Local Government Electoral Legislation Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Local Government: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I present a legislative statement on the Local Government Electoral Legislation Bill.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Local Government Electoral Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill.

I’m pleased to bring the Local Government Electoral Legislation Bill to the House. This is an omnibus bill that amends several Acts to improve the way that individuals and communities are represented by and can participate in local government elections. To do this, the bill completes the Government’s work to fix the Māori ward laws, provides more flexibility for different representation arrangements at Auckland Council, and updates the recount rules for local elections. The bill also clarifies that candidates’ nomination documents can be submitted electronically.

The bill concludes 18 months of work to improve the ways that councils can make decisions about how their communities are represented. This work began in February last year, when the Government removed the poll provisions that had long disenfranchised and disadvantaged Māori. I’m happy to say that there will be 35 councils with dedicated Māori electoral representation at the next local elections.

Last year, the Minister of Local Government promised there would be an enduring mechanism for councils to consider Māori electoral representation without poll demands. This bill fulfils that promise. We consulted with the public and heard that the gaps between the Māori ward process and the general ward process needs to be closed. Councils already consider how their communities are represented every six years in a process called a representation review. In this review, they decide which communities should receive distinct representation through a system of wards. A common example is a rural ward to ensure rural residents are adequately represented in council decisions. It is sensible that councils should also consider Māori wards as part of the same representation review process.

The bill moves councils’ decisions regarding specific Māori representation inside the representation review and makes them the first step of that process. There will be a new requirement for councils to engage with their communities—including Māori—when they make these decisions. It isn’t a requirement that every council have Māori wards—it’s not a model that will work for every community—but it is important to ask the question of what value specific Māori representation can add to local governance, and it is important to make these decisions early on, instead of waiting until just before the elections, so everybody knows what to expect. That’s the new first step of this new process.

The second step is to make detailed decisions about the implementation of Māori wards and general wards at the same time—for example, how many councillor positions and where the ward boundaries will go. The Local Government Commission will continue to oversee these decisions.

The bill adjusts the timing of the representation review so that councils have more time for community engagement and decision making. These changes will achieve a fairer representation review process that works for everyone.

The bill also provides Auckland Council with more flexibility to determine its representation arrangements. Auckland Council is unique. Every other territorial authority can determine its own membership of between five and 29 councillors, plus the mayor. Auckland Council has a fixed membership of 20 councillors and the mayor. The fixed membership requirements limit Auckland Council’s ability to grow or change its representation arrangement as its communities grow and change, so the Government is removing the 20-councillor cap and enabling Auckland Council to determine its membership like any other council.

Auckland Council also has 21 local boards. The local board boundaries were set 12 years ago and they are cumbersome to change, so we are providing two alternative, streamlined processes—both overseen by the Local Government Commission—that will help Auckland Council to review its local board boundaries in the future. These changes will support Auckland Council to adapt its representation arrangements to keep up with population changes over time.

The bill also addresses the issue of tied results in local elections. Tied results are rare, but when they do occur, they introduce a lot of uncertainty and disruption. At both parliamentary and local elections, ties are currently resolved with the toss of a coin. There has never been a tie in the final results of an election to this House, but, in 2019, there were ties at two different council elections. One was in Whakatāne. There was a tie in the final results. Following the law at the time, a coin was tossed and a winner was decided on the basis of that coin toss. The other candidate asked for a judicial recount, which was her right, and the recount found that she was the winner of the election. By this time, the original winner had already been sworn in and had started her work, but she had to leave the job.

This bill proposes three changes to make these processes run more smoothly and make these events less confusing, and to restore the mana and kaitiakitanga where these are lost. First, the bill proposes an automatic judicial recount for tied election results. This already happens in parliamentary elections, where a coin toss will only occur if the judicial recount upholds the tie.

Second, the bill provides candidates with an off-ramp from a deadlocked tie. Affected candidates who are tied after a judicial recount may decide to withdraw from the election rather than have their fate be decided by a coin. It is an option that some candidates may prefer.

Finally, the bill requires councils to wait to have their first meeting until any recounts are complete. The exception is for urgent business that can be conducted without the involvement of any candidates affected by a recount. These changes provide a sensible structure to the recounts process.

Our system of local government is in a state of change. Much of this is long overdue, and there is likely to be more change after the Review into the Future for Local Government makes its final report next year, but there will always be local democracy, and our democratic systems must always be fit for purpose. Department of Internal Affairs officials have engaged Local Government New Zealand, Taituarā, Auckland Council officials, Local Government Commission officials, and council chief executives on the workability of this bill. I’d like to thank these organisations for their assistance to make sure the proposals in the bill will work well.

Of course, this is local election year, and so I want to take the opportunity to remind everybody listening at home to check their enrolment is up to date at www.vote.nz/enrol so that their local election voting papers will be posted to the correct address.

This bill will have a full six-month select committee process. So while the changes in this bill won’t be ready for this year’s election, they will come into force early next year so that councils can use the new representation review process ahead of the local elections in 2025. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the National Party and as the member of Parliament for North Shore and as the party spokesperson on local government, in relation to the Local Government Electoral Legislation Bill first reading. Listening to the Associate Minister provide an overview of the bill, of which it was very positive and very rising, I must say, the reality is, when I visited a large number of councils across this country, not one of them has raised the need or the requirement for legislation in this bill.

