Local Government (Pecuniary Interests Register) Amendment Bill

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. I move, That the Local Government (Pecuniary Interests Register) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill.

This bill seeks to amend the Local Government Act 2002 and better align the transparency requirements of local elected members with that of members of Parliament and the Executive Council. Can I, firstly, acknowledge my colleague the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan for her work in originally placing this bill into the ballot. As a new member, I was very comfortable to take this bill forward, and the reason for that is because the purpose of this bill is quite simply to improve transparency, but also to strengthen public trust and confidence in the decision-making process of and for local authorities up and down the country.

Local democracy is so important, and all members in this House will attest to that within their own local communities. Decisions around council tables can vary, whether it’s about lease arrangements for local facilities, whether it’s about the particular zoning, sale, or disposal of land, or whether it’s about what is a suitable rates rise when councils strike their rates on an annual basis. Local communities expect and deserve to know that all of those decisions and the many other decisions that local councils make are fair and transparent, because transparency is also important.

In the conversations that I’ve had with electors over many years, they have an expectation that there is transparency: transparency in the process, that the process is, firstly, understood, and, secondly, it’s fair; and transparency that those who are involved in the decision-making process declare what relevant interests they may have in making those decisions. And those, in my view, are not unrealistic expectations of those who make decisions at any level. This bill intends to provide an opportunity to do exactly that.

This bill provides a minimum standard of transparency for elected members to abide by. Prior to my election to this Parliament, I served as an elected member for just over 10 years as a Palmerston North city councillor and deputy mayor, and on an annual basis I was required to file an annual declaration around my assets and interests. In preparation for my contribution tonight, I managed to fish out the one that I filed last year, and I see that I was required to declare any employment that I was engaged in for any profit or gain; any company, trust, partnership of which I was a director, partner, trustee, or beneficiary; any land in which I had a beneficial interest within Palmerston North City; and other matters, including non-pecuniary relationships, such as affiliations with clubs, community organisations, and others. But I also, actually, note that I had to include those declarations as they also related to any of my close family members. So I commend the Palmerston North City Council on its high level of transparency in that regard. In addition, I was also required to disclose any gifts I’d received over a particular financial threshold.

Over those years, I simply assumed that these were requirements that were set for all councils in New Zealand. I have subsequently learnt that is not the case. In fact, it appears, as is the case with Palmerston North City Council, that often the requirement to declare certain interests, or not, rests upon whether councils have provisions that call for it in their internal documents, such as a council code of conduct. As it currently stands, depending on the council, local government representatives can keep their interests private as long as they do not discuss or vote on matters that they have a direct financial interest in. Again, this requires mayors, chairs, councillors, and members to voluntarily disclose their interests and stand aside from votes upon matters for which themselves, they feel, are compromised. This bill will rectify that. It will remove inconsistency in the approaches taken by councils by having a bottom line that captures the pecuniary interests of all local elected members.

Turning now to the specifics of the bill: firstly, a “pecuniary interest” will be defined specifically as “a matter or activity of financial benefit to the member”. A new section 42C in clause 4 outlines a number of interests relating to the member’s position. They will be required to disclose the name of each company within which the member is either a director or holds or controls more than 5 percent of the voting rights, along with a description of the main business activities of the company, to ensure that there is clarity and that they can be easily understood by members of the public. They’ll be required to disclose any other company or business in which the member has a pecuniary interest; the details of each employer, if the member is in employment; the name of each trust in which the member has a beneficial interest; any interests in organisations that receive funding or apply for funding from the local authority. When councils are making decisions around funding opportunities, it’s often very unclear as to the nature of relationships between those who are sitting around the table making those decisions and the group that is seeking funding. This requirement will avoid any doubt.

There is also a requirement around any organisational positions that a member holds by virtue of them being an elected member—for example, with a council-controlled organisation such as a trust, or a council-controlled trading organisation such as an airport board—along with any real property in which the member has a legal interest. A new section 42D of the Local Government Act in clause 4 of the bill relates to the interests regarding the member’s activities around international travel and accommodation, gifts, and payments. This will introduce a requirement for members of a local authority to disclose information on international travel and accommodation, but also the purpose of the travel, where those costs have been either partially or fully met by another person. However, the bill does provide an exemption where the contribution comes directly from the member themselves or a member of their family. So the requirement to disclose those costs will only capture those contributions from outside the member’s own family unit.

This bill will also require any gifts that are received to be declared. The threshold will be an estimated market value of more than $500. It will include hospitality and donations, but will exclude donations for expenses incurred in an election campaign. And finally, there will also be a requirement to publicly disclose any payments for other activities that local members undertake outside of local government salaries or allowances that the council members receive.

When looking at this bill, members may draw parallels with what is expected in their annual declaration to Parliament’s registrar of pecuniary interests, but there are some differences, and if the bill does proceed to select committee, I welcome some scrutiny and feedback in those areas. I am sure that one, in particular, will be the period for which disclosures must be made. For members of Parliament, it relates to interests held as at 31 January each year. This bill proposes that the disclosure period for local government relate to a 12-month window. So I look forward to hearing views on that.

