Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill

Committee of the whole House

Kia orana, Mr Chair. Thank you. I want to ask the Minister some questions about clause 25. These are related to the suggestion that there would be a standard approach, in particular a standard approach to a code of conduct. I mean, I don’t think anyone would disagree that there absolutely needs to be a code of conduct for local authorities. I guess the issue is around a standard one and what that might look like.

The other one that relates to the standardisation is more specifically around the standing orders. I want to really focus on this aspect. The Minister will be aware that this is a proposed amendment to Schedule 7, specifically new clause 15A, inserted by clause 25(3B). The Minister may be aware that I do have an Amendment Paper, obviously in my name, that’s related to this. It’s Amendment Paper No. 653, and hopefully the Minister has had time, because it’s been sitting there for a wee while.

I guess my concern that I’d be keen for the Minister to respond to is that in many circumstances, standing orders, and some that have been prepared by Local Government New Zealand, for example, I accept they are adopted by a number of councils, but there are some that actually don’t do that; they have their own bespoke form of standing orders. Where there is a circumstance or a situation where, for example, a standardised set might limit the ability for members of the public to go and share their views, raise issues—I think about a number of councils where, for example, their standing orders set aside a public comment component as a particular standing order that sets aside a committee meeting for 30 minutes. I mean, I’m familiar with the Palmerston North ones. That’s what happens there.

That’s a particular decision that the council from my constituency has a bespoke set of standing orders. They don’t rely on the ones from Local Government New Zealand. They’ve been developed over quite some time. They seem to be standing orders that work for that local community. I guess the concern about standardising things is that you might have arrangements or provisions, for example, to allow for public participation at the start of a committee meeting or at the start of a council meeting or a public forum—they all have lots of different names. How is the Minister going to ensure that there are those aspects of a standing order approach that still allow for community feedback and community engagement? I think on the one hand you’re wanting to potentially ensure that there’s some consistency across the country, but where that consistency is disadvantageous alongside some existing standing orders—I’d be keen to get a response from the Minister around how that could be encouraged or allowed.

Committee of the whole House

I thank the member for the question in regards to standing orders, and the points raised by the member are absolutely legitimate. What has occurred is that a process has been undertaken, including consultation, to prepare and put in place standing orders that are standardised across the country. The point I think the member was raising is: is there a mechanism ongoing where if changes or modifications to enhance or improve those or potentially deal with an issue that comes up subsequently—is that available? The answer is yes. The mechanism, while not formalised, allows the secretary to be able to take on board those points. The standing orders will also look to be periodically reviewed as well.

From the intent of this, this is making sure that the standing orders are fit for purpose and are continually reviewed and updated on a periodic basis. As and where, potentially, if there are issues identified that need to be strengthened or enhanced, then there is absolutely no prohibition around that—actually, quite the opposite. As we do in this place, improvement of standing orders is just part and parcel of business as usual.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. My question is also on the code of conduct, and I certainly agree with my colleague Tangi Utikere on some of the matters, particularly participation, that should be included. I agree about what are offences and what are the penalties that might be quite sensible to standardise across local authorities.

My concern is about remote participation and how the rules for that vary currently across councils. The issue is about whether it’s pretty much discretionary as long as you give notice or whether it’s only if you’re ill. Again, they differ, but it seems to me that the rules for—let’s take an urban, relatively concentrated council like Hutt City. Frankly, there’s not many reasons why somebody shouldn’t be able to get physically to a meeting. You take the South Wairarapa and the vulnerability of the bridges, or Tararua, which has got hundreds of kilometres of rural roads and also potentially poor connectivity.

I looked into this a little bit. Queenstown requires, if you’re going to be part of the quorum, that you actually have to have your camera on at all times. Marlborough says, “Our connectivity”—or at least it used to—“might not be adequate.”, and as long as you were present and could hear and be heard, that counted. These seem to me genuine differences between councils.

The last part, Minister, was that there are differences in connectivity, so Queenstown requires, for remote access, that you must be on camera all the time. It doesn’t say what your background might be, but, you know, that’s something. But Marlborough has not got such good connectivity, or it didn’t have, perhaps, at the time they wrote their standing orders, and they allow you to be present and count towards the quorum and count your vote if you just can be heard and hear. I just think there are some variations in not perhaps every part of the standing orders, but there are some real areas that we ought to be able to allow different councils some discretion on.

Committee of the whole House

Yeah, I thank the member for the question, and I can provide assurance to the member that the way in which the standing orders are drafted in regards to remote participation actually are at the discretion of the respective councils to put in place the policies and procedures and mechanisms that are applicable for that particular council. On the points that the member is making around geographical variation, etc., that is the way in which the standing orders are. It isn’t one standardised mechanism for remote participation at a national level; it is at the discretion of each council. That should cover that point.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. A few different questions and reminding the Minister that just before those valedictories—lovely as they were, as I predicted—he answered one of my questions but did not answer the other question, which was about the many different things that the Local Government Act already specifies can only be done by the full council. If you’re doing a motion on your rates, that has to be done by the full council. The question there relates to, well, why are we so worried about voting rights that have already been delegated when the bigger issues and those most important things already have to be by the elected councillors?