💬 Hon Mark Mitchell: Not one.

It’s quite ironic—not one—when the Prime Minister quoted, it was not even a week ago, that “It will not be the policy of any government I lead to embark on … substantial reform of local government or governance unless it is sought [or] unless there is broad[-based] consensus amongst local government … [that there is a] need for [or for] the direction of [that] change.” Yet, once again, we have a Government that is trying to push through central government remit and rules and regulations on to local government—in effect, mandating to local government the consideration around the need for Māori wards. That is completely unnecessary legislation. It will be no surprise, probably, from my brief introduction, that National will be opposing this bill and will be opposing it throughout this process.

I want to explain to you the reasons and the rationale for this. But what this is, is that the Minister, in the context of what are some elements of technical change within this bill, has used the opportunity to slip in this change around making it mandatory for councils every six years to put consideration around the need for Māori wards. There is absolutely already legislation in place around that. Let’s be clear: the National Party do not oppose the concept of Māori wards when they comply with the principles around democracy and when they are wanted by our communities. This is a democracy, and people within our community democratically elect people to represent them at a local community level; they do not, as part of our democracy, need central government remit in order to ram through and force upon them this type of arrangement. That is a significant concern for us and that’s one of the key reasons why we will be opposing this bill.

I think the other aspect around this is that, in regards to the original bill that was set up, of which this is, obviously, a continuation on, National were very clear in terms of the opposition around that because of the fact of the way it was pushed through under urgency. The Associate Minister is correct that these changes will not have any effect in regards to the 2022 local government elections. But as I said right from the outset, not one council—not one council—that I’ve spoken to has said, in terms of all of the issues and challenges and priorities in front of them today, that this is the legislation they need; actually, quite the opposite.

Local Government New Zealand, within only the last three to four weeks, has articulated one of the single biggest issues for local government in this country is a significant degree of reform and change that is being pushed upon them by this Government right here—reform and change in many areas which is unnecessary, ideological reform, and local governments are struggling under the weight of a large degree of unnecessary reform; very, very poor reform. I won’t get into the detail in regards to three waters, but that will just give you a sort of sampler of an example. But this, on top of it, continues to reinforce the fact that central government knows best—the ideology around the fact that, actually, we can’t rely on or trust our local democratically elected individuals that represent us at local government to make decisions about their local communities. No, central government needs to mandate, “They must undertake these tasks”. Well, what other tasks does this Government—and I’d hate to think, because they’ve probably got a long list of items in terms of what’s coming down the pipe next—need to force upon local government to make sure that they are considering. It is completely unnecessary and it goes to the heart of a Government that does not trust the people that are democratically elected to take responsibility for their communities.

The other aspects of this bill which were referred to were in regards to the change of the number of councillors at Auckland Council. Well, I don’t know, but I come from the private sector. Having 20 people around the table is actually quite a hell of a lot of people to try and, you know, make a decision for an entity that, while large in terms of complexity, is not large and significant in the regards of other business operations. To try and get a degree of consensus from 20, in fairness, is challenging. But the fact that they believe that we need potentially another nine councillors to be sitting around that table to have a bit of “Kumbaya”, well, I’m sorry, but I don’t buy that for a second. I don’t buy it either because, as a ratepayer, who pays the bill for that bureaucracy, right? That additional element around that.

No one in Auckland Council has come up to me—and I’m looking across the House; there are a few other members from Auckland in this House. My colleague here the Hon Mark Mitchell—how many times have you been asked that, actually, “You know what, Mark? The number one issue that I face in my electorate is we need some more councillors”? No, I didn’t think so. I didn’t think so—no. Actually, I generally hear that, “You know what?”—and my mum used to say this—“Simon, it’s quality; not quantity”. You know, let’s talk about quality, not quantity. We don’t need more. We need to make sure that the ones that are in there have the right support, capability, and competence, and the right framework in which they operate—the right measurement and accountability frameworks—the right incentives and the right consequences to ensure they are delivering outcomes. We don’t need nine more people just to make up more representation. So I don’t buy that for a second, from the Minister, that this is something that everyone’s been calling out for, because they’re not.

I think, in regards to the boundary lines and that, I always start worrying when central government wants to start getting involved with changing of electoral boundaries—particularly this Government, you know; they love doing a bit of that and it’s generally for their own purposes. So we don’t buy that. Again, not an issue that’s been raised by any of the local government people that I’ve spoken to, and I’ve spoken to more than the Associate Minister has in his short amount of time that he’s been in his seat. But the reality is this is not a priority. Again, this is a Government trying to pump through centralised ideology in terms of this reform.

