Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

As I said recently when we were discussing—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just a question: does the Minister have a legislative statement, or no?

No.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK. Thank you. Carry on.

As I said recently when we were discussing the rates capping bill, this Government is focused on easing the cost of living pressures and getting councils back to basics. Across the country, households are grappling with rising costs. A significant contributor to that pressure has been the steady increase in council rates. For many families, rates are amongst the largest bills that they face each year. Capping those rates is and has been part of the solution, but communities have also been clear that when councils focus on the basics, manage their finances responsibly, and deliver value for money—when councils don’t get this right, that undermines confidence in local government.

New Zealanders deserve a local government system that is disciplined, transparent, and focused on delivering essential services. This bill delivers that while helping ease the cost of living pressures. Councils will need to prioritise the delivery of good quality, cost-effective local infrastructure and public services. We are putting this in law to strengthen the alignment between decision-making, financial management, and community expectations.

The bill refocuses the purpose of local government on delivering good quality, cost-effective local infrastructure and public services. It reinstates councils’ core services and introduces a new financial management principle requiring councils to consider these responsibilities when making financial decisions. That will help with public understanding. It also improves information sharing requirements so that elected members have what they need to make informed decisions.

This bill improves democratic accountability in councils by reserving voting on council committees for elected members. Only those that have been elected by their communities should be responsible for decisions because they can be held accountable by their communities through the electoral process. Councils can still choose to appoint non-elected members to their committees to benefit from specialist expertise and community perspective, however these roles will not have voting rights nor count towards quorum of meetings. Councils will have six months to make any changes to ensure that their committee arrangements are compliant with the new requirements.

There are some exceptions to this policy. Where non-elected members are required under legislation other than Local Government Act 2002, they will continue to be able to vote. The bill also includes a pathway to grant exceptions under limited circumstances. Where it is necessary or desirable that non-elected members will be able to vote on council committees, councils will be able to request an exemption from the voting and quorum restrictions. I will release more information about this pathway shortly.

The bill provides regulatory relief by removing outdated or unnecessary requirements that have added cost without delivering additional value. It also makes a number of minor and technical fixes to improve the legislation, such as ensuring consistency in water reporting requirements for councils and broadening elected members’ entitlement to council information. Finally, changes to the bill were made at the committee stage so that councils have the tools that they need to recover infrastructure costs from fast track developments and lower the risk that ratepayers will need to pick up the cost.

Local government holds real value for New Zealanders but council services need to delivered through a mechanism that delivers value for money. These reforms give councils the tools, the clarity, the direction that they need to focus on the basics and to operate more effectively, responsibly, and transparently. I want to acknowledge the Governance and Administration Committee for its thorough and constructive consideration of the bill. I also want to thank the submitters for their contributions.

Finally, I want to acknowledge local government. I know that you have been waiting for this bill to be passed. I wish to thank you for your patience. Your job now is to deliver for your communities. I commend the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill to the House.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It was interesting listening to the Minister of Local Government indicate to local government as a sector that he thanks them for their patience. This is not a bill that the local government sector has been waiting for. It is not a bill that they actually want. When the Minister, in his contribution this evening, talks about local government holding value, the actions contained in this bill and the last-minute actions of this Government in terms of the amendments that have been progressed without the opportunity of going through a select committee indicate that, actually, this is a Government that’s more about words rather than actions and the suggestion that there is value in local government as a sector is something far removed from this bill that we see in front of us tonight.

This is a Government—and it’s been said many times today in this House—that was elected on this sense of localism. This is a Government that constantly spouts off about localism. This is a Government that has no idea what localism actually is about and what it actually means, and, of course, we get that from a Government with Christopher Luxon, who is out of touch. The focus on “core business”, in practice, is going to do nothing more than gut the liveliness of communities all around our country. Let’s not kid ourselves: this is yet another example of a power grab by this Government and an attempt to centralise all of the control here in Wellington—yet another example of simply undermining localism, undermining local democracy, and undermining local government as a sector.

I and others have been rather perturbed, really, by the late nature of many of these amendments that are now in this bill. There has been no select committee process, so while the Minister thanks the Governance and Administration Committee—a committee that reported this bill back in November of last year—this bill contains so many aspects that are not just detrimental to councils and to communities, but actually the committee itself had no opportunity to examine, had no opportunity to receive advice, had no opportunity to consider the specific submissions as to what was being proposed.

We know why that is: because we know that if the Government actually had the guts to put this through a select committee process, they would hear, loud and clear, from the community about aspects like removing voting rights from non-elected members—what that would actually mean for communities all around the country. They would rather steamroll these changes through urgency without actually fronting up to the community, eyeballing them to understand what the concerns are.

We’re not just talking about the removal of Māori knowledge considerations through council-controlled organisations for directors; it goes much stronger than that and it hits at the heart of localism and local democracy, the opportunity that councils have to establish really strong relationships with communities of interest, with Māori, with iwi, with rural communities, with youth sectors, with those in areas of audit and risk who have a particular skill set that we know makes a huge difference.

This is, yet again, a Government that has forced local government as a sector to focus on a number of things that, actually, they’ve had to deflect what it is that they have been focusing on themselves. This is a bill that, at its heart, will remove the four wellbeings. This is a Government that is afraid of wellbeing. They are afraid of the word “wellbeing”. When it is uttered in this House, the shivers go up their spines because they know, actually, that wellbeing means many things to many communities. Why is it that they are prepared to strip away a focus on wellbeing at the heart of communities through their councils and the decision-making process? Why is it that they are so afraid of that? This is a bill that would seek to strip away social considerations, cultural considerations, economic considerations, and, of course, environmental considerations.

Those four wellbeings have for quite some time been an opportunity for councils to chart a particular course, focusing on their local community needs. This is a Government that tonight will gut all that from communities and say that they want to focus on cost-effectiveness. Now, cost-effectiveness is all right, but you can still have a focus on wellbeing and deliver for communities in those areas: social, cultural, economic, and environmental concerns. They can go hand in hand, but this is a Government that does not want to look at that. In fact, they want to narrow the focus. They’re saying, “Let’s focus on infrastructure. Let’s focus on the regulatory functions. Let’s focus on public services.” Those things are important, but they are not the be-all and end-all of what brings vibrancy to communities all around Aotearoa New Zealand.