Then second to that, and related, the Minister has been saying in many of his answers that, you know, this is all to do with democracy. Therefore, I would infer that he’s saying that this is a constitutional bill; that this is important for our constitutional arrangements, as democracy applies to local government. So my second question in this contribution is why, then, are we doing this, effectively, through all-stages urgency? It’s come in as an amendment in the committee stage—

💬 Ryan Hamilton: Just a little one.

Oh, someone’s saying it’s a little amendment. I think if we’re talking about our constitutional arrangements, then size does not matter, Mr Ryan Hamilton—maybe it does. But this is an important amendment. The select committee has not had a chance to look at it, nor has anyone been able to look at any submissions. Surely, if it is as important as the Minister says it is, then it should go through a robust democratic process here, and it’s not doing that. We only saw this Amendment Paper as we walked into our caucus meetings on Tuesday morning. Today, it is Wednesday. Nobody else has spent much time looking at this. We heard from the Hon Willie Jackson that Tau Henare has been texting him about how outrageous it is. Apart from that, that is where we are with the analysis. People are going, “What the—?” This appears terrible, and it is terrible. I would very much like to hear the Minister justify this terrible process whereby nobody is involved apart from a few of us here asking questions.

Now, I do have some other questions, as well. One is going back—so I’m now on the Minister’s Amendment Paper 755, and I’m at clause 25. This is the same clause that I was talking about before that refers to the railway fund and the drainage committee, and the Minister answered and said that they had very specific arrangements. I would like to know if the Minister could comment on how robust the analysis was—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): What page are you on in Amendment Paper 755?

Page 5. The question there was how robust was that analysis that only the railway fund and the drainage committee need to be specifically listed, rather than, say, the Tūhara Otago Museum or any other number of entities that exist around the country?

My next question there is that these new clauses refer quite often to any Treaty settlement and things made under other pieces of legislation. Now, at the moment, the Resource Management Act (RMA) is still the law of the land in terms of resource management. This Government brought it back and have not yet completed their RMA reforms, and even when they do complete their RMA reforms, most of it won’t commence until about 2030. One of the things in the Resource Management Act that sometimes relates to Treaty settlements, although not always, are mana whakahono ā rohe, and they also relate to this other legislation. I’m wondering how this legislation—this amendment that we’ve had since yesterday—relates to mana whakahono ā rohe, and, whilst the Government’s other amendments and different pieces of legislation are happening, is there any interaction that will happen as a result of this legislation to those mana whakahono ā rohe given these references to Treaty settlements and other enactments? Thank you, Mr Chair.

Committee of the whole House

Thanks, Mr Chair. Thank you. I refer to the provision that we are on—clause 25(14). Minister, you did have a question before the dinner break with respect to this provision. I do have an Amendment Paper. What I wanted to ask the Minister, and I can’t recall exactly your clear statement that you made, with respect to—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Can you tell us the Amendment Paper—the time stamp?

Yes, the Amendment Paper—all I’ve got in front of me is, “The proposed amendment is clause 25(14)”?

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Oh, OK. So it’s 15 September, 4.46, right?

It was 15 September, 4.46.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Yep, cool.

Thank you. Apologies for the late reference. Minister, what I wanted to understand was, we’ve heard a lot of evidence that you’ve provided, and also with information from the officials, but what is the understanding or what is the advice that you’ve been provided in terms of the clause that will replace the two with the five years for chief executive officers? I wanted to understand what the considerations were of extending to five years and, also, the analysis that has been provided, because you have spoken with respect to going back in terms of democracy and going back to the local government basics in terms of policy intent. It would be helpful to understand, because I have put a provision forward in there to replace the five years with four, because you’re doubling up.

So what I want to understand, Minister, is what is the analysis behind going from two years to five years, but also the different considerations, because that is not just a double term; it extends the CEO responsibility in the second term. It would be helpful to understand the thinking but, also, the decision making behind that specific provision. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): I encourage members not to use “you” and “your” and bring the Chair into the debate.

Committee of the whole House

I thank the member Lemauga Lydia Sosene for the question in regards to her Amendment Paper, which is in relation to the time period of the term of the chief executive, which is currently appointed for a first term of five years and the second term for up to two years. The bill proposes that the second term length will increase to five years, taking the maximum combined duration of the first and second terms to 10 years.