I guess, the element that we probably can agree on is in regards to the recount process. But looking at the times—you know, this has happened three times since 2019, so, again, not the biggest fish to fry in regards to change. That element of technicality is small. But, again, in the context of this bill, that’s probably the only aspect that we think has any merit, and on that basis really is inconsequential in terms of the scale of this bill. So we’re going to, obviously, look and continue to see what feedback comes through the select committee, because this Government’s going to ram through this legislation. No matter what I say or what the Opposition say tonight, they don’t listen. This is a Government that continues to prove to Kiwis that they know best. They aren’t listening to what Kiwis are saying and you can see that through other elements of consultation or feedback that’s asked for. They’re saying, “We’re going to listen, but we’re not going to change”. That is just the way things are at the moment, and that degree of arrogance that’s coming through from this Government is reinforced again through what are relatively minor bills such as this. So we’ll see where this goes. I can be pretty sure where it will go. It’ll get rammed through. It’ll be more red tape and complexity.

In regards to the consideration around those Māori wards, I think it really continues to go at the heart of central government, and this Government in particular, not trusting the people in order to manage and control their own local communities. For that reason, we strongly oppose this bill.

Look, I’d really like the previous speaker, Simon Watts, to actually read the bill, because if you read the bill, you’ll notice that it doesn’t require any local government territorial authority to implement a Māori ward. All it says is that they need to consider it.

Our local government authorities already undertake a representation review every six years. I might just talk to the Nelson example recently, where they undertook their representation review and they moved from an at-large system to a ward system. So we’ve moved from having 12 councillors elected at large, to wards. So we’ve got two wards in place, and then the Māori ward, and then three councillors who will be elected at large, and we’ve moved to an STV system. And, actually, this change is actually something that our local council really wanted. Thirty five councils—

💬 Simon Watts: Well who’d you ask? Tell me the names. Who?

Well, I’ve just been chatting to the mayor, so off you go.

💬 Simon Watts: Oh, you’ve been chatting to them!

You obviously haven’t talked to her as recently as I have. One of the things that we found out is 35 councils have moved to having a Māori ward. They have chosen to do that. That’s around half of our councils. All that bill actually says—if you read the bill—is that you need to consider a Māori ward, alongside all the other considerations. “Consider” is the word; not force, not ramming through. So just read the bill before you wax lyrical.

So the other the other thing is, I would encourage that member to go to places like Gisborne, go to places like Wairoa, go to some of the places that have implemented a Māori ward and give them that speech and hear what they say to you. I understand from the Minister that this is a matter that has been raised with him on his many travels around the motu. You can’t just chat to somebody at a conference and think you’ve spoken to the council. Our Minister is going around and having proper, robust, consultative meetings with these councils, and this is one of the matters that has been raised with him.

It’s an excellent bill. It makes three very small changes. One is around ensuring that councils have to consider to have a Māori ward. One is around ensuring that Auckland has adequate numbers of councillors to govern that city properly. It’s not just a business, Mr Watts. Auckland Council is probably the largest organisation that we actually have in the country in terms of its turnover, and it doesn’t have the ability to add councillors to ensure it’s governed properly and represents its communities. And then the other matter, of course, is when people do end up having unjust decisions, when there’s a tie. It’s a minor, minor issue, but it has been an issue in a couple of cases, and it’s good for the Governance and Administration Committee to look at it. So I sit on that select committee, and I’m really looking forward to hearing from councils—really looking forward to hearing from councils.

💬 Simon Watts: Come on, come on, come on—keep going! Come on!

Oh, mate, we’ll have many chats at select committee, I’m sure we will. But what I encourage you to do, Mr Watts, is read the bill. There’s no forcing here; it is only around ensuring that these councils consider putting in place a Māori ward. And I’m delighted that around half of our councils have done so—have chosen to do so. That the elected members on those councils have chosen to implement those wards. And on that note, Mr Watts and House: I commend this bill to the House.

Well, thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill. If we believed what the member on the other side—Rachel Boyack—said, that there’s really nothing to see here in this bill; it’s nothing to worry about; it’s just offering a few suggestions; nothing to worry about; nothing to see here, then maybe we might be sucked in to voting for it. But we aren’t, because we see that it’s part of an agenda that is, unfortunately, becoming increasingly divisive in this country, in the way that the Government is running New Zealand over the last four years. That is of deep concern to us—the divisive nature of the way the Government continues to operate.

And so if we look at it in relation to local government and Māori wards, what we’ve seen is—first, for a long time in our history, local governments have had the ability to bring in Māori wards in their district, but they’ve had to ask the people whether or not they agree with having a Māori ward by a referendum. That was always the pattern. And, generally, over time, when people were asked, they didn’t want one. Most of the referendums lost—my guess is because the majority of people were wary about dividing the population along ethnic lines and extending that into a new area of Government—i.e., local government.

So what happened was that in the last election, there was no mention of this—the Government never talked about changing all this. They concealed their goals in this matter. But, when re-elected, they suddenly rammed through legislation under urgency in this House, changing the rules so that no longer did councils have to ask the population. I mean, who would want to ask the population? Who would care what the population thinks? And so they did away with the requirements for a referendum and it was just up for the council to decide if they wanted to create these new wards. Lo and behold, all of a sudden, it was easy to do, because it’s very easy if you don’t ask anybody whether you like something or not. You just do it. And we’ve seen a large number of councils introduce these wards.

