t actually defined within the bill what is meant by “the customer”, and it referred to a whole lot of legislation. That’s one of the things that I found interesting when I was on the council—just how much legislation local government is responsible for administering. I tried to find the information, Lawrence Yule; I thought it used to be on Local Government New Zealand, but it’s, like, over 70 Acts, I think, that are relevant to local government and they have a role in administering.

So I think that that highlights what the challenge is when we say that we want to insert that it be customer focused, because who is the customer when we’re talking about local government and under which piece of legislation might they be performing a particular function? So that is the reason why Labour are not supporting this member’s bill—it’s because of that ambiguity and because of that challenge.

So if I can just give a couple of examples. Councils have some responsibilities under the Building Act—and I know that the honourable member actually mentioned that one specifically in her speech—but also under the Resource Management Act; so a different customer, again, to those potentially that were referred to under the Building Act. I know that the Dog Control Act was mentioned as to whether the customer is the dog owner, is it the neighbour, or is it somebody of the general public? Civil defence is another Act that local government has a responsibility for, so who is the customer, then, in the civil defence case? Fencing of swimming pools—is the customer simply the pool owner or is it the general public that we are trying to provide safety mechanisms for? There are the Forest and Rural Fires Act, the Gambling Act, the transport Act, the Reserves Act, and the list goes on.

So I hope that that illustrates my point that the problem that we have on this side of the House is that when we want to insert something as fundamental as “the focus of local government needs to be on the customer” and then we see up to 70 pieces of legislation where potentially the customer is a different person in every single one of those, that lack of definition and lack of specific guidance to local councils, I think, will create more of a challenge for local government, and we certainly don’t want to be giving them such ambiguity to work with.

If I can come back to what is actually the purpose of local government—it’s to enable democratic local decision-making and action by and on behalf of communities and to promote the social, economic, environmental, and cultural wellbeing of communities in the present and for the future. I know that there are several consultative processes that councils must go through to ensure that they are getting the necessary support from the community, from the public, in terms of their annual plans, in terms of their long-term plans, and, on some issues, special consultative processes that are required. So I believe that, in those processes, and from experiencing them myself, they are having to give due consideration to the people who are impacted by the proposals that are being put forward in those documents.

So I believe that this bill doesn’t make any substantive change to the functions of local government and the purposes that are set out in it that I just referred to, that it doesn’t provide any specific guidance to local authorities, and exactly what is meant by “customers” is not defined and it is not a concept that will fit well within the regulatory roles of councils—like, for example, all of the Acts that I listed. So Labour does not support this bill.

OK. We have got more speaking slots. We’re not taking them?

It is an absolute delight to be able to speak on this bill, the Local Government (Customer Focus) Amendment Bill. Actually, I want to acknowledge the Hon Jacqui Dean for her work in bringing this to the table and to this House tonight. For example, I know that each of us in this role liaise closely with our local body councils, and there’s a lot of crossover between the work that we do. For example, where I live, I have five local authorities that come into my electorate, and the presumption is, of course, that the focus is always going to be on the customer and the people before us.

The challenge, I think, that I have with this bill slightly, though, is that there’s a presumption that there isn’t a focus on the people that they serve, the councils that they serve, and I struggle with that a little bit, because, for example, I’m thinking of my mayor in Ōpōtiki District Council, Lyn Riesterer. They have very minimal resources. Her staff and the CEO, Aileen Lawrie—I mean, they are just incredibly dedicated servants of the Ōpōtiki district community. The rate take there is very, very minimal. I am not sure that legislating to require them to be customer focused would do absolutely anything for these diligent servants.