The question was around analysis that was undertaken by officials in regards to that change, particularly in regards to the frequency and the costs related, and actually links to the feedback in regards to an Amendment Paper that was noted by one of the other members this evening that we did not progress on the reasons that the cost-effectiveness aspect was considered to outweigh the benefit in regards to the change. So that’s in regards to that amendment. We won’t be progressing with that proposal.

There were questions before, also, in regards to delegations in the context of delegations from the governing body of a local council to subcommittees. There are certain aspects that can’t be delegated. However, there are some elements that can, including, for example, the allocation and decisions around the allocation of a particular grant. In that instance—

💬 Hon Rachel Brooking: Is that the problem?

—there is an issue—I’m just giving you an example, which is one of the questions that I was asked in regards to that, and the clarification and the certainty provided that only democratically elected individuals are able to vote in regards to that ensures that there is consistency across the piece.

Committee of the whole House

Mr Chair, thank you. I’m just going to go back to the question that I asked prior to the valedictory statements. Minister, you responded to my Amendment Paper 664 and then you also responded to Amendment Paper 665, even though I haven’t actually spoken to that, so I’ll speak to that in a moment. But just on Amendment Paper 664, the response you just gave us was about the term of a chief executive, and you talked about the analysis by officials. Now—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Try not to use the “you” and the “your”.

Oh, sorry, my apologies. “Your” is different—

💬 Hon Willow-Jean Prime: “The Minister”.

“Minister”. “Minister”, “you”—no: the Minister talked about the analysis by officials. Now, I was on the Governance and Administration Committee that considered this bill and asked exactly questions around that, and we didn’t really get any clear steer as to why that decision was made. I specifically was doing it in the context, as I said earlier, of the Public Service Amendment Bill, which was done at exactly the same time. The answer that you gave us—sorry, the answer that the Minister—I can’t avoid using the word “you”—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Well done. Appreciate the effort.

The answer that the Minister gave us was that it was an issue of cost, but what we’ve then got is that we are concerned about the cost to local government of saying that the chief executive can only be appointed for five years, but at the same time—and, literally, it was the same time—we had a piece of legislation saying, “We are not concerned about the cost of reappointment in the public sector to a taxpayer.”

It is the logical inconsistency which is the challenge here, and that is what I would really appreciate. Look, I get the bit about saying, “Yeah, we want to reduce costs because we want to make sure that we don’t have to keep going to the market in terms of chief executives.”, although there are some costs to that in the sense that the chief executive then has a greater and greater power in relation to the democratically elected members. That’s an issue which instead is really, really important and yet is being undermined here, but that issue applies to ratepayers but not to taxpayers. It’s the logical inconsistency that I find challenging. It has been challenging, and I’ve raised that in this House several times over the last, well, six, seven, eight months, and I have yet to see a logical answer as to why that logical inconsistency is something that the Government supports.

The second one is Amendment Paper 665. You just talked about the issue around my Amendment Paper 665. You talked about the issue of delegating. There are certain aspects that can’t be delegated. There’s a list in the schedule in the Local Government Act. It says that the council cannot delegate the making of rates, by-laws, borrowing monies, disposing of assets other than in the long-term plan (LTP), adopting the LTP annual plan or annual report, appointing the chief executive officer, LTP policies, etc., and remuneration and employment policies.

The amendment that I’ve got there, which you responded to and said, “No, we’re not going to do that.”, is an amendment which says that it’s the power to adopt a strategy, a policy, or a management plan under the Reserves Act 1977 or a district plan, a district plan change, or variation to district plan change. Those things are really, really important pieces of policy. They are critical. Collectively, they are the most important things that councils do, and yet councils can choose to delegate them to a body.

We’ve got these amendments talking about unelected members and unelected members not voting. You’re dealing with that, but you’ve still got unelected members around a table who have influence on those things. Those are some of the most critical things that councils do, and you’re saying it’s fine to delegate them. All this amendment was saying is, actually, just like we do in Parliament, there should be a process of saying that you have your first reading, effectively—your first process. The committee makes some decisions around that, and then it gets kicked up to council, and the council have a second think about it.

Otherwise, what will happen with some of these things is you will end up with them literally turning up, as we’ve had with amendments—we’ve had the complaint here about amendments turning up. You’ll have it turning up a couple of days in advance of a council committee meeting. The council committee meeting will have delegated authority to approve it, to go out to consultation, or to go out and actually finalise it. That could be a district plan. Those things are really, really, really important, and yet for some reason, we think it’s OK that the council itself doesn’t even have to have a view on them. I would suggest to you, from 30 years of experience, that that is not a good way of doing things and we should be thinking about that a different way. That amendment is very, very simple.

The second part of that one is the issue around avoiding doubt. This is because I’ve got to say some councils—and I have one council not too far from here playing silly buggers with that. It basically said that because we have delegated the power to recommend a long-term plan to the council, we cannot override that: “We, the council, which theoretically is the sovereign body, cannot override that decision.” That is a nonsense, and that is that council which was playing games with the law. That should not be happening, and that’s why the second bit is in there as well.