The primary thing that this legislation does is it finalises those provisions made under urgency to make that change, and it was a change that we opposed, that we don’t agree with. We believe, in the National Party, on this side of the House, that New Zealanders can be trusted to make decisions about how the democracy works in this country. We’re not of the view that Willie Jackson is, that democracy has changed. I don’t recall going to a constitutional convention where we decided that we were changing the nature of our constitution or our democracy. I don’t recall a referendum of anybody asked. I don’t recall ever hearing Jacinda Ardern standing up and saying, “Oh, by the way, vote for me and I’m going to change the way democracy works in this country. I’m going to change our democracy.” I don’t recall her ever saying that, because she never did. But Willie Jackson now thinks that’s the case, and the Government keeps pushing through changes to the way in which we make elections.

But this bill—so not only does it entrench the idea that we shouldn’t ask the population in a referendum about whether we want to introduce Māori wards into a particular council; that the council alone can decide. Now, the next step, which is also being introduced in this bill, is, every six years, our councils must reopen the issue and reconsider it and put it as the first item of agenda to be considered or not and must engage with the community. I must say, you do have to admire the chutzpah of this Government, where they bring in a piece of legislation saying, “It is important, you know, that the councils must engage in consultation with the community and Māori community about this issue.” Tomorrow, we’re going to be giving the third reading and passing—well, this Government is going to be passing a bill, the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill, where nobody asked the population and, in fact, the Canterbury Regional Council made a deliberate decision not to consult the people in relation—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member can—

It is entirely relevant, Mr Speaker, to this bill, which I’m about to say.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, I’ll decide that, OK? You can mention that upcoming bill in passing, but you cannot debate it. You debate this bill. So it better be relevant.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you, indeed. The point I was making was that with this bill and in this introduction, the Government is saying that they’re requiring councils to consult with their community about these issues, and I’m pointing out the rank hypocrisy of that, given the way that the Government has operated and continues to operate in the very same sector. This is exemplified—and nobody’s looking; they’re all sort of looking down because it’s a little bit hard to follow the logic that their own Government is following here. They want councils to consult when they are on the issue of Māori wards, but when they are forced through by legislation—are changed to the very foundation of our understanding around equal voting rights and how the system works in Canterbury—they do it because the Canterbury Regional Council asked for it. But, lo and behold, the Canterbury Regional Council made a deliberate decision not to ask the community. So the only point I’m making, and I won’t labour the point any further, is that it is rank hypocrisy.

Then we hear, if I go further on the issue of rank hypocrisy—we heard from the Prime Minister, only a week or so ago, saying with great sanctimony at the local government—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I’m going to caution the member: linking that term and another member—in this case, the Prime Minister—would be completely out of order. So be very careful.

Well, just speaking to that point of order, sir, sorry—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. I have just made a ruling. I’ve just made a ruling, and I’m on my feet. You don’t question it. It would be the end of your speech if you did.

Well, there we go. So, OK, I will never refer to anybody as a hypocrite again in this House. The Prime Minister said, “It will not be the policy of any Government I lead to embark on another substantial reform of local government or governance unless it is sought and unless there is broad consensus amongst local government about the need for and the direction of the change.” Well, again, it’s an interesting comment: “unless there is broad consensus amongst local government”. Can anybody suggest a group that wasn’t included when she said “unless it is sought for and unless there is broad consensus amongst local government”? Is there another group, maybe the public—whether they might have any interest or broad consensus in it, whether that might be a relevant consideration? No, but she did say that she wouldn’t be introducing things without broad support and consensus. And again I make the point—and I hesitate to make the point—but the reality is that tomorrow a bill in this exact same area of local government governance is being passed, with no evidence whatsoever of any broad consensus around that issue.

So we’re left here with a situation that—what are we trying to achieve with all this? We’re trying to deal with the question in relation to the way that local government and our democracy in this country operates. And we on this side of the House have an expectation that New Zealanders will be consulted about, and have an opinion about, and a chance to have their say about when we change the fundamental rules of how democracy works in this country. That’s always been the approach in New Zealand. If you want to change the rules, if you want to introduce a Māori ward, you have a referendum, you put it in. If you want to take them away, you have a referendum, and so forth. This Government has changed those rules, and Willie Jackson has just announced that democracy has changed. But nobody else seems to be prepared to defend it or explain it in any other way, other than just agree with it, lump it, and move on. And that is no effective way to run a country.

The problem with it is that it leads to a sense of resentment and it also leads to a sense of divisiveness in this country. And it is my view that this Government will go down in history as one of the most divisive Governments in recent history, because they keep on dividing New Zealanders between one group and another group—one group and another—whether it’s landlords and house owners, whether it’s farmers and city folks, and, in this case, people on the Māori roll and those not. And that’s not any—

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise proudly in this House to speak on the Local Government Electoral Legislation Bill. My good colleague Rachel Boyack has just canvassed all of the reasons why we give the local councils freedom to choose whether they will establish a Māori ward or not. But I just want to use the remaining part of my contribution to talk about the Auckland aspect of this bill.