I want to touch on the concerns around the stripping away of voting rights for non-elected members. Earlier today, I shared with this House the contents of an email, around the fact that these have been provisions that have lasted here in this country for more than 100 or 125 years. Yet, this is a Government that tonight wants to strip that away from local communities, and yet again they talk about localism, but they don’t understand what that is about. We have already heard from Mayor Wayne Brown in Auckland. He said: “How dare you!” to the Government—how dare the Government want to head down this path of yet again telling them what to do.

Now, we know that Mayor Wayne Brown is saying to Government, “You want to do this? Then the likelihood is high of withdrawing from the Auckland City deal.” This is something that the Government wants to celebrate and acknowledge, but, actually, it’s all about what is in it for the Government rather than what is in it for communities and what is in it for the people of Auckland and other parts of the country. I really do think that what we are seeing demonstrated by this particular Government when it comes to the responsibility and the involvement of iwi Māori and others in terms of decision-making opportunities is that the Government would prefer that they’re only at the table to give the karakia and then leave.

That is fundamentally what this Government is sending as a very strong signal to communities all around New Zealand: that they don’t value partnership and that they don’t value the opportunity to work alongside iwi Māori and others. They only want them there when it’s convenient for them and for their purposes, and if they’re going to be sitting at the table, this National Government will say, “Well, if you’re going to sit there, that’s fine. You can maybe have a little bit of kōrero, but beyond that, oh no, no vote for you.”

Now, that can be extended to include all those decisions that are taken in the finance, audit, and risk space. The number of councils that have particular skill sets that are represented and often chair those committees is numerous. Why? Because local councils acknowledge that there is a particular skill set that is needed to assist them in making good decisions for their communities and ensuring that there is an independent set of eyes over decision-making capacity and opportunities that this Government wants to strip away because they are afraid of what that means for local communities and local councils all around the country.

This Government has not given a single example of something that has gone wrong as the genesis or reason as to why this change is so desperately needed—because it is not. It is a change that is not needed. It is a change, a set of changes, that has not been called for by the local government sector, yet they don’t seem to have any evidence as to what has gone wrong and why this change is absolutely necessary. This is yet another “reckon” from the National Government about what they think needs to happen.

Now, there has been a lot of conversation about the shoddiness of these changes, the fact that the Minister has had to come to this Parliament and has had to have three Amendment Papers seeking to correct change after change after change. Yet they don’t seem to be open to acknowledging the fact that this is a set of changes that is not called for by the local government sector. This is a bill that is—obviously—being rushed through urgency today but has not been well thought through. It has not had adequate scrutiny. Actually, it has not had a basic, base level of scrutiny through the select committee process that we all rely on.

I can accept it if there are some changes I don’t agree with if they have gone through the select committee process. The overwhelming nature of concern about this bill in front of this Parliament is something quite different. I think this Government should hang its head in shame tonight. It is sending a very strong message to local government that is not about localism and is not about democracy, and this is a sad day for this Parliament.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak against this bill, this terrible bill for local government and local communities. Once again, I find myself in this House debating a bill that is anti-democratic and completely contrary to the localism promise that the National Party made last election. Not only does it take away the ability for democratically elected councils across the country to support the wellbeing of their communities and organise their governance in a way most appropriate for their communities but also the Minister has completely skipped the select committee process for one of the changes that will impact communities the most. He skipped public scrutiny, skipped transparency, and skipped consultation with councils and iwi. I could hear Mayor Wayne’s Brown reaction from here in Wellington!

It has been very clear from the start that this Government does not give a damn about local government. When we look at this bill, we see that what they did straight away was remove the four wellbeings—social, cultural, economic, and environmental—with absolutely no evidence to back that decision. They just removed it because this Government does not believe in councils looking after the wellbeing of their communities. It’s been absolutely shocking to see what has happened throughout the passage of this bill. This Government decided that councils do not have the ability to look after the communities that have elected them, so they tell the councils, “We are going to tell you what your communities want from you.” So, suddenly, they create a list of core services that must be prioritised, and that list means that a lot of things are going to be left untouched by councils, who are shortly also going to be faced with a rates cap.

Communities elect their councils to make decisions on their behalf. Communities respect councils for the decisions they make, and if they don’t like it, they vote them out. It is the councils that are elected that make these decisions around things like housing.

💬 Cameron Luxton: That’s the point.

Take a call and make it last more than a minute. There are things like housing that are no longer a priority for councils—things like art galleries, economic development, climate adaptation, public spaces and places, environmental protection and enhancement, and community funding and support. They’re all not prioritised by this Government, who is focused just on roads, reticulation, rubbish, and an attempt to drive down rates when they refuse to acknowledge that, actually, what was pushing rates up was the result of inflation, insurance, and interest. Councils do not want to increase rates—they do whatever they can to keep them as low as possible—but they have to ensure that the services provided are actually there for the community.

What happens when councils keep rates extremely low, which has happened in the past? Those services eventually break, those pipes burst, and the councils get blamed for not fixing them because they didn’t increase rates. All we hear from this Government is, “Do as you’re told, local government; you’re no good.” This Government is trying to hide their failings by blaming local government, and what we have just seen recently in an Amendment Paper that was on the Table just the other day, from the Minister, was the removal of voting rights for non-elected members on the councils—something that’s been happening for generations. Councils have been putting non-elected members on committees for generations because it actually strengthens local decision-making. It makes it better for communities and for ratepayers to have people with the expertise sitting on these committees to ensure that councils, who end up having the final decision, actually make decisions with the best information available.

But what happened? We had a councillor from the Far North complain that there were too many Māori on a committee and she wrote a letter down to the Minister of Local Government, and suddenly we’re getting a change to this bill. One councillor across the country—one councillor across the country wrote a letter—

💬 Steve Abel: ACT councillor.

An ACT councillor wrote a letter to the Minister, and next minute we’re seeing non-elected members removed from committees. No more voting for non-elected members. They can’t make up the quorum. Why? Because one ACT councillor didn’t like Māori being on a committee. Quite frankly, this is disgusting. If it looks like a duck, if it swims like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it is a duck. This decision is political racism at its worst. There is no way to get around what this decision is. It is based on racism, where this Government does not like Māori to have decision-making ability on council committees. It is absolutely disgusting and this Government should hang its head for what they are doing right now.