Under new section 42E in clause 4 of the bill, councils will also be required to appoint a registrar to compile and maintain the pecuniary interests register. However, it will not be the responsibility of the registrar to ensure that members file the returns. That will be the responsibility of each elected member, and rightly so, as this is consistent with the approach taken for members of this House. For someone who fails to comply with the requirement to file an annual return, upon conviction, they will be liable to a fine not exceeding $5,000. I have to say that in my discussions in my community and around the country, views on this particular point vary, with some calling for harsher penalties, including disqualification from office. The select committee may wish to consider submissions on this particular penalty provision. But given that the penalty provision, as it currently stands, includes a criminal conviction as a result of failing to fulfil legal obligations in their duties as an elected member, my tentative view is that that alone would be significant as a deterrent for a publicly elected official. It’s also important to note that under a new section 42A in clause 4, the bill also introduces a requirement for the register to be made publicly available, which would be on an annual basis.

Let me be clear: in promoting this bill, I am not suggesting that there has been any wrongdoing, but I am suggesting that there is currently an anomaly with the level of disclosure and transparency expected of members of Parliament and the level of disclosure and transparency expected of those in local government. And I don’t believe that there should be a difference. Electors deserve to know what could influence their representatives in the decisions they make, whether they be local councillors, regional chairs, deputy mayors, mayors, members of local boards, or members of Parliament. This bill provides another layer of transparency and will ensure the rules of open disclosure are consistently applied across all levels of government. I seek the support of this House for the Local Government (Pecuniary Interests Register) Amendment Bill in my name.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ve got rid of my “nappy” [face mask]. I’d like to congratulate the member Tangi Utikere on the introduction of this bill, the Local Government (Pecuniary Interests Register) Amendment Bill. It’s interesting that the last two bills discussed in the House have actually been introduced by people who know what they’re talking about, which isn’t always the case with members’ bills. So I congratulate both of them on that. The member who introduced this bill would certainly know what he was talking about with respect to local government, as he was a former deputy mayor of Palmerston North.

I, of course, am really filling in for Christopher Luxon, who leads our approach to this issue and has done the work behind it. So I’m a fill-in, I suppose. Actually, I’m quite liking the Auckland lockdown, because I’ve had a few goes in the House since they’ve been gone! It’s given me a bit of a chance! I also have a bit of experience in this, having been a mayor for some time; so I do have a bit of experience in this area. The National Party does support this bill to select committee, at which stage we’ll be able to closely scrutinise the submissions on it, because there are a number of issues—and I will raise them in the course of this speech—that we are, I guess, interested in and think may cause some concerns as the bill goes the process in the select committee.

Local government is often criticised; however, in my experience of it, it contains many outstanding officials and many, many capable and very loyal local community people, who work extraordinarily hard, give up much time to serve on local councils, and get very little reward for it except for a bit of abuse often, and they’re criticised for all sorts of things. One of the other things they’re criticised for is the turnout at local elections, and local government members are often criticised for creating the result of the low turnout. I’ve got to say that, in my view, the low turnout at local elections is, to a large extent, caused by the fact that the only people affected by local councils directly are ratepayers, because no one else gets the bill. And so, effectively, if you pay the bill, you’re interested; if you don’t pay the bill, you don’t have an interest. And so, because a large number of our residents in a lot of our council areas are only indirectly affected by the activities of council, they’re not going to take much interest. So I think we’ve got some challenges with the way councils are set up and the way they’re structured, and that doesn’t help, in my view, to draw out voters at voting time. So that’s a bit of an issue, I think, that’s worth raising in the course of this bill, because I’ll get to the point I want to raise about it, and that’s the fact that there is much happening in local government at the moment.

There are many good councils, and they do a lot of good work with little resource, and this building and the occupants of it over the last 20 years, in my experience, have lumped a whole lot of issues and work on local councils that have created a lot of costs for them, a lot of resource required, and increased costs significantly to them. We’ve got to find new ways of funding local government and new ways of dealing with it, and I accept that this Government has got some activity going on at the moment in that respect, which I’ll get on to in a moment, but the really interesting issue is that, however you look at this, there is only two sources of funding for everything in New Zealand: they’re taxpayers and ratepayers, and, the rate this Government is going at, there are less of each of them every year. And so that’s very challenging for us, because that means fewer people have got to pay the bill, and so that’s one of the challenges local government has.

I want to talk a bit about the future now, because this bill is one of many that will impact on the activities of local government and, in fact, impact on what’s going on in local government at the moment, and this Government has a number of measures they are taking right now—three waters being one of them—that affect dramatically what might happen with local government in the future. And, also, the other issue that’s going on is a potential review of local government and how that works. Local government, to some extent, reminds me of our farmers and fishers; they’re under constant pressure. And this bill—one could be forgiven for wondering if we’ll have anyone standing for council in the future, because my personal concerns about this bill are that local people who have to expose themselves financially for all and sundry to see for $20k a year are not going to be particularly interested in standing for council, and I think it’s going to put a lot of people off being interested in local politics, simply because the rewards are so little and the challenges are so great. And, also, the fact that you’re exposing yourself completely—as we do in Parliament, and I’ll get to that in a minute—is quite a challenge, and I think it will be a real challenge for the future of local government and who might put themselves forward for it.