Auckland is a fast growing city. It currently holds over one-third of our population, just over 1.72 million. But, also, it is projected to grow in the next 10 years, to 2033—yeah, in the next 11 years. So by 2048 it could make up 37 percent of the population; it’s now currently 34 percent. So we know we’ve got rapid growth of population on the horizon for Auckland City. Therefore, we need to give the city its own right through its own process of representation to make sure that they have adequate representation on their council. So I commend this bill to the House.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker; thank you. I’m pleased to talk a call on the Local Government Electoral Legislation Bill, and can I congratulate all the candidates for city and district councils, regional councils, unitary councils, community boards, and local boards around the country. They’ve all increased their social media activity, they’re out putting up billboards, knocking on doors, calling, and engaging with their communities, because they want to serve their communities, and I do encourage them to all get their nominations in by 12 August, 12 noon.

I think the National Party, and particularly Mr Watts and Mr Goldsmith, are over-egging it in terms of the scale of the changes that they think are in this bill. It is not trying to change the fundamental rules around local government; it is trying to improve the way local government operates and improve some processes, such as the nomination process, by allowing candidates to put in their nomination forms electronically so they don’t get prevented from being candidates by being delayed in traffic, as I know has happened to at least one candidate.

So the National Party’s also quite cynical, I think, about local government. We had Mr Watts talking about councillors on Auckland Council sitting around the table singing “Kumbaya”. That is totally disrespectful of the enormous work that councillors at Auckland do, and the scale of their responsibilities. So this is, again, an example with the National Party’s comments—it suits them to have electoral systems that don’t encourage effective representation.

The reforms that the Labour Government has led, particularly the reforms in the previous legislation around putting the establishment of Māori wards on an equal footing with general wards so that you didn’t have to require a referendum to establish a Māori ward—you don’t for a general ward; why should you for a Māori ward? That was an improvement in local democracy. So it’s absolutely ridiculous for the National speakers to claim that this is about a lack of trust by central government in local government, when it increases the flexibility for councils to determine the number of councillors, in the case of Auckland Council; their local board boundaries, in the case of Auckland Council; and when it improves electoral processes. It is nonsense for a result where two candidates tie to be determined by a coin toss. So this bill ensures that there is automatically a judicial recount in those circumstances, rather than it just being determined on something as opportunistic as a coin toss.

This bill is ensuring that there are these technical changes, and it’s about better implementing the purpose of the Local Electoral Act, which is to provide for fair representation of electors and effective representation of communities. And local authorities do this by reviewing their representation arrangements at least once every six years, and what the bill is doing is ensuring that, in that review of representation arrangement, councils have to consider the issue of Māori representation and whether to create Māori wards. In Auckland, the changes in the bill will improve representation, because the current law is far too rigid; it restricts Auckland Council to 20 councillors plus the mayor. That doesn’t provide for effective representation of communities in such a fast-growing city, where we’ve got those 20 councillors representing 13 wards, and that limit on 20 councillors also obstructs Auckland Council’s ability to create Māori wards and improve Māori representation. So the bill simply provides Auckland Council with the ability to determine whether it wants to have between five and 29 councillors, and I’ll be interested in submissions on the bill as to whether there should be that 29 cap.

As members know, the Local Electoral Act has the 10 percent plus or minus rule to ensure that a vote in one constituency is similar to a vote of another. But the Local Electoral Act also provides for breaches of that rule to ensure effective representation, and the regulatory impact statement notes that this can happen in relation to local board boundaries, where, at the moment, there is a complete misalignment in Auckland between the ward boundaries and the board boundaries, and Auckland Council has signalled that it wants to be able to adjust the board boundaries, to get that alignment back again. The bill allows that to happen.

I am interested that the regulatory impact statement also says that the Remuneration Authority has advised that it—the authority—is unlikely to increase the size of the governance pool funded by council to account for the salaries of any additional councillors. The salaries in local government are not high. The responsibilities of councillors are significant and, if we want to attract capable people, if we want to ensure that there’s less risk of corruption, we need to ensure that there are adequate salaries for local councillors and board members. So this restriction on increasing the pool if the number of councillors increases, I think, is unfortunate.

The bill also provides for—I think I have covered all of the major points, but it is not the massive sweeping change that the National Party is claiming it is. It is simply some technical amendments in an omnibus bill which improves the representation processes and makes quite sensible changes in the nature of a judicial recount and the processes that apply there. The Green Party is pleased to support it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The ACT Party will be opposing this bill. The ACT Party represents that group of New Zealanders who believe in liberal democracy: one person, equal before the law, having one vote, and no taxation without equal representation.

Look, the purpose of this bill appears to continue the agenda that was kept hidden from the New Zealand public at the last election to promote a co-governance agenda, a divisive agenda allocating rights to different groups in New Zealand by virtue of their ethnicity, with vague references to Treaty principles—Treaty principles which are not written down anywhere in this bill. They exist in the ether. They exist as something to be drawn down on whenever it’s convenient to the Government or to those who espouse their philosophy of ethno-nationalism, which is what they stand for. This bill, the Local Government Electoral Legislation Bill, is yet another example of how this Government, rather than fixing the real problems that New Zealanders hope Governments will fix, like making sure there’s enough hospital beds and enough nurses and that teachers are actually teaching children who are in the classroom—it’s not solving those kind of problems. They’re not delivering three waters infrastructure; they’re delivering divisive co-governance, which was their hidden agenda, as we now know.