Once again, with this decision, with this amendment, there is absolutely no evidence at all that there’s any adverse effects for ratepayers by having non-elected members on council committees—none at all. In fact, I would say that, actually, councils and the ratepayers would be the ones that benefit the most from having these people with expertise on the committees that they have. But, unfortunately, what we have once again is a Government that does not listen to council. I was shocked—I was absolutely shocked—to hear the Minister say that local government holds real value for New Zealanders. What a joke. Have you not seen what he is doing with this bill? He does not care about local government. He does not care, because this bill clearly shows what he thinks of local government, what he thinks of localism, and what he thinks about democracy. This Minister clearly has no clue about democracy—absolutely no clue.

Communities elect their councillors every three years. That is a democracy, and then those elected councillors have the ability to create committees that actually then have decisions delegated to them. How is that not an example of local democracy? But we have a Government—a failing Government—that has no clue. This Government has no clue about local government—absolutely no clue. It’s very clear when they’re doing this type of bill and skipping through some of the really most important aspects of a bill’s passage—which is actually the select committee process, engaging with important stakeholders and letting the community have a say—the reason why they did that is because the people know this is a stupid decision. To remove the ability of non-elected members on council committees to actually vote is just stupid.

This is because this Government have no clue about what local government actually does and how it works, because all they want to do is just criticise them. They don’t actually want to work with them. They want to stand above them and tell them how things work and how things should be. Maybe they should spend some time with them and understand exactly the role that local government plays and how important they are for their community to make sure that we get the best outcomes. I ask again, what happened to the promise the National Party made to increase localism last election? They promised to reset the relationship between local and central government, but they’ve completely broken it.

💬 Steve Abel: Reneged.

They promised enduring regional and city deals but reneged on the first one within months of signing it. They promised Local Water Done Well and councils in control, but they’re already stepping in because they don’t like how it’s being done. What is the purpose of government, both local and central, if it is not to look after the wellbeing of its people, to build communities to ensure they have a thriving environment to live in, to ensure their cultural identity and practices are actively upheld, and to support them in times of need? This National-led Government are clearly not up to the task, but those who know their communities best let them get on with their job.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m glad to have a chance to rise and speak on this bill after I was baited into taking a call, as the last contributor said. I mean, it had the resemblance of a man yelling at clouds, but let’s try and talk about some stuff on the ground. The four wellbeings are being replaced with something quite sensible, and it’s having local government focus on the things that can only be provided locally: cost-effective and good quality local infrastructure, local services, and regulation that has to be done locally, and many people have experience with that. I for one have experienced that in building consenting authorities. They like to focus on delivering that regulatory service well and cost-effectively. I think having that focus for local government is a good idea. It’s reinstating the specific roles that local government must have regard to.

Now, it was quite interesting. We’ve had the last two contributions talk about democracy manifest in a way, and I had an experience in the Chamber earlier during the committee of the whole House stage that I didn’t think would be repeated, but it was in the last two contributions, and that was an elected member of the House getting up in the House of Representatives and saying things like, “People should be able to vote without anybody having the ability to kick them out or put them back in.” It was actually quite unbelievable listening to MPs in this House claiming that having people make decisions on behalf of the ratepayers—and, you can only assume, taxpayers after those contributions—but aren’t actually accountable to those very ratepayers and taxpayers—truly unbelievable, but we heard it from the last two.

The absolute scenes when somebody in this House who is an elected member, who I’m not going to name because I like him, gets up and says, “What has gone wrong?” What has gone wrong is that this idea of democracy, where the demos has its contribution to the body politic so that we can make decisions, is undermined by the very people who we entrust with our vote and appointing people, whether it’s a youth council in Hastings, whether it’s an iwi rep in Tauranga—I mean, I could only imagine the absolute scenes on that side of the House if, in some part of this country, there was a council that had elected, I don’t know, the head of some kind of business association to sit on a council and make decisions. Imagine if there was a representative of our supermarkets voting; imagine if Federated Farmers had voting rights on committees. What would the other side of the House say? It would be outrageous, and I tell you what, we are putting an end to it. I commend this bill to the House.

Madam Speaker, thank you. I’m rising on behalf of New Zealand First, and also as a member of the Governance and Administration Committee, which considered this bill about a year ago. It’s taken a long time to get here, so it’s actually great that it’s got here. I would also make the point that, in the meantime, we’ve had another piece of legislation, which is the rates-capping bill, and you might actually think that it might have been quite good to put the two of those together, because they do talk to each other a lot. In fact, at the moment, this one went through the Governance and Administration Committee and the rates-capping bill is proposed to go through the Finance and Expenditure Committee, so they’re going through different committees in different Parliaments, when they could have been together, which might have been a good idea.

There’s been a lot of big changes in local government. We’ve gone through, in this Parliament, the Local Water Done Well; we’ve got the systems bill; we’ve got, as I said, the rates-capping bill; and then we’ve got all the structural reform which is being proposed, which has, I have to say, got councillors somewhat in a spin, but some of them are making some good progress on it. I would say—and we heard some comments from the Opposition about the changes which are being made to local government—this is something that, sadly, local government has been all too familiar with for a very long period of time. I can remember that, when I was the mayor, we had Government change the Resource Management Act on us twice; once with two days’ notice, and it would change the face of all the cities across the country—that was the three-by-three stuff—and we got two days to make submissions. It was very perfunctory. That was what the last Government did to us. This is something that local government is, sadly, very, very familiar with.

Then, of course, we had three waters. Remember that? This was, “Councils, you can choose to be part of three waters”, and then you could say—[Interruption] They’re all arguing with each other.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have to say, they are not interjecting on you, they’re interjecting on your colleagues who are also interjecting on them.

“You could choose to be part of three waters”, and then it was, “Oh, you could choose not to be part of three waters”—the opting out—and then it was, “You damn well will be part of this whether you like it or not.” That was the approach which was taken by the last Government. I think there’s some “pot calling the kettle black” on some of these things, and local government has had these issues facing it for probably decades, sadly. Of course, in that situation, we had local government then saying, “Gosh, you’re taking away resource management, you’re taking away water. What’s left? Please can you do some work on what the future for local government is.” Of course, that was the afterthought, not the forethought, which it should have been—it was the afterthought—so let’s not throw stones too much on this particular thing, of who’s beating local government up.