Comparing this to Parliament—local government to Parliament—is drawing a long bow, because we as ordinary MPs are paid more than almost every mayor in New Zealand, and certainly more than almost every councillor in New Zealand, and the other opportunity we have, of course, as MPs is there’s a fair chance you’re going to become a Minister, who’s then paid more than any mayor in New Zealand and making decisions that have dramatic effects on the future of everyone in this country and on all sorts of areas, whereas local government is pretty much confined to certain areas, and certainly confined locally. So I think there’s a very big difference between the responsibilities that local councillors and mayors have, or particularly local councillors have, and the people who occupy this building. And it’s interesting to note—and I’ll get on to the penalties in a minute, because Tangi Utikere talked about the penalties—that three of our members of Parliament couldn’t get their returns in on time. You’d wonder how that would happen, really, because that can’t be that difficult.

But, anyway, Tangi Utikere talked about the penalties involved in this bill, and I’ve got some, I guess, doubts about the penalty as well, and that a $5,000 fine—if you’re really into rorting your local community, a $5,000 fine is not going to stop you rorting your local community—and so I think that the penalties are an interesting issue and it will be one that, no doubt, will be very interestingly discussed when we get to the select committee. I think that penalty—I mean, obviously, it will be enforceable, because it will be an Act of Parliament, but it will, again, I think, put people off really wanting to become part of local government.

Now, there’s one other thing in this bill that I think is quite challenging for us as well, and it’s very different again to what happens in Parliament. The member has modelled the bill on the parliamentary pecuniary interests register to some extent, and another challenge I can see facing the select committee will be in 42C(1)(c), which reads: “if the member of a local authority is employed, the name of each employer of the member and a description of the main business activities of each of those employers [must be declared]”. Now, if you think about the piece of legislation that the Government is proposing to put into Parliament—and they’ve said they’ll put it into Parliament some time later this year—around a piece of labour law, I guess, it would be, it’s highly likely that contractors will become employers. And do you think that a courier driver, for example, who has maybe 150 employees is going to want to stick his client list out there in the public forum, on a council pecuniary register? Not likely. So I think it’s going to put a whole lot of people off standing for council for that reason as well, and I think it could apply to accountants, lawyers, or anyone like that, because it’s not defined in the bill. And I think there’s some work to be done on clause 42C(1) as well.

So I think it’s, in my view, fine for MPs who are full-time to be subject to pecuniary interests registers and made public, and I think Tangi Utikere himself talked about the Palmerston North City Council one, which, to the best of my knowledge, is not made public—and probably a very good model, actually—and I’m sure there are plenty of other councils who have varying forms of pecuniary interests declarations. The Mayor of Tararua felt that her council dealt completely adequately with it, and I’m pretty sure her councillors would be paid less than $20,000 each a year to be councillors. So I can’t imagine them being that keen on declaring their body and souls to stand for the council if this piece of legislation goes through.

So I think that there are some challenges in the bill. As I said, we support it to the select committee, and it will be very interesting to see where it gets to. So we have some reservations, but we will support it, and I’d just like to again congratulate, or commiserate with, the member on getting his bill through to the select committee, and we’ll see how it goes from there. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m going to break the I-worked-in-local-government party that’s going on here. I’ve never worked in local government, and I acknowledge the previous speaker, Ian McKelvie, in his time as mayor, I acknowledge the speaker before him, Tangi Utikere, in his time as the deputy mayor. But despite not being somebody that’s been elected at local government level, I’ve still got an opinion on this. I do believe this isn’t about central government saying to ratepayers, “You’re being rorted by your local member—your local elected officials—and we need to see a whole lot more transparency.” What this is trying to do is actually just create some consistency across the country.

What we do know is that councils have their own checks and balances; we’ve got to admit that. Most councils have got a way that they start the meetings; there’s often a conflict of interest form that they need to fill out—but that’s part of the problem, everybody does it in their own little way. Actually, we believe that there should be a lot more transparency in that process, and a lot more consistency to that process as well.

The previous member said that it might put people off actually standing for local government. To that, I say: I don’t think so. People that go into becoming elected officials on behalf of their community generally know what they’re going into. Obviously, the bigger the city, the more political this becomes; in smaller, more regional councils, sometimes it can be quite different. But I don’t believe it will put people off. I think that people that know that they’re going to be standing for elected positions, they know that there’s a job to do. They know that there’s certain things that they have to fill out, and, actually, a pecuniary interest form is just one of them.

I’ll encourage all of those people that are sitting at home right now and have no idea what a pecuniary interest form is—like me, a few years ago—go online and have a look. You’ll be able to see what all of us, as members of Parliament—you’ll be able to see how many houses—one—you might have; or how many trusts you might be involved in; businesses that you own. I think that’s really essential for transparency, for people—for ratepayers, for taxpayers alike—to be able to understand actually who your elected officials are and what interests they have. The more upfront and honest you can be, the more that you restore the faith of democracy across the country. For that reason, this bill is a good thing.