To the Minister of Local Government, with respect, I ask you to think about that one again. It really simply is just extending the list of the things that council cannot delegate final approval of—things like district plans, management plans, key policies. Those things are important, and they should have the dignity of going to a council, not merely being dealt with at a committee level.

Committee of the whole House

Well, on a similar vein—and I’ve got a few contributions to make, but on the contribution from former Mayor Andy Foster, I think it was a very good point that he is making about what can and can’t be delegated.

The Minister of Local Government, in reply to my question, talked about the fact that the legislation already says that some things cannot be delegated and it is the elected members that are making those decisions. He said that grants can be delegated. Is that why we’re here? Are we here because of the grants being delegated? What are our banned words? Did somebody give a grant for wellbeing, or did they give a grant for equity or maybe, horror of horrors, a circular economy project? These are words I know this Government hates. It has spent so much time trying to delete them from everywhere. But I want to offer the Minister some help. I’m very happy to prepare an amendment here, if he wants me to do so, to say that the grants decisions cannot be delegated. If that is the issue, we could fix that—not a problem. That’s one thing.

The second one goes back to this wider issue of the constitutional importance that the Minister has been saying relates to democracy in local government. I will ask him if he can tell us his theory of localism. I say this because I watched the Minister closely when he was in Opposition. We would speak at some similar conferences, and he had a lot to say about localism and the importance of localism and how his new Government was going to end centralisation. I’m very interested in his theory of localism and how that applies to this legislation and how it is that local people are going to be making more decisions as a result of his work. That’s my second question.

My third question relates to these codes of conduct. If we look at the bill as reported back from the Governance and Administration Committee, on page 10—so clause 25, “Schedule 7 amended”. I’m interested here in the codes of conduct. It says that the following persons must comply with the standard code of conduct and then it lists some people. Then if you turn the page, so on page 12 at new sections 36B and 40, there are these words: “must comply”. Each member of each local authority board must comply with the standard code of conduct. Then that’s repeated at new section 40. I’m interested in the language here that you must comply. I know Celia Wade-Brown started to mention this in her contribution, but I don’t think she asked the question that I’m going to ask. That is: what happens when a member does not comply with those codes of conduct? What are the consequences? Does this legislation change the current situation where you can have some reviews and people can say, “We’re displeased.” Is there any change in this legislation around non-compliance with codes of conduct? If not, can the Minister justify why they are even a thing, let alone having a standard code of conduct? Thank you, Mr Chair.

Committee of the whole House

Thanks, members, for those questions. I’ll run through my feedback in regards to those in order. In regards to the amendment proposed verbally in regards to grants, no, we won’t be progressing with that. I did answer the question in regards to localism previously this evening and gave quite a comprehensive response in regards to that, so I don’t wish to repeat myself in that area.

The feedback in regards to Andy Foster on what I think is a fair and reasonable point that when we look at the broader Local Government Act, there are number of areas of opportunity for improvement—we would both absolutely agree with that. The view and my view is that in similar areas such as taxation where we do regular reviews of the legislation on more of a regular cadence, the Local Government Act is one of those areas which I think we should continue to look to review and enhance. I look forward to doing so constructively in the future.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just have a couple of questions to ask, and it’s quite important to get some clarification around this, because obviously this amendment that I’m going to be talking to—Amendment Paper 755—has just dropped recently. Obviously, there are a lot of changes and it’s important that we understand the impact of these changes. One of them is obviously—and we’ve just heard about the delegations of funding grants to committees, etc. Also, at many times at councils, staff get delegated minor funding decisions. Obviously staff aren’t elected members, but the elected members have made that decision—democratically—to pass on these delegations to staff. My question is: will staff be able to continue to make these delegated decisions around minor grants that they’ve had for many, many years, or will that be gone as well?

I have a question, and I asked this earlier but I never got an answer, so I think it’s really important to ask this again. It’s in new subclause (12B) in Schedule 3, new section 31A(4). It’s obviously where it’s basically excluding the “member of the board established under Part 7 of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act”, etc. My question I asked earlier is: even though they have been singled out, are they still able to apply for the exemption like many other joint committees that have—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Could you let us know whereabouts you are? You talk about Amendment Paper 755, right?

Amendment Paper 755—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Which page?

This is page 7.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Page 7, all right.

It’s the new clause 31A(4). It’s obviously in reference to the removal of the joint committee, and the question is: even though they’ve been singled out, do they have the ability to apply for the exemption that has been mentioned earlier on in this bill? I think that’s really important, because I still didn’t quite get the answer why this has been singled out. Why has the Houkura board been singled out as actually not being able to continue in their current form with non-elected members voting? I’m just struggling to understand why, and it would be good to get an answer from the Minister about why this group has been singled out in the way it has. We haven’t quite heard a good reason for that, but what I’d really like to know is: can they apply for that exemption?

The other question I’d like to ask the Minister: will appointed members of reserve management committees convened and supported by councils but established under the Reserves Act 1977 be captured by the non-voting proposal? Currently, if we look around Banks Peninsula, there are 15 of these types of committees. I think it’s really important to understand and get some clarity around whether these committees—which obviously have non-elected members on them—will actually be able to continue as they are, or will they also be affected by the non-voting proposal?

There are just three questions that I put in front of the Minister. One is around minor delegations to staff, whether they are now going to have to stop. The other question was around whether the Houkura board can apply for an exemption, and actually also why were they singled out considering the significant amount of joint committees—or committees as well—that have non-voting members on them? Lastly around the reserve management committees that were established under the Reserves Act 1997. Thank you, Minister.

Committee of the whole House

I thank the member Mike Davidson for those questions. I’ll also come back to the Hon Rachel Brooking’s questions around code of conduct and “must comply”. The question’s relating to what the consequences are in regards to that. The consequences in regards to non-compliance and penalties are included within the broader Local Government Act. One of the consequences, for example, is that the individual can be removed or the removal of a committee member. I think it is fair to say that the penalties are an area that the Government has identified as part of a future work programme around looking at strengthening that. But within the time available within this term, that’s not going to be possible. But it’s definitely an area of future policy consideration and I’m happy to work constructively with the member in regards to her ideas in that area if she wishes.

In regards to the reserves—

💬 Hon Rachel Brooking: Always! Always!

Thank you, I appreciate that. It feels like our relationship is starting to warm a little bit more from before the dinner break.

💬 Tom Rutherford: Get on with it!

We’ve got love on all sides here. The Reserves Act 1977 not captured—just in regards to the question before.

Delegation to staff also was a question: that is not impacted.

No committees in particular have been singled out. I raised this and noted this before the dinner break in regards to consistency of the application of the inability for non-elected members to be able to vote. That is a consistency point. It isn’t a case of any particular sub-committee over another. The reality in regards to the question around exemptions: the exemptions mechanism does apply in that context, and that would be for the discretion of the Minister of Local Government to consider that.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. I thank the Minister of Local Government for his response around the standardisation of standing orders and also for the code of conduct. I think it’s important to make that distinction, because the standardised approach to standing orders, while I still might not agree, none the less will be something given over to councils, and the expectation is they would just roll that out, whereas the standardised approach to codes of conduct, I do think the think piece—perhaps—around the consequences is a really important one. I know the Minister talked about the consequence being potential removal from committees. I think everyone can look to Dunedin City Council and see that they are working through a process—or have been for quite some time with one particular elected member—to the point where many would think that it’s just farcical, some of the stuff that’s going on down there. I infer from the Minister’s response that there’s nothing in the legislation that would allow for consequence—for example, removal from office—as opposed to—[Minister shakes head] Thank you to the Minister for confirming that. But that might be something that’s on the horizon, perhaps, moving forward for the Parliament.

I want to ask the Minister about Amendment Paper 654, which I haven’t spoken to yet. This is an issue that relates to access to information, and I think one of the changes that has been made in this particular bill—I will say there are a couple of things that I’m OK with, but overwhelmingly not so. But one is this issue as to who makes final decisions around access to information that’s held by the local council. I do think it’s a positive step in the right direction to ensure that those final decisions are taken by the council, as opposed to the chief executive, particularly when it concerns access to information by elected members. Now, the Minister will know—because I did float this in the second reading—that this was an issue that has been raised by submitters throughout this process, and the bill that has been reported back hasn’t addressed this. I understand Dr Dean Knight had raised this as a particular concern with the committee, and I do think it’s a fair one and I’m interested to sort of understand from the Minister whether he would entertain correcting what is perhaps a little bit of an oversight there.

By ensuring that the governing body is able to make the decision about access to information that’s held, rather than the chief executive, there is the possibility that an unintended outcome or consequence has now arisen, because it removes the ability for an elected member who might be unhappy with the decision that has been taken by the governing body around access to information. It removes their ability to actually complain to the Ombudsman, because the decision has been made, effectively, by the territorial authority itself—not by delegation but by the authority itself. It is important that the decisions around access to information do have proper motive. We all know that, just like this place, councils can be politically charged. If there are decisions that have been taken which are on a numbers kind of basis as to who has the most votes, that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to a fair or proper consideration around whether the information should be withheld or the extent of it being released.

The Amendment Paper 654 in my name seeks to insert a new clause 26A(4) which would basically allow for elected members to still go through the process of engaging with the Ombudsman. It’s not to say that the Ombudsman would necessarily agree, but it gives them that avenue, rather than having to go through an expensive judicial review process, which is the only way that the decision around access to information could sought to be addressed by an elected member.