The overall direction of all these reforms, if you look at them all, is about aiming to tackle rates increases, because rates are compulsory; they’re unavoidable for property owners. With that compulsion should come some responsibilities for councils to act responsibly, because they are taking money compulsorily out of people’s pockets. The Taxpayers’ Union did some analysis—and you might say, “Oh, it’s the Taxpayers’ Union, so don’t worry about it.” But the numbers are the numbers. The average in the last three years, of rates increases, was 34.4 percent. Inflation in that time was 13.7 percent. Of course, it’s a bit lower now, under this Government, but 34.4 percent is clearly utterly unsustainable, and it’s made rates, actually, a very large component of inflation. That has to change.

That’s what all this legislation is really trying to do: it’s trying to say, “We’ve got to get some control.” We talk about the cost of living crisis; this is part of it. We’ve got to get some control of it. People can look at any number of different projects that local government undertakes and pick their most hated one, their most wasteful-looking one—you know, you could have a $500,000-plus bike rack; we’ve got one round the corner up here. You could have a $2.5 million loo with all the whistles on it. Jamie was telling me about trying to find $3,000 per bus shelter to get bus shelters around Blenheim, and they come up with a $300,000 one, which they could have done a hundred bus shelters for. I mean, that’s the kind of nutty thing you sometimes do. You’ve got to have some discipline, because that is money compulsorily taken away from ratepayers.

One of the things in the committee of the whole House was that we had some discussion about the fact that it’s not just about driving down to the lowest possible cost. There were some questions around cost-effectiveness: you’ve got to look at that in terms of the previous words that have to be read, which are “good quality”. Sometimes, good quality doesn’t mean the lowest possible price, and the Minister said quite clearly that it’s not always going to be the cheapest; it’s got to be the best value for money. That’s really, really important, because it’s not about driving things down to the bottom level.

There’s obviously lots of things which have been raised, but a lot of this bill is about core services. Defining core services has always been very, very difficult. I can remember, going back to Rodney Hide’s day—

💬 Celia Wade-Brown: Oh!

—and I can see Celia Wade-Brown is going, “Oh my gosh!”—and he said that you’ve got to focus only on core services, whatever those might be. And about a day later, what we all got asked was how much money we were putting into the Rugby World Cup. They lost the argument straight away, because if you think the Rugby World Cup was a core service, then what else was not a core service? And, actually, when we started having that conversation in this Parliament, we had exactly the same thing: core services. Almost the next day, there was Wayne Brown and Melissa Lee, as Minister for Culture and Heritage, I think it was, at the time saying, “Well, we’re supporting a flower show in Auckland.”

Again, with core services, it is very challenging, but at least this bill is trying to be a little bit less defined about that, and it is saying there are a range of different things there which are core services. It’s not saying you can only do core services; it’s saying they are the first things you do and then you can do other things as well. I think that is a much more mature and much more sensible proposition. It does just say that you’ve got to have particular regard to those core services, not that you can do only them, and not that you can’t do the other non-core services, because that would have been a real issue.

The issue which concerns New Zealand First, and which also is really concerning to councils, is this tension between the rates cap and maintaining core services, because, if you screw the cap down too much, you’re not going to be able to maintain those assets. That has been a fundamental issue for local government, but also for central government, for a long, long time. We know there’s been long-term under-investment in assets and asset renewals right across the board. The Audit Office: we’ve had them in front of the Governance and Administration Committee as well, and they reported a 25 percent under-investment in water infrastructure across the board, not just in Wellington, where we have all the highlighted pipes breaking, but everywhere.

💬 Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Well, you’ve got a story to tell there. You should hang your head in shame, Andy Foster. Moa Point—your fault.

They said there had been a 25 percent under-investment for decades, and yet that wasn’t really called out. Central government, Mr Duncan Webb, is every bit as bad, if not worse. That’s why Minister Bishop is talking about legislating to require Government agencies—and I’m thinking of Health and Education, and so on, who half the time don’t even know what assets they’ve got—to undertake proper asset management. We have to do this sort of thing. There’s a real tension between core services and rates capping, and we need to make sure we can thread that needle. We need greater discipline right across the board. I think some councils are kind of acting as if there’s no limit to the amount of money that they can require from ratepayers, and that is a problem. We must not have a blank cheque. There must be the ability for us, and this is what this bill is doing, to say, “No, you can’t do that. You can’t do that, because ratepayers can’t afford it.”—34.4 percent is completely unsustainable, and, looking forward, they might be lower than that, but they’re still way, way, way above inflation rates.

Just to finish off with a couple of other things: the decisions that Government itself makes are going to make a difference as well. For example, the New Zealand Transport Agency, in the last couple of weeks, has talked about changing the funding assistance rates. Now, that is the amount of money that they give to councils across the board to maintain roads, and all those sorts of things. They’re proposing to reduce the funding assistance rates for some of the smaller councils. That will go straight on to those councils’ rate lines. In terms of what Government does, those unfunded band-aids—they are the thing that Government says they’re going to give no money for but are going to demand that councils do something about—are things that councils hate. We’ve got to be very, very thoughtful about those things as we are combining these issues of rates caps and core services, because Government can make a lot of difference there. There is plenty of fat in the system; I know that’s the case. You could do a lot in terms of organisations’ overheads, and removing regional councils is undoubtedly going to save money, but Government also needs to play its part in that area.

Finally, I just wanted to finish off by just saying thank you to the House for the support of New Zealand First’s amendments. First of all, it will lift the importance and status of full councils as opposed to their subordinate committees. In terms of some of the discussions we’ve had around representation, full council can only have elected members on it. So that’s an issue there. Also, it brings the local government chief executive officer (CEO) appointment term into line with what Parliament agreed less than four months ago for central government. Four months ago, we said, for central government, five years for chief executives, and no right of renewal—you’ve got to go to the market. We were proposing, originally, for local government to go to five years plus two. We were proposing in the legislation before it got amended—thank you, guys—five plus five; they’re now aligned, which is a logical consistency.