I’m also a little surprised. I was reading the member’s remarks when the bill was pulled, and I read the press statement that she sent, and I agreed: you know, one of the biggest hassles for people with councils is just the unnecessary rigmarole or, kind of, the red tape that I think she was getting to. I couldn’t help but turn my mind to the fact that last week, we were sitting in urgency and the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, the Minister of Local Government, had brought to this House a very pragmatic bill that was specifically focused on—it was a rates rebates bill, but it was about cutting red tape, making life a little bit simpler. It was about not having to go through the requirements of getting statutory declarations. I sat through quite a few hours in this House listening to that side of the House absolutely rubbish that Minister, absolutely rubbish this Government, for trying to cut red tape, for trying to enable our local citizens in our electorates to be able to access the things that we all need to from our local governments.

The practical reality is I don’t know what it’s like in big areas, but what I can speak to are the issues in an area like mine—very under-resourced, people that work very, very hard and do everything within their power. What we can do as legislators is that we can enable them. We can lighten the burden slightly. It’s like that—you know, is it a stick or a carrot that drives good behaviour? Sometimes, perhaps, it’s a little bit of both, but here I see a bit of a stick being imposed on local governments—“You must, must, must do this, focus on customers, and we’ll tell you how to do it.”—whereas the Minister for local authority, in this House, came with practical solutions about how to remove red tape and the hassles and the barriers that most of us all face in our communities and took away some of those burdens.

It’s always interesting on a member’s night, because we always have to sort of see—well, actually, the underpinning philosophy of that side is probably that you should’ve—and you should have voted with us, because you probably agree that it was a good and pragmatic bill that went through to enable folks that couldn’t, in that instance, access those statutory declarations, and so we’re trying to cut the red tape to make things a little bit easier.

But like others have said in this House, this is a small and technical bill. It amends the Local Government Act 2002. It’s going to require, like I’ve said, what we talked about, the sort of customer focus. As my learned colleague and friend Willow-Jean mentioned before—Willow-Jean Prime—it’s nevertheless a little bit empty. There’s nothing defined about who the customer is and what this focus might be; it’s words and it’s more red tape to bind small little councils. I’m sure that my friend Lawrence Yule from across the way will have something very concise to say.

I’ve been told I’m speaking now, Madam Chair, so I’m just going to take—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Someone should have told the member in charge of the bill.

—a very short call, because what this bill is about is work that the Hon Jacqui Dean did on the Rules Reduction Taskforce. While we can sit in this House and criticise who are the customers and what does it mean, if you go and ask “Joe Blow Public”, particularly in the consenting and business side of council, most of them will tell you that there is a lack of customer focus in the delivery of those services. That’s all this bill does, and I wish the members opposite would support it going to select committee as a way of looking at what improvements could be made in the focus of local government. I commend this bill to the House, as I support my colleague the Hon Jacqui Dean.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We didn’t make that easy for the Chair, did we, but anyway, I’m on my feet now. Look, thank you to the members who have spoken in the debate, both this evening and at the first part of the first reading. This bill is quite simple, and that has been identified by my colleagues Lawrence Yule and Denise Lee. Lawrence outlined that this bill came as a result of a considerable amount of work that was undertaken in 2015-2016 by a group of New Zealanders who consulted widely about what were the aspects of red tape that could be improved in people’s interaction with local government, with their regulatory functions and their public services. So this is the genesis of this bill.

Willow-Jean Prime—thank you for her contribution—who sought to define who the customer is: well, that is exactly the point. The customer in this instance is that person who approaches their local authority for assistance with delivering a public service or in regards to a regulatory function. In order for me to define it any clearer than that would’ve resulted in a schedule of about 17 or 18 or 19 pages long—quite simply.

I also didn’t want to prescribe to the chief executive just how they would enact a public service in their organisation. Further, I am not arguing there should be more consultation, and Willow-Jean Prime again in her contribution to the debate—I wonder whether she was beginning to confuse customer focus with consultation, as did the Minister. Consultation is merely having a discussion and getting people’s views, whether that’s a statutory requirement or whether councils do that as a matter of course in their public outreach. I’m talking about something completely different. I’m talking about providing excellent service to all those who approach the local authority for assistance with a public service or with a regulatory function. I do commend this bill to the House.