I do think that the Minister, I hope, is aware of this issue, and I’m just interested as to whether he sees that what may have been an oversight can be corrected to ensure that there’s a fair process here.

Committee of the whole House

I thank the member for Amendment Paper (AP) 654. We will not be proceeding with this amendment, and I’ll explain the reasons why.

This is not Government policy. My Amendment Paper 755 will actually delete the clauses that this AP 654 will rely on. Therefore, I expect subsequently that the Clerks will probably rule it out of order because of that interrelationship between the two sections.

However, in addition to that, the Ombudsman has indicated that they would not support this proposal on the basis that the proposal raises constitutional issues about the Ombudsman having a role in overriding a decision of a democratically elected council.

Committee of the whole House

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. I know my friend Tangi Utikere will have another question on that exchange on the amendments in Amendment Paper (AP) 755. Of course, the amendments are new and have not been to a select committee. I’m looking at Amendment Paper 755 and this new section 260A, inserted by new clause 21A, which we can see on page 3, which is that the “Order in Council may specify exemptions in relation to non-elected member provisions”. My questions about this are not policy-related at all; they are just about the wording here.

The wording is very open. What this is saying is that an Order in Council—that is, secondary legislation—can be made to specify an exemption for any class or type of specified committee—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): What page is that?

Page 3 of AP 755—any class of non-elected member of a particular specified committee. So this is very wide and it can be made indefinitely and with or without conditions.

Normally, a clause like this—that is, an empowering clause for exemptions to be made by a Minister so it doesn’t have to go through this House—would have some sort of overarching principle or criteria or guardrails for justification, a test that would have to be met before the Minister decided to invoke this Order in Council. I can’t see any of that here; it might be somewhere else in the legislation—only, at new section 260A(4), “The Minister must not recommend the making of an order under subsection (1) unless they are satisfied that the exception is necessary or desirable.” That is a very wide—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): I didn’t want to interrupt the member’s flow, but that section is in Part 1. If you could make it link to the terms of this discussion.

Yes. Well, of course, because these are exemptions that come through in Part 2. The issue is how the exemptions in Part 2 can be made, basically, by the Minister deciding without any criteria, and if the Minister thinks that there are criteria somewhere within the legislation. If somehow it would go back to the purpose statement or somewhere else in the legislation or somewhere in this new framework that is inserted by Amendment Paper 755, how that would work?

It’s obviously very difficult for us to see this, remembering, of course, that this is an amendment that has come in after the select committee. The whole paper has come in after the select committee, and normally, changes such as this would go to a select committee and they’d be sent off to the Regulations Review Committee—I’m looking at the clerk who used to be involved in that at some point when I was—and the Regulations Review Committee would, of course, say, “What are the criteria for making this decision? Where are they?” If the Minister could point to where those criteria are, that would be very useful.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. I thank the Minister for pointing out his reference in his Amendment Paper 755. This is one of the things where we don’t have a lot of time to address things that land late.

I just want to get some clarity around that, because, as I understand, the Minister’s response is that, effectively, subclauses (2) through to (4) of new section 259 is to be removed. The ability for access by elected members to information held by the local authority would exist but—is the Minister saying that it would in line with processes established by the authority or by the council itself? That raises still the question around the ability for an elected member who still may be unhappy with whatever those council internal processes might be around decisions taken to release information, to not release information, or to limit the scope and scale of release.

Does this change still enable an elected member to seek any other avenue apart from a judicial review over a decision to access the information? I think the Minister’s response was, “Well, no, the role of the Ombudsman should not be to interfere with a decision of a democratically elected council.” The point of difference, of course, is that often some of those decisions around access can be political and if it’s left with the chief executive, I’m still not clear around whether this actually adequately mitigates the concern about an elected member not being able to utilise a particular avenue to address concerns around the inability to release information to be accessed.

Committee of the whole House

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. It would be helpful to get a response from the Minister if that is possible. I see he’s taking some advice, so that might be possible.

I want to move on to clause 32B, which has not been referenced yet. This is around the expenditure on consultants and contractors. What we see in this bill is the introduction of a requirement for councils to effectively—well, they already do an annual report, but to include certain things as part of that annual report process.

Clause 32B on page 14 talks about the annual report needs to include a report on all operating and capital expenditure. I mean, we had a question earlier in the evening or in the day around the difference in terms of facilities—we didn’t actually get an answer around that, but I think that was in Part 1—on consultants and contractors.