One last thing on the powers of CEOs, which I didn’t mention in the committee of the whole House but I think it did get alluded to, is that also shows why it’s so important to have that balance of power sorted out, and that, at length, covers the ability for elected members to actually get the information from CEOs, who sometimes block that, to do their job properly. Thank you again for the support for the amendments, and I commend the bill to the House.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: This call is a split call—Oriini Kaipara.

This bill arrived into this House masked with a tidy little label of “system improvements”, but tonight that mask has slipped. This bill doesn’t improve local democracy; it narrows it and it centralises it. Through an amendment, introduced after the public submissions process had ended, it deliberately removes Māori from the decision-making table. The Government decided that members of Houkura, the independent Māori statutory board in Tāmaki-makau-rau, may attend Auckland Council committees, may speak, may advise, may carry the history and knowledge of mana whenua into the room, but they may not vote.

In other words, Māori can have a voice, provided that voice carries no power. That is a clear breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That is a flagrant assault on tino rangatiratanga guaranteed to Māori under Te Tiriti. Houkura was not invented as a political favour; it was established in legislation because the Auckland super-city arrangements failed to provide guaranteed Māori representation. Its role is to promote the cultural, economic, environmental, and social wellbeing of Māori and to help Auckland Council act consistently with its statutory responsibilities to Māori.

Mana whenua, mātāwaka, and taurahere representatives bring those interests and mātauranga of the iwi and hapū of Tāmaki-makau-rau into council decisions. For Ngāti Whātua Ōrakei, for Te Kawerau ā Maki, for Te Ākitai Waiohua, for Ngāti Pāoa, and the other mana whenua of my rohe, local government decisions aren’t abstract administrative exercises; they concern their whenua, they concern their wai, their moana, their maunga, their wāhi tapu, their taonga, and their responsibilities as kaitiaki.

The Government says Houkura may continue to provide advice. Mana whenua have been giving advice to the Crown for generations. The problem isn’t that Māori have lacked advice. The problem—and let me be very clear on this—is that successive Governments have refused to share power. Even the Government’s own regulatory impact statement couldn’t justify this change. Officials said the Minister’s preferred option carried greater costs than benefits. They admitted they had limited evidence. They admitted there had been no proper consultation with councils, iwi, or Māori. They warned that iwi and hapū appointments would be pushed towards advisory roles rather than shared decision-making. Then the Government drove the amendment through under urgency anyway, and that is bloody shocking. That is democratic erasure.

Submitters also rejected the bill’s wider attack on the purpose of local government. Auckland Council identified provisions that were inconsistent with Auckland’s existing governance legislation. Local Government New Zealand said there was no clear evidence that the four wellbeings caused rates to rise. Officials themselves acknowledged that a wellbeing-based purpose had not added costs to the sector, yet this bill removes social, economic, environmental, and cultural wellbeing from the statutory purpose of local government. Those four wellbeings are not luxuries. A library isn’t a luxury. A community centre isn’t a luxury. Climate resilience isn’t a luxury. Protecting our taiao isn’t a luxury. Supporting whānau before they reach crisis isn’t a luxury. The Government talks about core services as though communities can be reduced to pipes, roads, rubbish, and balance sheets, but a city isn’t just the infrastructure beneath our feet; it’s the people who live above it.

Yes, some committee stage amendments are sensible—councils should be able to recover infrastructure costs created by fast-track developments; ratepayers should not subsidise private development; councillors should have reasonable access to the information they need—but a few practical changes can’t rescue the central purpose of this bill: this legislation takes authority away from local communities, away from Māori. It replaces locally determined standing orders with Crown-designed rules. It removes wellbeing while pretending to address rates. We call it—Te Pāti Māori calls this bill—what it is: watering down Māori decision-making, because Māori decision-making makes this Government uncomfortable. Well, guess what, 7 November is coming. Māori mā, get on the roll, register to vote, and vote them out.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on the third reading of the “Local Government (Suppressing Localism) Amendment Bill”—oh no, that wasn’t quite the right name, was it?

The bill has forgotten Te Tiriti. I’d like to acknowledge previous speakers Oriini Kaipara, Tangi Utikere, and our own Mike Davidson for pointing that out in great detail. I am going to focus on some different matters.

The removal of the four wellbeings is, really, performative nonsense, because, as the Minister of Local Government said during the committee of the whole House, councils are still allowed to do everything. So it hasn’t really achieved the purpose that was put forward. I do agree from time to time with my colleague who is just about to depart from the Chamber, Andy Foster—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: You’re not allowed to refer to someone being in or out of the Chamber, but you are able to refer to your colleague.

—my colleague Andy Foster—who did point out that we’ve had core services, we’ve had the four wellbeings in and out, and, actually, I’m not sure anyone in the public would have noticed any difference as to what the councils did.

Let’s look at why the costs, why the rates, have had to go up. Let’s look at some very basic costs—not a little bit of paint for a rainbow crossing, which seems to enrage some people. Let’s look at diesel. Prices rose 71 percent in the year to the June 2026 quarter. Diesel is a huge cost for councils. New Plymouth District Council’s fuel bill was $111,000, compared to $77,000 for the same month the year before, which is a 42.5 percent increase. How are we going to keep that to CPI? Electricity has gone up year on year. Whanganui District Council had budgeted a $600,000 electricity increase for 2026-27—that’s not just the base; that’s the increase—and was told that the re-priced contract was a further $1 million. And insurance has been the most persistent pressure. Let’s not point to little individual items; let’s look at the systemic drivers of rates increases. What has this Government done? They’ve blamed local government but they haven’t done the investment in electrifying New Zealand, in distributed energy generation, and in improving the fleet, which actually would have made a real difference.

This Government doesn’t seem to care about consultation, and perhaps it’s because, when we have the Budget, it’s all super-secret till it’s suddenly released. Well, that’s not how it’s done in local government; you put out a draft, you listen, you go round the community, and you make some changes. I think, really, there’s a lot more to be learnt than blaming them. I also want to point out that, as a percentage of GDP, that top line is taxes. I think that taxes are a good way for paying for collective benefit. The bottom line almost disappears in comparison. That’s the rates line since the 19th century, which we seem to be going back to, in some ways. Who is going benefit from cutting services? People who won’t care about higher entry fees for public swimming pools have probably got their own. Who’s going to benefit from the rates cap? The people with a multimillion-dollar mansion or an expensive second home. It’s not going to be the entry-level homeowners.