I want to talk a little bit more about the problems with the bill, the bill that purports to help fix local democracy. Well, what problems are we trying to solve? It looks like, essentially, this bill is designed to consider specific Māori representation, Māori wards, and Māori constituencies, for those people of Māori ethnicity who choose to identify themselves on the Māori electoral roll. It doesn’t propose any better way to provide for representation for those individuals of Māori heritage who are on the general roll or who are just not interested in local politics. It proposes to lift the membership restrictions on the Auckland Council governing body. Now, that’s 20 councillors representing wards like Rodney in the north of Auckland, a very, very large rural ward with about 85,000 people in it, which has to compete for resources and attention against those very, very large urban wards—say, like Puketāpapa in East Auckland and other parts like Waitematā, which includes Waiheke Island.

Now, all of these different constituencies within Auckland have different needs. They have different infrastructure needs and they have different social and economic needs. But what they have in common is that the people who live in Auckland actually need a functioning city that’s got good infrastructure, that makes serviced land—affordable serviced land—available for housing, and that allows businesses and people, families, to get to work and to move freight and goods around, and that requires competent transport infrastructure.

I want to come back to what local government wants as opposed to what Government wants. At the local government conference, which I did not attend, because I assumed it was simply a woke talkfest, what the Prime Minister said was that she wouldn’t be doing any major local government reform unless local government themselves asked for it. Well, we know what a statement from the Prime Minister is worth now, don’t we, because here we are debating another piece of significant local government reform legislation that they didn’t ask for. They didn’t ask for three waters reform. What they asked for was help with infrastructure funding and financing for those communities that couldn’t afford to pay for their three waters infrastructure. They didn’t ask for the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, which allows for three-storey, three-house developments on a single house lot. That’s causing chaos in cities like Hamilton, which are trying to work out how to design their plan for it, where they already have capacity for 100,000 new homes—all of the capacity they need for the next 30 years. What Hamilton needs, what their planners told me they need, is access to better infrastructure funding and financing mechanisms, not three waters reform.

Local government didn’t ask for another port study like in Auckland, trying to work out whether the Manakau Harbour port, which was very popular in the days of four-masted sailing ships—whether that would be a good place for the Government to decide to intervene in another part of the productive economy. I mean, they certainly didn’t ask for a bike bridge over Auckland Harbour. What Aucklanders do want, though, is better public transport. They want better transport connections. Local government didn’t ask for a new Mount Victoria Tunnel in Wellington either, which apparently delivers no extra lanes but provides for about 1,500 cyclists per year to use the existing tunnel. They didn’t ask for that, and they certainly didn’t ask for this bill.

So I think when the Prime Minister returns from Samoa, perhaps a member should ask her “Does she stand by her statement at the local government conference that the Prime Minister said this Government won’t be doing any more local government reform unless local government asks for it?”, because this bill that we’re debating tonight and the Prime Minister’s statement appear to be different facts. Perhaps the Prime Minister’s statement is simply fact adjacent rather than being an actual fact.

So, look, I just want to come to what ACT would do. Well, firstly, what ACT would do is listen to local government. It was reassuring—in fact, heart-warming—for some members of the Labour Government in the House tonight. One member commented that Kieran McAnulty, the Associate Minister of Local Government, has been going around the country talking to local government. Well, I wonder what they told him, because I don’t think they told him they want this piece of legislation, the Local Government Electoral Legislation Bill. I think they probably told him “You can stick your three waters somewhere, and, by the way, if you’re going to talk about fixing three waters, how about you just set up some better infrastructure funding and financing?” That’s what ACT is focused on.

We’ve released a policy just a few short weeks ago, what we call the cost of living policy, where we talk about infrastructure funding and financing, resource management reform so that fewer organisations and randoms can turn up at your consent hearing and object to pieces of infrastructure, whether it’s a distribution warehouse that exceeds some height limit or whether it’s an East West Link project that was designed to get freight off local roads. What ACT says is that fewer people should be able to object to those type of consent applications—in fact, very few: only the neighbours. So when we were thinking about what local government needed, we thought they needed better resource management law that actually incentivises them to say yes to building stuff so that we can build our way out of the cost of living crisis. They certainly, certainly did not ask for this piece of legislation, Mr McAnulty, if you’re still watching this.

What ACT would do is that we would consider providing for recall powers, because, actually, some councils don’t make good decisions. I mean, Mr Watts referred to Auckland councillors holding hands and singing “Kumbaya”. Well, I don’t know what they were smoking the day they declared a climate emergency, because they clearly forgot that Auckland Transport, the other part of council, has to build roads and make sure that the city doesn’t end up in gridlock. That’s why Auckland Council has just won a case, actually, proving that their climate emergency statement was unnecessary and stupid, and, in fact, they should be listening to the transport department, who actually wants to build roads and deliver transportation for the city.