I find this really, really interesting. What is the whole basis on which the Government wants to include this information specifically? The annual report includes a whole pile of information, from how much remuneration decision makers receive right through to different particular quantum or focus on the activities or groups of activities that exist there. This is coming from—I mean, the track record of a Government that, when we look at transport, for example, where the Government spends on consultants and contractors is such that their Roads of National Significance is so out of whack that there’s a significant financial fiscal hole. I do find it rather strange that the Government are wanting to have a focus on consultants and contractors, yet, in other parts of their own operations, they don’t seem to be so willing to have a bit of spotlight or sunlight in that particular space.

I’m assuming from this, Minister, that the annual report, which has a whole pile of information—you are expecting a level of detail around the contractor spend and consultant spend. What evidence is there? What is driving this? I mean, I know we talk about cost effective and all of those sorts of things and a requirement around infrastructure focus, public service, regulatory functions—all of those sorts of things. But why do we suddenly have an inclusion consultants and contractors given this Government’s terrible track record in that space?

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just have a question around Schedule 2, new section 60, “Local governance statements”, new subsection (2) where it talks about “A local authority need does not need to comply with section 40(1) (as amended by the amendment Act) within 6 months after the 2025 general election of members of the local authority but must instead comply with that section within 6 months after the commencement date.” Now, obviously, when this was originally done, this was introduced to the House in July 2025, and it’s clearly taken a quite a while to get to this point. We’re a year into a council term. By the time this gets put into place, you’re well past halfway through a council term, and there’s a lot of money that the councils are going to have to spend when they redo their local governance statements to comply with this new Act. It just seems like, if we’re trying to curb council spending, that we shouldn’t actually be increasing costs on council.

I have an amendment, and my colleague Celia Wade-Brown has an amendment just to fix this up just slightly just to bring it up to date so, therefore, we’re not focused on an election that has been and gone last year in 2025. It seems a little bit absurd to have an Act that talks about a past date. It just doesn’t make sense. This amendment, which is time stamped 16 September 2026 9.09.18 in the name of Celia Wade-Brown recommends to replace new section 62 with “a local authority does not need to comply with section 41 (as amended by the amendment Act) until following the 2028 election of members of the local authority”.

I know, Minister, that you obviously, throughout this committee of the whole House stage haven’t accepted any of our amendments, which is a shame, because a lot of the amendments we’ve been trying to do are actually to improve this bill. We don’t support the bill, but we still try and make some improvements in there—especially if we realise there are some issues that have been created, and especially how old this bill actually is from when it was first introduced. This is a pretty straightforward amendment. It will save councils money and just put the actual time for them to do this work after the next 2028 election. I’d like to get the Minister’s thoughts on whether he’d accept that amendment, which would actually push out a bit of that time and save some money. It’s quite common sense, I think, to do that, and it will let the councils do their governance statements after the next election.

Committee of the whole House

I’ll just answer those three questions. The amendment, to the member—and I do appreciate his very helpful ideas in regards to improvements of the bill. However, in this case, it’s not going to be consistent with Government priorities. Again, we seem to have a theme there. But, anyway, criteria—we had a question before around criteria for the Minister around exceptions. I’d refer the member to Amendment Paper 755, particularly clauses 260A(4). It refers there, in terms of the wording of the criteria, to “Necessary or desirable.” Official advice to us is that that terminology is consistent with other aspects of legislation. In order to add more context to that, subsequent to and subject to this bill passing, the Minister of Local Government will be writing to all councils to outline, clearly, expectations in regards to that. That will provide additional context around the expectation of the criteria as well.

There was another question in regards to consultants and contractors. The mandatory reporting is to drive transparency and comparability across the sector. As members will be aware, you can already request—and councils are often burdened by a significant amount of requests—this through the official information request process. This mechanism, in effect, will standardise that reporting across all councils and mean that it is freely available, and, therefore, it will reduce the need for individuals to request it on a council-by-council basis.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. Picking up on the Minister of Local Government’s answer to one of my questions about criteria, he said that the vague words were the normal statutory guidance. I would disagree, but he’s then said that the Minister will write to local government and that will set out expectations. I think what the Minister is telling me is that this primary legislation—what will become an Act—is going to say, “Minister, you are empowered to make regulations, secondary legislation, with very vague criteria, but, in fact, you are going to retrofit that by writing, in a non-statutory process, to councils.” How does that help? I don’t think it helps at all when we are here in the Chamber, trying to understand what those guard rails are in our primary legislation that goes to our secondary legislation, which is also legislation. I do wonder, then, about the Minister’s complete flip-flop on localism, because what he is saying is, “I, the Minister, central government in Wellington, am going to tell you, all councils, what my expectations are. I’m not even going to bother to put it in the Amendment Paper that I’ve tabled the Tuesday before the day that we’re starting to debate this legislation in Parliament.” That is woeful.

The Minister has an opportunity, now, to make an amendment that actually includes some criteria for that secondary legislation in the primary legislation. He could do that right now, and I would appeal to him to do so, or at least put on the Hansard what he thinks those criteria might be. But that doesn’t fix the problem, because this legislation doesn’t fix any problems, it seems.

Going further in Amendment Paper 755 on to page 8, new clause 66A, “Non-elected members”, this is: “(1) The specified clauses do not apply until 6 months after the commencement date.” My question is around these timings and the “6 months after the commencement date”—we’re not yet at the commencement provisions, but, presumably, that’s at least six months away. Does the Minister anticipate that there will be some regulations that go to the exemptions in the specific clauses before that six-month period? When he says that he is going to write to local government, is that part of a process to determine what the exemptions should be? Is that the reason for the six-month period, or is the six-month period there for more logistical reasons around the fact that people—I don’t know, they might be getting paid, they might not be getting paid, agendas might have already been set out, there might be delegated decisions being made already, and they need to have time to finish off those decisions. So why is the six-month time frame there? Is it because of these logistical type matters that I’ve just raised, or does it relate to the exceptions, or is it for some entirely different, other reason that he’d like to tell us about?

Committee of the whole House

Yeah, I thank the member Rachel Brooking for the question. The six-month period is to provide time for councils to transition to the new law that will be put in place and that we are discussing this evening.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. This will be a very short question because I’m still keen to get a response from the Minister about the access to information held by a local authority. He has pointed me to Amendment Paper 755, but my understanding of that is that the provisions, from what they were, seem to be watered down and rolled back. He’s referenced the fact that this is around the structure of internal processes to consider the nature of information that would be available to decision makers. That, in essence, leaves a lot of that responsibility with the chief executive, even directly or by delegation.

Already, actually, in this Chamber today, I think it was Mr Foster who cited the fact that one of the Government’s own members has a bill that’s currently in front of a select committee that seeks to strengthen the role that the governing body, effectively, has over the work that the chief executive would do. Why is that? Because for far too long in this country, there have been examples where chief executives have gone down a particular route and have made decisions that are at complete odds with the governing body, and yet that’s still what is permitted.

I know that’s a separate piece of legislation. But I am still none the wiser around whether or not what the Minister is proposing is a further weakening of or an eroding of the provisions that were there, whereas what we were seeking to get from the Minister was a strengthening of the capacity for elected members to be able to head down a pathway to address concerns around a lack of access to information.

Committee of the whole House

I move, That debate on this question now close.

A party vote was called for on the question, That debate on this question now close.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to Amendment Paper 755 amending clause 25(12A) and (12B) relating to the Greater Christchurch Partnership Committee be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment to the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment to the amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to Amendment Paper 755 amending clause 25(12A) and (12B) relating to the Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor Regeneration Committee be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment to the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment to the amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Mike Davidson’s tabled amendment to Amendment Paper 755 amending clause 25(12B) to delete new section 31A(4) be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment to the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment to the amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Amendment Paper 565 amending Part 2 set out on Amendment Paper 755 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments to the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Amendments to the amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 2 set out on Amendment Paper 565 as amended be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Amendments as amended agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Tangi Utikere’s amendment to clause 25 set out on Amendment Paper 653 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Tangi Utikere’s amendment to clause 25(9) set out on Amendment Paper 654 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Andy Foster’s amendment inserting clause 25(12A) and (12B) set out on Amendment Paper 665 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 63

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; New Zealand First 8; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 59

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11.

Amendment agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Andy Foster’s amendment replacing clause 25(14) set out on Amendment Paper 664 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 63

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; New Zealand First 8; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 59

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11.

Amendment agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Lemauga Lydia Sosene’s tabled amendment to clause 25(14) is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 2 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): We come now to Schedule 1.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Schedule 1 be agreed to.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Minister’s tabled amendments to Amendment Paper 803 amending Schedule 2 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments to the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Amendments to the amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Hon Rachel Brooking’s tabled amendment to Amendment Paper 803 amending Schedule 2 clause 71(1) be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment to the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment to the amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Amendment Paper 565 amending Schedule 2 set out on Amendment Papers 755 and 803 as amended be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments, as amended, to the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Amendments, as amended, to the amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Schedule 2 set out on Amendment Paper 565 as amended be agreed to. Have I done that one? No.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Amendments as amended agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Tangi Utikere’s amendments to Schedule 2 set out on Amendment Paper 653 are out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question is that Andy Foster’s amendment to Schedule 2 deleting new clause 62A of Schedule 1AA set out on Amendment Paper 664 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 63

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; New Zealand First 8; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 59

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11.

Amendment agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Celia Wade-Brown’s tabled amendment to Schedule 2 replacing new clause 60(2) be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Schedule 2 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Schedule 2 as amended agreed to.

Committee of the whole House

Clauses 1 to 3

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): We now come to clauses 1 to 3. This is the debate on clauses 1 to 3—title, commencement, and principal Act.