I want to thank my colleague Tangi Utikere for bringing this forward. I’m very jealous—I’m seething on the inside—because I’ve been here a few years longer than him and I’ve never had a bill pulled out. I’ve been waiting so long—so long, Tangi—but tonight is your night. I’m still very jealous. But, also, it just goes to show that when we come into this House, we come in with our prior experience. Tangi, with his work at local government in the good old city of Palmerston North, he saw a gap in consistency; he saw that here in the Chamber, us as members of Parliament, we have a very high bar with the pecuniary interests form, and he noticed that, actually, local governments do it a lot more ad hoc. So, Tangi, thank you for bringing this to our House. Many people would have thought that this already existed across the country; they would have thought that this was just standard procedure. It will be a shock for many to know that it’s not standard procedure, that there are differing ways that councils handle this. Through this bill, we’re looking to, as I say, bring a lot more transparency and a lot more consistency in, as part of that.

So I am in full support of this bill. I think that this will do a lot for New Zealanders to understand more who their elected officials are, what their interests are, what they have to gain from various entities that they might be associated with, and, of course, ultimately, how sometimes that might affect their decision making. I think it’s good for transparency, it’s good for democracy, and for that reason I support it to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, thank you. I’m very pleased to speak on behalf of the Green Party on the Local Government (Pecuniary Interests Register) Amendment Bill and congratulate Tangi Utikere—having been in this Parliament for nearly 10 years and never having had a member’s bill pulled from the ballot, the luck of the biscuit tin definitely was with him in getting it pulled within the first 12 months.

It is a very worthwhile bill and it was really interesting in terms of just preparing to speak, having been an elected regional councillor of Environment Canterbury from 2007 till 2010, when the Hon Nick Smith and Rodney Hide summarily removed elected councillors and replaced us with commissioners, I think we did fill in a conflict of interest declaration then, but going through and looking at what other declarations councils had—the Christchurch City Council, for example, has quite a comprehensive pecuniary interest declaration that seems to be modelled very much on the one that parliamentarians fill in, whereas Environment Canterbury has a much more circumscribed one, and Nelson City Council has quite a good one as well. So I think that reinforces the point that the member made that the provisions across the country are not consistent and that this bill, therefore, will provide that consistency.

I think, back in the 1990s, there was quite a focus on increasing the transparency of council decision-making, efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability. Legislation then—the Local Electoral Act 2001, the Local Government Act 2002, and the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002—did provide councils with more flexible tools, and the Local Government Act also requires, in section 14, that councils conduct their business in a clear, transparent, and democratically accountable way. The legislation means that all councils have to adopt a code of conduct setting out how elected members behave towards each other, towards staff, and how they use the information available to them as elected members.

So, certainly, councils do have codes of conduct, and then some of them have gone further in terms of pecuniary interests. So this bill is adding that extra layer of transparency. And also, I guess, there is the Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act 1968, and that ensures that members are not affected by personal motives when they participate in council decisions, and it prohibits members from being involved in a council decision if they have a pecuniary interest other than one that they hold in common with the public generally, or unless they have actually sought and obtained an exemption or a declaration from the Office of the Auditor-General. That highlighting one thing, but what this register will do is make it much more obvious—the range of pecuniary interests that councillors will have.

Like other members, I think the submissions to the select committee—if it gets that far, and I hope it will—will be quite interesting, because the point Tangi Utikere made was: what period should the declaration cover? I think there may be some concern if it is going to cover a whole year or whether it is done as MPs do it: the interest that we have registered on 31 January each year, a snapshot in time.

One of the other issues is the fact that central government has put a lot more responsibilities on local councils and then not provided the funding to enable them to carry that out. I think that is a big conversation that needs to be had, particularly around things like three waters. Collating the declarations that councillors make for, say, 14 or so councillors may not require a lot of staff time and expertise, but, as Sir Maarten Wevers, who performs that role at Parliament—(a) he’s independent; (b) he said in his report this year that being a new Parliament, there were a lot more requests for advice that went to him. So I think there does need to be some thought as to who needs to be responsible for the collation: is it the council or is that managed nationally, and does central government help fund it to protect the independence of that person, as we have with the registrar here, Sir Maarten Wevers?

Most councils, where they’ve got a register, do have them on their websites, though they are sometimes quite difficult to find. But that may be—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Thank you for allowing me to take a call this evening on the Local Government (Pecuniary Interests Register) Amendment Bill. To my colleague Tangi Utikere, MP for Palmerston North—now, I know this might not be interesting to many people, but I am the MP for New Plymouth, which is not Palmerston North, and quite regularly people get that mixed up and confused. But I’m OK because I have a charming colleague in my midst, so if they confuse me for the MP for Palmerston North, I’m quite happy with that.

Now, I will just continue, I guess, the narrative this evening with our speakers. I know that my colleague Tāmati Coffey brought it up, but we’ve had a mayor speak, we’ve had a deputy mayor speak, we’ve had now a regional councillor speak, and I’m not sure if I want to bring it up, but I’m probably not qualified—I’m not sure if my party knows this, but I’m actually a failed district councillor. Well, I’m actually a failed district councillor candidate, should I say—let’s get that right! I ran a really bad campaign. I had a busy life, I had a busy, busy home, and my $15 advertising budget failed miserably, but I hit the middle of the pack. This was 10, 12 years ago, when I was far younger, slimmer, less grey, more hair, all that kind of waffle. So I was committed to running for Labour last year, and so I ran. In fact, I didn’t work all of last year as I ran for the Labour Party in New Plymouth, and I was successful by a number.

Anyway, back to the bill—back to the bill. Let us focus right now. So I’m really pleased that this better aligns councils with us here as members of the House and of the executive here in Wellington, and, as my colleague, Mr Utikere talked about, it’s around that transparency. He talked about ratepayers deserving to know what could influence their representatives and that this provides another layer of transparency, which is what I often hear, and, I’m sure, we all hear talked about. I was more than happy in my first term here to declare all of my property and all the other things, which is very little, that I have. And I see that in our local government that it’s the same thing and it’s a great opportunity and a simple piece of legislation to correct that.

Now, as the MP for New Plymouth, sometimes, I think, maybe you could have a broader name to take and encompass the beautiful North Taranaki that stretches from Waitara in the north down to Ōpunake towards the south.

💬 Hon Member: Good spot.

It’s a great spot on the West Coast, Mr Speaker—I know you know it well. I have two councils within my electorate: I have the South Taranaki District Council and I have the New Plymouth District Council. Now, I did some research into that and they both actually have implemented a register of declaration of interests. Now, South Taranaki, from what I read, it’s basically held on site. It’s something that’s there that just needs to be declared each year. And for the New Plymouth District Council, they only brought it into play this year. So this is the first time they had a declaration.

So I looked it up and I was quite curious to know who I voted for, who I didn’t vote for, and what their interests were or are. Four of them didn’t actually declare anything at all, and, obviously, with this piece of legislation, that’ll ensure that everyone does. But there were people who were part of the Taranaki Electricity Trust; the Waitara District Services and Citizens Club; Full Circle Bespoke Life Events—that’s like a celebrant, just so you know; of course, our wonderful New Plymouth Operatic Society; our Taranaki Chamber of Commerce; as well as people who are residential property owners, they were lifestyle block property owners; and our deputy mayor is the director—I just looked it up—of Fun Ho! Toys. Now, who doesn’t know Fun ho! Toys? Oh, geez. OK—

💬 Hon Member: Tell us about it.

Well, Fun Ho! Toys is Inglewood’s, which is a fabulous—it was the sort of 1930s, 40s, and 50s when it was huge, those metal toys—everyone had a Fun Ho! toy.

💬 Greg O’Connor: That’s not why we remember Inglewood.

Right, OK, let’s move on quickly, thank you, Mr O’Connor; I won’t go into that! Anyway, I support this piece of legislation, and I’m really proud of my colleague Tangi Utikere, who came into Parliament with me. I support this and I look forward to seeing how it goes at select committee. I commend this to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to speak on the Local Government (Pecuniary Interest Register) Amendment Bill, and I also congratulate the member Tangi Utikere for the introduction of this bill. I’m speaking on behalf of our local government spokesperson, Simon Court, who’s also stuck in Auckland.

The bill seeks to introduce requirements for members of local authorities to declare pecuniary interests to align themselves with the requirements of members of Parliament. However, there are already rules under the Local Government Act which require a declaration of a conflict of interest in particular decision-making. A number of other things will need to be sorted out through the select committee process. The bill adds to this and, in effect, makes it stricter for them than for members of Parliament.

It makes sense that elected officials—people chosen by the public and paid by the public—are accountable to the public. The public need to trust that the people who are representing them are honest and are working in their best interests. They need to be transparent and accountable. Unfortunately, these qualities are becoming increasingly rare.

The bill seeks to address conflicts of interest that local government elected members may have and currently don’t have to disclose. This is important when decisions need to be made about awarding contracts, approving or declining planning permissions—buying Christmas lights from China, for example—or all-expenses-paid trips to conferences and sister city meetings in Third World countries or Denmark. They work for the public and not their own agendas.

The bill will require members of local authorities to disclose gifts and payments which others might see as having an influence on their decision making. Formalising this process makes things more professional and allows voters and contractors and watchdogs to rest easier.

There are, of course, possible unintended consequences, some of which have been mentioned. Knowing the make-up of many councils, there is the real danger that those community-minded, hard-working people who may own small businesses or be farmers or, heaven forbid, be successful could well be put off putting themselves up as a candidate, knowing the potential for a pile-on by the woke activist councillors that pervade many councils—or maybe these are intended consequences.

Finally, the bill’s purpose is to improve transparency and strengthen public trust and confidence in decision making of local authorities. This is a noble aim that every New Zealander would unanimously support, and I think it’s important to remind ourselves of what transparency means. I’ll quote: “Transparency ensures that information is available that can be used to measure the authorities’ performance and to guard against any possible misuse of powers.” Where activities are done in an open way without secrets, so people can trust that they be fair and honest, “In that sense, transparency serves to achieve accountability, which means that authorities can be held responsible for their actions.”

As I said before, ACT has some reservations about this bill, and we will support it to the select committee. But I must note the irony of the demand for transparency and accountability from the least transparent Government in New Zealand’s history.

Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. Thank you for giving me the call on this bill—an excellent bill, and I am sure it’s going to get a good working over in select committee, because it’s a very simple precept. The premise is very simple, that we want people who are making important decisions to be transparent about their interests so that they can be scrutinised in terms of the motivations they may bring to the decisions that they make. I do think that it is time for a good look at conflicts of interest at local body, and I know the Auditor-General did have guidance that, in fact, he withdrew from his website because it was a little outdated.