So ACT would listen to local government when it’s making sense. We’d give councils clear objectives and incentives, like sharing 50 percent of the GST on all new builds so that councils have an incentive to say yes to new development. We’ll be opposing this bill. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. I commend this bill to the House.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call—I call Maureen Pugh.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I think that the previous speaker that just resumed his seat has the record for the shortest contribution in the House today—and possibly just as well, because it’s obviously become very difficult for the Government members to defend this bill and defend the constant barrage on local government.

My colleague at the other end of the House here—Simon Court—has just articulated very well, I think, the position of local government. I thought I might just do a bit of a poll in the House tonight. How many MPs in the House tonight have been approached by their councils to say that the issues that are being canvassed in this bill are the single biggest issues they want the parliamentary time taken up with? I think that deserves a New Zealand Transport Agency zero plugged in and on display. Nobody gives a toss about the things that are in here, even though they are tweaks. The reality is that local government is nearing—I’d say—consultation collapse from the amount of consultation and change that they have been facing over the past three years, thanks to this Government.

Three waters is obviously a topical one, and one that is taxing the minds of our local representatives. Then that leads us to the problem of the future of local government and what that will even look like. They’re the things that I think local government would like the Government and the Parliament to be spending its time on, not the Local Government Electoral Legislation Bill that’s with us tonight for its first reading.

Councils are really worried about the Resource Management Act reform—there’s so much coming down the pipeline in that regard—and other Government legislation: funding infrastructure—that’s already been canvassed. There’s a general cost of doing business, and when councils are forced to make changes to the way they do business, there is only one place they go to for the funding, and that’s their ratepayers. I can tell you just recently I was speaking to one of the mayors in West Coast - Tasman who told me that they’ve had it up to their eyeballs with consultation because, at the end of it all, they’re the ones that are accountable to their community. That’s democracy at work. If the community doesn’t like it, the councillors hear about it.

What we are hearing in this bill is a few tweaks around the number of councillors at the Auckland City Council, a toss of a coin being delayed until after a judicial count has been sorted, and being able to file nominations electronically. But hidden in all of this is the sneaky little part of it that talks about representation review and Māori representation.

The reality is that in the last 20 years, 24 councils have tried to establish or introduce Māori wards. What they’ve had to do is go out to their communities and consult. That’s democracy at work. Out of those 24, two have ended up being successful, so that tells you that the communities, when democratically considering it, do not want separate Māori wards. Local government has complied with the rules in the Local Government Act. They consult with their communities, and they’re the responses that they get.

But when you don’t like those responses, what happens? You change the law—you change the law so that you can get the answer that you want. The problem with this is that there is such a culture that has built up in this country about having a mature, grown-up conversation about this that now, if it is raised, what are you called? A racist. Well, I’m telling you, in the words of Willie Jackson: in this country, democracy is changing. It is changing for the worse. And I tell you: the public in general is not happy with it. It’s not happy with all of these tweaks to local democracy. It’s not happy with the imposition of central government telling the people that they know best and that they should sit down, be quiet, and be told what to do.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. How do the changes in this bill make it different from the current requirements? In a nutshell, there is just simply not any current requirements for councils to even bother considering Māori wards. All this does is it means that some councils can avoid making a decision at all. So despite the silly, vacuous protestations by the Opposition, it’s a very straightforward bill that makes some local electoral changes. It happens to be well supported by the government sector, and, on that basis, I commend the bill to the House.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. For the last two weeks, we had the Local Government New Zealand conference in the mighty city of Palmerston North. It was wonderful to have ministerial colleagues, including our local government Ministers McAnulty and Mahuta there on the ground listening to councils in my electorate, and the feedback. Now, we not only had those two Ministers but I think we’ve had at least five, including the Prime Minister. So on this side of the House, we are engaged with local government. The Leader of the Opposition beamed in, probably from Te Puke, but I do know that this is a particular piece of work that is well-timed and I commend it to the House.

Well, if I could honestly say I was looking forward to this coming to select committee because we could make some constructive changes to it, I would, but I can’t, because I’ve never seen the select committee change anything a Minister’s sent us yet, and I’ve been here a little while. Anyway, that’s enough of that.

I want to get on to the point of this bill. As a former mayor, I take a good deal of interest in local government and things that happen in local government. I was around when the Local Government Act 2002 was passed. It was actually, I felt at the time, quite a constructive Act; I note people in local government were frustrated at the time because it would change the way they’d been doing things for the previous 13 or 14 years, but, none the less, it was a good piece of legislation that did a good job for local government and structured local government very well.

Now, I just was thinking a little while ago about the number of pieces of legislation that have come to the House affecting local government this year. I think it’s eight this year. You can imagine that local government was a very popular place for people to put themselves in. We’ve got, of course, as the Minister so rightly said in his introductory remarks, the local government elections coming up this year. I understand that we’ve got almost 50 percent of our mayors going from local government—retiring or leaving it. When you think that there’s eight pieces of legislation that have come in this year to affect the way they operate, it’s not surprising that they’re scarpering. I wonder seriously whether there will be anyone standing for local government in a year or two’s time, because everyone will have been put off it.