I just want to say one thing: if you look at the Taituarā and the Local Government New Zealand awards, you will see the fantastic things that councils around the country are doing as well as keeping the streetlights on, the footpaths safe, the building inspectors making sure the Green Parrot food is safe to eat and doing all of the other food inspections that they do. I think it’s time that we gave three cheers for local government.

Here we are, we’ve heard from a former mayor in the Opposition, a former councillor—a current community board member. How is no one talking about that? He’s getting paid to be a community board member and an MP.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think you should stick to the bill.

Well, I am sticking to the bill, because he’s standing there defending them, talking about voting rights. He’s got two votes. The dirty little secret over that side, the reason they don’t like this, is because it forces councils to prioritise. It forces them to live within their means, to stick to the essentials.

We know what Labour and the Greens would do in Government. They would spend, spend, spend. They can’t live within a budget. They want to tax more, they want higher rates, because they are not willing to make the tough decisions that this bill delivers for our community and makes them prioritise on the basics like roads, like essential infrastructure and essential services. That’s why I support this bill and commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Chair—Madam Speaker, sorry. We’re out of the committee stage.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That’s all right. We’ve been in the Chair a little bit today!

We’re into the third reading speeches, and almost at the end of those.

When I popped out briefly before, just at the end of the committee stage, when there was some voting happening, I bumped into a guest of one of the valedictory speakers. She had been sitting in the Chamber when we were in the committee stage, and she said to me, “I didn’t quite understand what you were talking about. What were you asking about?” I said, “Well, we were doing detailed questions in the committee stage.” I suggested to her that perhaps she would want to come into the House for the third reading stage. Just in case she has, I am going to go through the history of this bill and where we are today, because the bill today is quite different from the bill that we had on Monday—and it’s only Wednesday today—so there is a bit of history there.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s still Tuesday in here.

It’s still Tuesday in here; indeed, Madam Speaker. I was, at the turn of the millennium, lucky to work for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment when the select committee—the Environment and Local Government Committee, as it was then—was working on the Local Government Act 2002, as it came to be known.

Of course, that is where the wellbeings came from. There was this general power that was included, and also wellbeings, but not only the wellbeings; a whole lot of requirements for how councils, all sorts of councils, if they’re unitary or territorial or regional, have to plan for their finances, how they have to justify their spending, how they have to plan for long-term things, how they can get development contributions, all the different constraints around rates—although that’s in the rates Act, some of it comes into the Local Government Act. So to say what that member who just sat down, Tim Costley, said, “Oh, without these changes, those councils, they just won’t live within their means.”, that is an affront to the legislation that has been in place for a long time.

This bill, as far as I can tell from the very few questions that were answered from the Minister of Local Government to me, doesn’t make that much difference in terms of the actual requirements. Yes, it’s getting rid of the wellbeings. National Governments seem to like getting rid of wellbeings; it’s happened before. There’s a little graph here in the regulatory impact statement that shows when there weren’t wellbeings and when there were wellbeings. Ministers wanted to say that there was a causal relationship between the inclusion of wellbeings or not, and it does not seem to be there. Of course, when those wellbeings came out last time, what did happen was a flurry of legal advice, because, of course, then not only did councils have to justify all of their spending through all the different processes that already exist but they also had to say, “Oh, well, with this change to wellbeings and with core services, does that change what we’re doing or not?” So, you know, who knows if this is going to make any tangible change other than putting up the legal fees? That’s not good for ratepayers.

So we’ve got rid of the wellbeings. That’s what this bill does, as it went through the Governance and Administration Committee. It also talks about core services and the purpose of local government being restricted to infrastructure, public services, and performance of regulatory functions. None of those terms are defined, so they could be very wide, and they are different words—but, like, slightly different—from the core service words. Again, most of the differences between what a core service is—and those terms are defined with reference to other legislation—and what the purpose provisions are were not expanded on by the Minister.

We also have in this bill, as it went to select committee, some other changes around codes of conduct and when the Minister can make regulations, and interfere, really. Some centralisation was also happening in the bill as it went to select committee. Now, people did make submissions on that, and thank you to those people who did. At some point, I’m not quite sure when it happened, the Minister put in a large Amendment Paper in the form of a rewrite of the bill. The bill itself is not very big, and I should say, of course, this is amending that Act that we’ve had since 2002 that I watched the select committee work on when I was working for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. Now, we had those big changes, and most of them didn’t seem hugely consequential in terms of policy changes, but then what happened yesterday in real time was that the Minister dropped two substantive Amendment Papers with very big policy changes.

One of those Amendment Papers was about fixing a problem, a problem that we’ve known about since 2024 when the Fast-track Approvals Bill, as it was, was before the Environment Committee, and we at that select committee had local government people come and tell us, “There seems to be a gap with the development contributions.” Let me explain the gap to you, because what councils do is when they are having a development contributions policy—so this is a policy that exists because of the rationale of growth paying for growth. If you are a new development, then you should pay for your fair share of the infrastructure that’s required to enable that new development. So councils do this through development contributions policies. They’re very technical and complicated, and I have to say they were the least fun thing to work on when I was in practice, but that’s what they are. Now, councils will go, “Well, we know we’ve got our resource management plans that say where development can go; it’s zoned residential or it’s zoned so that it will in the future be residential.”—something like that. But areas that are zoned rural, where we’re not ever expecting any residential development, we won’t have development contributions policies applying to those areas of land. Why would we go through this process when there’s not going to be development there?

However, what’s happened with the fast track is that the fast track just ignores all those planning instruments and comes in over the top of it all. So we’re left with a situation where we have huge now consented developments at both Delmore and at Sunfield—so 3,000 houses here; 1,000 houses there—and my understanding is, for some of those projects, that there’s not an ability for those councils to impose development contributions because those policies do not exist, for the reasons outlined. So that amendment, Amendment Paper 803, is trying to deal with that problem.

However, it only deals with fast-track applications that have not yet had some sort of determination. So those big projects where we know the developers are donors to the Government parties, they will not be affected by this change. So the Government says, “Oh, we’re going to fix something and we’re going to do it in urgency, and it’s OK to use urgency because we’re going to fix something, and oh, oh, oh—even though we should’ve known about it and listened to those submitters in 2004. Oh, but it’s not going to cost those developers who are our donors any money—no, no, no.” So who is it going to cost? It’s going to cost the ratepayers. So I put up an amendment; it would’ve fixed it, and this Government voted it down. That is shameful, and consistent with everything else that they do.

But then—and I know the next Labour speaker will speak about this as well—there was another Amendment Paper, and this Amendment Paper says, on the one hand, we’re trying to do a constitutional change to local government so that only elected members can ever have a vote on any sort of decision, even though there’s all sorts of abilities for delegation and everything else. That was just dropped on Tuesday as well. I know in Auckland, with the Auckland long piece of statute in terms of the amalgamation that went in there, that they have this independent Māori statutory board, and that appears to be working, but it is finely balanced. Everything is finely balanced, and this Government is recklessly coming in and changing it all in urgency with a committee right at the last minute with no ability to talk to anyone. This is not how you make legislation.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to support this bill. I stand as a Māori MP with an electoral mandate from 20,843 Whangārei people. I also stand with electoral accountability to every single one of them. In my view, this is how it is, this is how it should be, and I commend this bill to the House.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call.

That was a sad speech from a very good member—not as good as his valedictory speech, but—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, I’m hoping yours isn’t going to be a sad speech.

Oh, mine will be much better—much better. I want to wish that member all the very best in his retirement, but that was a sad way to go out, because tonight that member and this National Party are in breach of the Auckland Deal—they’re in breach of the Auckland Deal. I’ll read the Auckland Deal to you—I’ll read you one clause: “The parties agree to work together in a manner that promotes openness, respect, and [an] alignment of priorities, and to maintain regular engagement at political and official levels to support the objectives of this Deal.”

Mayor Wayne Brown—you would have read today—said, “Stuff this lot.” He said that you’re in breach of the deal—that’s what he said. You’re in breach of the deal—they broke the deal. This is a good mayor, who said that the partnership and the relationship with Māori is meaningful, and that’s why he needs good people like Shane Reti to change his view, because Shane Reti’s predecessor, John Key, was a supporter of the relationship and partnership with Māori, which this Government is breaching tonight. It’s a disgrace what’s happening. As Tangi Utikere said over here, do you just want Māoris to do the mihis and do the karakias, and you want to shut them up?

I have messages from Tau Henare, a former National Party MP—shame on him for that, but never mind. Tau Henare and David Taipari, the chair of Auckland Council’s Independent Māori Statutory Board, who’ve all said things work—they work because Māori have input in Auckland. They’re not just your mihi men; they’re not just your karakia men. They’re there because the stupid ACT Party set the Auckland Māori Statutory Board up. This member over here knows that. Rodney Hide reluctantly set the Māori Statutory Board up in 2009-10. Why did he do that? Well, because he didn’t want to go along with the very good recommendation from the royal commission that Māori seats should have been installed—Māori seats should have been installed—in Auckland. No, Rodney thought, “Oh, no, I just can’t have too many Māoris on this board.

Rather than take the legal recommendation, he goes and sets up the Māori statutory board, where our people get an opportunity in terms of running Auckland and are able to talk and able to make recommendations. This is such a sad night. I was looking to my mates up there on the Statutory Board, and I’ve given them a hard time. Actually, I took them to court, for a little while, but that’s another story. They didn’t get everything right, but the principle of looking after iwi has been brilliant in terms of what David Taipari and Tau Henare are doing. The partnership is strong.

We led hīkoi for Māori representation in Auckland. I led the South Auckland hīkoi in 2009; John Tamihere led the West Auckland hīkoi. We marched into Auckland City—tens of thousands of us—for Māori representation. That’s what this Statutory Board represents. It represents Māori hopes and aspirations. They don’t just want to be karakia and mihi people. The Government are cutting this out tonight. It is a shocking state of affairs that they would cut the relationship and partnership without any consultation. The Māori Statutory Board asked to meet with this lot, but they’re too busy. They’re too busy—it’s shameful—shutting down community rights, Māori rights, women’s rights, and looking after their rich mates. That’s what they’re doing—that’s what you’re doing every week. They’re too busy—too busy—to meet with people who are hurting.

What we’ve got tonight—and we’ve got a few more of these things coming. They’re out to breach the people’s rights in this country, and the effect of that is what’s happening with the Statutory Board in Auckland. I’m really disappointed, because the board has done some really good work. I want to mihi to David Taupari and Tau Henare and all of them, and maybe they’ll get it fully right and give urban people the opportunity to choose their representatives when we get this up and rolling again after we kick this lot out on 7 November. I think you’re supporting me, Madam Speaker. I see you nodding your head there—thank you very much for the support.

The reality is that this is another attack on community rights, Māori rights, and proper democratic rights, which the ACT Party doesn’t understand. Kia ora.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just for clarity, don’t bring the Speaker into the debate, but I was nodding just to let you know that I was understanding what you were saying.

It’s good to rise on this, and it’s good to support a bill which refocuses the purpose of local government. It needs to be cost-effective and it needs to deliver on the key services that the ratepayers need. We know a lot of people out there—we hear it in Tauranga—have concerns about the continued increase in their rates and probably not getting the services that they want. This Government is focused on recalibrating that. We want value for ratepayers. We want to uphold the basic, fundamental democratic principles of one person, one vote, and that is what we are doing despite the crocodile tears we’ve heard from across the other side of the House. This is an excellent bill; I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m really privileged to be the last speaker on this side of the House for Labour. It’s a real privilege to be able to stand up and say that that Government has got it completely wrong. It is a despicable bill, and it takes out localism from our local people.

It’s a really important bill to be able to put across our views on, and we’ve heard from all of the Labour speakers on this side of the House, and our colleagues over here, as to why localism is important. I’ve sat in here since this morning and listened to all the various arguments in terms of the Minister of Local Government’s decisions that he has made. I’ve asked for explanation on a couple of provisions and listened quite intently to the Minister’s explanations as to why he is driving these changes.

He’s talked about reducing the cost of rates—and that’s really important, because we face real cost of living pressures. I’ve heard also different arguments across the House as to what, when you leave out the four wellbeings, that means to local communities. I’ve listened to arguments about the Independent Māori Statutory Board (IMSB) and the importance of having Māori in terms of their decision making. I asked the Minister a question, and the Minister explained that the IMSB members in Auckland Council will still be able to provide a viewpoint or to provide some considerations, but they will not get a vote. That is completely wrong. It is not right that they are being left out of a democratic process.

The fundamental changes that have been introduced today in this bill, in the third reading, are completely, completely wrong. That side doesn’t understand community outcomes, doesn’t understand community wellbeing, doesn’t understand why we need community voices in a process that is supposed to be including the voices of our community in terms of wellbeing. It cannot be controlled from Wellington; Wellington only knows half of the story. Wellington does not understand the importance of wellbeing. It is really important for this House to understand that all the members that oppose the bill have got it right. We understand our communities. Yes, cost of living pressures and the increase in rates is on everybody’s mind. We understand that. However, when you make fundamental changes for a local community—and in particular the voices of those who are supposed to vote—that is a grab from where? That is a grab from Wellington, and it’s not correct.

In my time, I wanted to focus on a few things that this bill brings across and that are not correct. I want it recorded that, on this side of the House, we continue to argue for New Zealanders who need to have the four wellbeings included. The voices of our community—they understand the outcomes. Of course, elected members need to have consultation—proper consultation—with their communities, because those communities understand what it’s like to elect members in a council setting. They understand that there’s legislation and policy, but they also understand the costs that come with extras, or the nice-to-haves, in a local community.

I would have to say that libraries and parks and community assets in the library are needed for families across Aotearoa, because that is the essence of local councils—to hear local voices, local elected members. How is it right that a Minister can stand in this House and say that he has made a decision that affects the legislation that people abide by in local communities, and when you have a democratic right taken away—taken away from our Māori, our iwi, our hapū—that is not right. The bill shrinks the role of local government to things such as pipes and roads and rubbish and ignores the wider needs of our communities. It sets up too much power from central government over local priorities through new regulatory powers. It’s centralised control from Wellington, which does not understand the essence of localism And the reason why I say localism is because all of us were elected from our local communities. We’ve got to go back to our local communities and explain that this Government made the decision to leave them out of that decision-making process by the changes that have been introduced in this bill. That is not correct. From a viewpoint of a person that works in our community—I’m from the community; I represent the views of our community—but also agree with what our members on this side of the House have put forward, it is an absolute travesty that centralism is now roughshodding over localism.

The core services that the Minister spoke about today in the House, that is important in local communities. Local councils have to make those decisions. We’ve heard members from this side of the House specifically talk about our mayor and the Independent Māori Statutory Board members, and just the contact from our local people who are absolutely aghast at the changes that this will effect on our local communities. It paves the way for introduction of rates capping, which is encouraging councils to balance their books to make sure that they go back to core business. We don’t disagree with that, but it’s the methodology and what is now in legislation that local councils have to abide by, because if they don’t, they will hear from central government.

So it is important, but I want to remind members of this House that we go back to our communities, and if we haven’t interpreted localism, and if we haven’t supported localism, then why are we here and how are we going to effect those relationships—a continued, enduring relationship—with local councils?

It is really important, in removing the wellbeings in what has been proposed in those provisions today—it’s really important that our local communities, you know, they’re going to the ballot box and they’re hearing what we’re talking about and what we’re debating over in this House. It is important that you as a member of Parliament are able to say, “Well, in the House tonight, the Government of the day chose to support provisions and a new amendment bill”, which then is going to be input in the Local Government Act 2002.

We stand here, we debate hand on heart what we believe in terms of our caucuses and then we stand to state what our communities are telling us. I want to emphasise why the four wellbeings are so important: the social, the cultural, the economic wellbeings, and there is a fourth one which has just escaped my mind at the moment. But it is important for us to be able to go back and explain to our communities that those four wellbeings have been taken aside, that the Government of the day has focused on the core business services of councils. We are very concerned at the increase in rates and what communities want in their discussions with their locally elected members. But it is not where central government really pushes its agenda, without hearing and understanding the considerations tonight in terms of speaking with our communities.

It’s really important because when we go back, when we return to our communities next week, we have to then explain what happened with these local government systems improvements—it is not an improvement, it’s the opposite. And so when we go back to our communities—and I’ve heard colleagues from across the House talking about why this legislation is important: it’s important for us as members of Parliament, hand on heart, to explain that these changes are back to basics, it’s back to not including the community outcomes, community aspiration, and that is not a good thing. That is not a good thing for any Government and the relationship it has with councils.

My colleagues have elaborated on many of the provisions, but also our reasons why we oppose this amendment bill. We oppose it because we want to support our local councils in their decision making and their opportunities to be in those councils, to talk about the wellbeing of their communities, because that is really important. That is why we’re down here arguing that central government cannot control the councils, the local councils, because why? We don’t have time and we don’t fully understand what our local communities go through, and they have a very good relationship. I do not commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I won’t take too much time on this. As the last speaker, I just want to say a couple of things. Refocusing the purpose of local government is a good thing. When I listen to the debates on that side of the House, they seem to think that status quo is something that they support. And status quo actually means that councils are not focused on their core business. Rates have been going up and we’ve had the largest increase in 20 years, and it’s actually set for a 15 percent increase. That is something that that member and all of the Opposition will have to explain to their constituents. All of the things that they’re talking about increases rates and expenditure for councils, and they are not focusing on their core business. This is what we support. And that actually means it’s like extra taxes for those communities that you pretend that you represent. I commend this great bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

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.

Bill read a third time.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for further consideration of the Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill.

Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill

Committee of the whole House

Debate resumed from 1 September.

Part 1 Substantive amendments to principal Act (continued)

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, the House is in committee for further consideration of the Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill. When we last considered the bill, we were debating Part 1. Part 1 is the debate on clauses 4 to 40, “Substantive amendments to principal Act”. For members’ information, there has been about two hours and 45 minutes’ worth of debate on this part so far, focusing on Subpart 1. There’s still scope for members to debate that subpart, particularly around new sections 320R to 320RB, inserted by clause 4. However, I’ll advise members that other provisions inserted by clause 4, namely new sections 320A to 320Q, have been reasonably well traversed and we are close to moving on to the remaining subparts of this part. Once again, the question is that Part 1 stand part.