But one of the real problems is that there seems to be a lack of clarity around when people can bring their own strong personal views to a decision-making process—that is to say, a political point of view—and when that crosses over to being a personal interest where their own financial or other position will be affected by that decision. Certainly, there are places where a strong view is not appropriate in local bodies, and, certainly, hearing panels is one of them, where it’s a quasi-judicial decision-making process, but when it’s just round the council table, political views are grist to the mill. I’m a bit perplexed to hear that people think that being transparent and honest about the influences on your decision making might be a disincentive to standing for council. I must say, if people want to conceal what financial interests they have which might affect their decisions, then I’d be pretty happy for them not to be standing for local body politics.

This is a great bill, and I haven’t yet congratulated Mr Utikere for this—and I think it’s kind of weird to do so, to congratulate someone with having a number randomly pulled from a biscuit tin, but, anyway, good on you, mate. Well done for getting a number randomly pulled from a biscuit tin.

I note that the Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act actually sets out what a “local authority” is in a somewhat dated way now—talks about drainage boards and all sorts of things. It may be that a definition section will be needed here, because, for example, the Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act actually identifies community boards as local authorities, and I’m not sure that they’re intended to be captured here. And, of course, we’ve got territorial authorities and local authorities and whether it crosses—I imagine it’s intended to capture both, but that may be a useful clarification in terms of regional councils, territorial authorities, unitary authorities, and so on.

But, look, I absolutely welcome the scrutiny that this is going to get. Certainly, in my own local authority, there are councillors around the table who have significant business interests who may indeed be contracting through an attenuated series of companies and business interests with council. And, certainly, there’s a real need for transparency there so that any suggestion that one day they can be communicating as business owner with council officials, and the next day they can be communicating with those same officials as an elected member, is really problematic. I think a spotlight can rightly be drawn and thrown on that kind of conduct.

I also think, in terms of the proposed new section 42C, there’s some thinking to be done about how far down the road you go. Obviously, there are things like managed funds where you may have interests but they’re not active interests—they’re not actively managed or purchased or sold by you, but, nevertheless, you do have an interest in companies or properties. But perhaps you don’t need to go into that level of detail. Certainly, the members’ pecuniary interest register makes some distinctions there. Obviously, the travel there: “family member” might need some definition, because, obviously, if a husband or mum or dad or wife purchases travel, that’s one thing. We need to make sure that captures all domestic relationships, whether that be what we might’ve once called a de facto partner—just make sure we don’t spread the net too narrowly there.

But, look, I think this will be a really good and interesting select committee discussion. I do hope there are lots of submissions on it. I do also think that we’ve got to be cautious about smaller councils here as well. Thank you, Mr Speaker—I see my time’s expired.

It behoves us all to understand the history of New Zealand and see the part that vested interests played right from the start. I’m just reading a book about John McKenzie, or Jock McKenzie, and his land reforms. New Zealanders should understand that this country was the land that—other than the land that was left to Māori, the land that had been taken was owned by very, very few families in New Zealand, and those very few families, basically, wielded all the power. So anyone who wants to understand why vested interests should be controlled, I thoroughly suggest a read of that history.

I grew up on the northern part of the Buller, and as we waited for a school bus we used to see the Denniston incline working. Denniston incline, a magnificent feat of engineering, described as the eighth wonder of the world at one stage. It was shut. Not long afterward, the contract for delivering the coal down the hill by road was delivered by a local contractor who had been on the council, and the miners and staff were bused down the hill by a local bus contractor. Now, it probably was nothing untoward, and I certainly wouldn’t make any accusation to those, but it was certainly something that we grew up with wondering, shall we say. So it is always good to know those that are making the decisions and what may be motivating them.

However, I did hear the speech by Mr McKelvie, and, like all speeches by Mr McKelvie in this House, they are well worth listening to, generally built on some good experience. I certainly did note his concern that we need to be very careful that we don’t narrow, inadvertently, the number of people who not only will be prepared to stand for council but are actually eligible to stand for council. I’m sure that bill—and, again, I congratulate my colleague Mr Utikere for drawing this bill, I’m sure that’s something that we can fix at the select committee.

Because the other thing that we’ve talked about before—most speakers have talked as though councillors are the people that make the significant decisions around councils. Well, we all know that that’s actually not true. I know one mayor who there was a major development taking place three doors from his place that he had no awareness of at all because decisions like that don’t go through, as we know—those day-to-day decisions generally don’t go through the councils. So there are a lot more people who are making decisions that affect us on a day-to-day basis around councils other than these councillors.

However, going back to my original point around understanding vested interest, I think we do live in a different age, and we welcomed John McKenzie’s land reforms, which meant that we did, in New Zealand, end up with a very entrepreneurial—a lot more land was purchased. Well, the compulsory purchase of the land meant that we did break up those estates and made New Zealand the land that it is today.

But going back to the bill, it is certainly important that on any decision—and any organisation I work for or have been a part of, any board I’ve been on, the interest register has always been an important part of it. I think there wouldn’t be anyone here who hasn’t sat on a board that wouldn’t know that the interest register is an important part of what they do. So the underlying point of this bill, the underlying desire or the strategy of this bill, is to ensure that those who are making the broader decisions that will filter down to the actual paid individuals, the paid officials, who will actually implement them, that we do understand that, because I’m sure those of us who have grown up, particularly, probably, more in the rural areas, have understood that rarely on a council was there not a major landholder who, often, was attracted to the board because of decisions they felt were impacting on them personally. Wasn’t to say that they weren’t there for the right reasons, wasn’t to say they didn’t end up very good. In fact, there was some research done that showed the reasons why people actually do go into politics in the first place, and, generally, one of the main reasons is an interest in politics, is one of the things. The other thing is actually a desire to get things done; fairly obvious. But in that research, it also showed the people that don’t go into politics are ones that are part of a group who are generally excluded from politics. So—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I stand, too, to speak to the Local Government (Pecuniary Interests Register) Amendment Bill. I’ll start by quoting part of the pledge, I guess, that MPs actually sign up to with their pecuniary interest. It says in there that “it is central to the democratic idea that the purpose of elected public office is to serve the public, not to enrich the office-holder”. And I can assure you that in the local government world—and I think my colleagues who have been in local government will attest to this—those who put their hand up to be elected on to small local councils do not do so to be enriched; in fact, it is usually a matter of social service. Very different from regional councils and from cities, their salaries are quite a lot different, but, certainly, in those small councils, it is a matter of public service only.

One of the things that has always been evolving in local government, from my experience there, was that you want to attract self-employed people, you want to attract successful business people, because they bring a certain set of skills; even retirees—and they usually do have quite a portfolio of assets and interests. And it will, as I think my colleague Ian McKelvie pointed out, be a barrier to people to want to disclose everything about themselves. When I look at the bill and I look at the contents of a pecuniary interest return, it says, “relating to member’s position”, and I think this is work that the select committee is going to have to turn its mind to because how do you define “relating”? So is that a business in the district, the city, or the region that the local authority is responsible for? Is it a business that might, that does, or that could be a supplier or have some business interest in a council CCO—a council-controlled organisation? So I think defining that is going to be very important.

But, also, in there, it talks to “relating to member’s activities”—“pecuniary interest return relating to member’s activities”. But that’s got to also be defined because “relating to activities” in carrying out their role, perhaps, but not in the broader sense of that person’s private enterprise or their interests outside of the council. So I think we’ve got to be really careful that we don’t capture everything that’s going on in a person’s life or business. And I’ll give you some examples: “a description of each gift (including hospitality and donations in cash or kind”, so the cash that may pass over—and I don’t know of anyone that actually gets cash passed across their palm, but you don’t want things like grandma’s birthday present or even grandma’s bequeath to you to be liable for a pecuniary interests register. Also, things that happen in small communities—so it’s a really good example right now: it’s whitebait season. Most people in small council areas know each other. What happens if someone gives you a feed of whitebait or half a side of mutton? You know, that sort of stuff happens a lot in rural communities. So is that going to be classed as “in kind” contributions and donations, or is that just something that happens in rural communities?

There’s a bit that needs to happen in defining some of this work in here. I do agree that there needs to be some consistency, but I don’t know whether the Government has even turned its mind to working with Local Government New Zealand and asking them to provide that consistency across councils across New Zealand, because there can be templates created. All this does is like Big Brother coming in over the top and saying, “This is how we want you to do it. Don’t work out your own system.” Perhaps this is going to be another one of those nails in the coffin for local government, because what’s going to happen—in the policy statement it says, “contribute to more robust decision-making by local authorities.” Well, actually, there’s not much decision making going to be left for local authorities by the time this Government’s finished with them.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased that Mr McKelvie outlined National’s position on the bill, because if we listened on to that speech, you’d think that they’d be voting against it. But they’re not. They’re voting for it to go to select committee, because they want this bill to go through, admittedly with some improvements, but we’ve said no different. We’ve identified that there’s some areas that we would like the select committee to look into, but we’re actually just focusing on the issue here.

So what we’re being presented with is an alternative. It’s that if we bring in a requirement that people that are elected to public office have to declare the interests that they have, that’s going to stop some people from going into local government. I would ask “why?” Why would publicly declaring your conflicts stop you from standing for public office? If you were that way inclined, I think your answer is staring you in the face. I would take issue with the point that was made by the previous speaker, Maureen Pugh, on this bill. Yes, we do want people with business experience. Yes, we do want successful people. But we want people from across society representing our communities in local government. We don’t just want business people, just like we don’t just want retired people or we don’t just want men. We want a cross-section.

In my electorate, there are five district councils, and I note that there are six in Mr McKelvie’s council, which are considerably more, I think, than most of the other electorate MPs that have spoken to this tonight. Every single one of those councils are full of people with integrity that are committed to their communities: South Wairarapa, Carterton, Masterton, the Tararua District, and Central Hawke’s Bay. I note that they each have a different way of declaring potential conflicts. Some do it before a meeting. Some register it before they meet—etc., etc. I think that’s the key element there, though: it’s the inconsistency. Ultimately, if the argument is, as has been said, that many councils already have something in place, wouldn’t it be therefore true that these councillors, the ones that we’re being told won’t stand for council, have to declare it through the nature of their business anyway?

So let’s just put that to the side and stop pretending that this is a major issue. Because people are committed to their communities, they will stand for council, and if they stand for council knowing that if they discuss something that’s relevant to their interests they have to declare it, then let’s make it consistent across the board.

💬 Maureen Pugh: There’s going to be nothing left for them to do.

Maureen Pugh, perhaps you might want to put your mask on. Perhaps you could book your vaccination at the same time.

So the thing with this is that it is, essentially, asking local government elected officials to do exactly the same as what members of Parliament are doing. I don’t accept the argument that’s been put forward that, yes, this is a full-time job, and some local body representatives are full-time representatives, and that there is a difference between city and rural elected representatives. I note that Tracey Collis, the Mayor of the Tararua District, a woman who I respect immensely and have a very good working relationship with, disagrees. She believes that the system is in place at the moment, but I know for a fact that the Tararua District Council probably does lead the way in ensuring that their members do declare interests before they go. But, I think, it’s also fair to say that some councils probably do not.

So let’s just make it consistent. Let’s vote for this bill, send it to select committee, and nut it out. We’ll get submissions from people across the board. We’ll get submissions from those involved in local government. Given that this is a member’s bill, this is not a Government bill, so there hasn’t been any consultation prior to this. Here’s their opportunity to come forward and put their view. We’ll also get representatives from residents’ groups, I’m sure, that want to know that the people that they’ve elected to their local council will have declared any potential conflict and that it’s out there in the open. It will be along the lines of the one that exists for members of Parliament, I’m sure. It doesn’t tell you to declare the exact amount that’s in your savings account; it just declares that you’ve got a savings account with an amount in there that’s over a certain limit. That’s all—that’s all.

Mine is very easy to declare. I don’t own a home. I was on The Golden Shears board; I’m no longer. I was on the Wings Over Wairarapa board; I’m no longer. But when I was on those, I declared them, because there was a chance that they might ask the Government for money.

💬 Hon Member: Did you declare the ute?

It’s not worth over 500 bucks. So I congratulate Tangi Utikere for getting this bill pulled. I wish him all the best, and I hope to see this improved and passed. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you. Can I, firstly, acknowledge the contributions from right around the House, and the support that at this stage appears to be provided for this bill. I do want to thank Mr McAnulty for reminding the House that this is a member’s bill in my name—it’s not a Government bill—and so those that have made some comments may want to just, perhaps, reflect on that.

I do want to just very briefly reflect on the biscuit tin, actually, because it seems to me that you do need to have either an element of luck or beginner’s choice, perhaps. But I know that, actually, in terms of the class of 2020 on this side of the House, the three members’ bills from those members are for the MP for Ōtaki, the MP for Whanganui, and now the MP for Palmerston North. So the DEKA biscuit tin might have a regional bias, perhaps, on it—who knows? Mr Bennett, MP for New Plymouth, might be up next.

But, look, I do want to thank members for their contributions. Mr McKelvie, my parliamentary neighbour, can I thank you for your contributions. Actually, Mr McKelvie and I served as local representatives together when he was the Mayor of Manawatū District and I was a new city councillor for Palmerston North. I do know that he did ask about whether or not the interests or the declaration that I made for Palmerston North City Council was public or not. I can confirm that it says here, “The declaration will be made available for public inspection at any time.” So he suggests that maybe Palmy city council is leading the way. Clearly, the information that they require is well and above what other councils, perhaps, are seeking. I expect to hear from members of our community, members from within the local government sector, members from outside of the local government sector, through the select committee process, and I expect that because we are talking about communities of interest up and down the country that will want to have, no doubt, an opportunity to express their views.

I want to thank Dr Webb for his contribution this evening. He actually reminded me about this dichotomy between personal views around a local government table and, also, the interests that a member might have. It reminded me, actually, around some of the comments that have been provided by the Auditor-General in some of those reports to the Governance and Administration Committee, which deals with a number of public-facing reports for the local government sector. Actually, Mr McKelvie, I need to congratulate the member on becoming the chair of that select committee, which I’m no longer a member of, but clearly he will get amongst it in terms of these submissions. There was concern expressed in the Auditor-General’s report around making available some information that’s publicly available, as well.

I do want to touch briefly on the role of the registrar, because the Hon Eugenie Sage, in her contribution this evening, touched on the desire for this not to be an additional administrative burden. That certainly is not the intention. The bill as it’s currently drafted specifies that that person may be the chief executive of a local authority, and it’s drafted in that way because those from the sector will know that more often than not it’s the chief executive who delegates that role, or a number of roles—well, actually, all roles, effectively—to officers of the authority. I do take the point, though, that perhaps, through the select committee process, there can be a conversation and some advice and feedback around what that might look like. But it’s really, really clear to me—and I want to confirm this point for the benefit of the House—it is not the responsibility of the registrar to do anything except, effectively, administratively receive it and make the information available. The bill as it’s currently drafted indicates that it is not the responsibility of the registrar to ensure or remind members of local authorities that they are required to submit. It is not their responsibility to double-check what is in their return. It is the responsibility of the elected member themselves.

I accept that, through the select committee, there are opportunities to look at some of the definitions that are in the bill, including tidying up the reference—when this was drafted, the Privacy Act was of a different numerical year, so that needs to be changed. But I am looking forward to the hard-working members of the Governance and Administration Committee progressing this, along with the community, and reporting back to the House. So, once again, I thank members for their contributions this evening and support for my member’s bill.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.