I want to talk a little bit about what we might well do with a piece of legislation, instead of doing what we’re doing here. If you think about local government, local government relies entirely on those people standing for positions on council to promote the election. No one else promotes the election—the Electoral Commission doesn’t, or virtually doesn’t; local government don’t promote it, because they’ve got to spend ratepayers money to promote it; so no one promotes it, and we wonder why people don’t stand for local government. There’s absolutely no promotion of the fact that there’s an election happening or the activities of the council at all. So I think that we’re very seriously threatening democracy by consistently and continually interfering in the processes of local government, and not really, in many cases, structured interference in those processes, but processes that are extremely frustrating for the people involved, for our local communities, and for people standing for positions in local government. So I think, if we continue to interfere in local government without putting a structure in place that lets them get on with life, manage the affairs of our local communities in a manner that at least enables the local community, to some extent, manage what happens in their areas, then we’re going to have serious problems attracting anyone to stand for local government. Why would you, at the end of the day, when you’re constantly, effectively—I was going to say “abused”, but you’re not necessarily abused, but you’re, certainly, constantly under scrutiny, you’re doing a job where you’re poorly paid? I don’t think, if we continue to interfere in the processes of local government, we’re going to get anyone standing.

The other point, with respect to this bill, is that if you think about the fact that you could be the Mayor of Auckland, a great job, and every time you front up to your committee, you’ve got 29 people to convince that you’re right or wrong, imagine that! Not a wonder that they’ve got some interesting people standing for the Mayor of Auckland. I think that that’s a real challenge for a city of Auckland’s size to have, potentially, a council of 29 people running it—there will never be a decision made in Auckland, on that basis. I just think, to attract people of the standard that you need to run a city like Auckland—or, in fact, any of our councils for that matter, but certainly a city like Auckland—you’ve got to have a structure in place that encourages people who have got the capability to stand and who wish to be part of what goes on there. So that’s a little piece on Auckland that I wanted to talk about.

I want to talk about the tied result thing for a minute, because I do think that’s a kind of sensible solution to a very minor problem, because, actually, it’s not really satisfactory having a councillor elected on the toss of a coin then thrown out as a result of a judicial recount, and so you’ve got a job one minute and you haven’t got a job the next. Pretty untidy. So I do think that that little piece of alteration to the law, which could have been put in, probably, any four or five pieces of local government law we’ve passed through this Parliament in the last six or eight months but happens to be in this one—that’s a sensible change to it.

The Auckland Council issue I’ve talked about. Simplifying the process to change local board boundaries, again, probably much of an Auckland issue as anywhere else, and probably won’t affect anyone else much, but, none the less, probably it would have been a sensible suggestion but it certainly doesn’t require a piece of legislation to pass it. As for enabling candidates to submit electronic nominations, I guess that’s progress, but, again, it hardly required a separate piece of legislation to enable it to be passed.

I want to talk for a little bit about the piece of this Act that, I guess, talks about—I’ll use that term—Māori representation in local government and the way local councils need to deal with it as they go through their representation review. In my time in council, we went through that representation review and invariably considered Māori wards because the Local Government Act 2002 enabled that process to take place. It didn’t happen in the Manawatū district at that time for reasons best known to Māori, not best known to the council, because council made the decision that their local iwi and local Māori communities wanted us to make. I think that that’s how it should be and that’s how it should have remained. But, none the less, we’ve had changes to the Local Government Act in recent times that have changed the process. We’ve now got another change to the Local Government Act which is, effectively, the Local Government Electoral Legislation Bill, this one’s called, which, effectively, changes that, potentially, again. That will be a very interesting discussion to have in select committee, because I think there will be, in my view, a large number of submissions on that point and it will be very interesting to see where we get to as we consider that in the long term.

So there’s been a lot of talk about local government. I think, if you go back in time, that local government has had more and more and more loaded on it ever since that 2002 Act came to pass, and Governments of all colours have been to blame for the fact that we put more emphasis and more responsibility on local government, but it, effectively, forced the ratepayers to pay those bills. That’s one of the real challenges we’ve got with our rates bills at the moment, and there wouldn’t be an MP in this House that doesn’t get a daily complaint about the rates bills—[Interruption] What are you trying to tell me to do, Goldsmith? I’m having a turn for the first time in a few days where I haven’t been told what to do every time I stand up in the House! Ha, ha!

So, anyway, I think that there’s a lot of consideration that needs to be given to this bill, even though it is a very small bill and does not really influence a lot of stuff. But in the course of the select committee process, it will be very interesting to see what we get in the way of submissions. I assume I was getting hurried on by Mr Goldsmith, so I will commend the bill to the House.

Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity and kia orana. I’ll take a short call on the bill. I support this bill, particularly because it talks about a range of topics and covers representation. In my previous working life, I worked over a decade for Auckland Council as an elected member, and I know the value of Māori wards and Māori representation that the current legislation does not cover. So, on that note, I commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That the Local Government Electoral Legislation Bill be considered by the Governance and Administration Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill, the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Declarations of Inconsistency) Amendment Bill, and the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill.