Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill

I move, That the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

This bill supports councils to improve how they share information under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act. First, the bill will improve natural hazard information provided in land information memoranda (LIM). The second change will enable councils to withhold information where its release would likely prejudice New Zealand’s national security or international relations.

All New Zealanders have a role to play in building our resilience to natural hazard risks. New Zealand faces a range of natural hazards. Cyclone Gabrielle this year was a powerful reminder of the extraordinary damage that natural hazards can cause to people’s lives and properties. We also know that climate change will mean that extreme weather events like Cyclone Gabrielle are going to hit New Zealand communities harder and more often. Property buyers need natural hazard information they can understand so they can make good decisions and reduce their exposure to risks from natural hazards and climate change.

The LIM is a key document for buyers when deciding to buy a property. It is also an important way for councils to inform buyers about natural hazards at a critical decision point in people’s lives. There are significant issues with how LIMs communicate natural hazard information. This information is often complex and written in a way that is difficult for most people to understand.

Todd Muller: This is exactly the same as the second reading.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Sometimes, key regional council information is missing.

Todd Muller: It is—word for word.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Some councils have been reluctant to include summaries or plain language explanations because of the risk of legal action. This bill will support people to make good decisions by ensuring LIMs contain natural hazard information that is clear, concise—

Andrew Bayly: Good reading—first reading, second reading, third reading.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: —nationally more consistent, and easier for people to understand. I appreciate the contributions from the members opposite—I think it’s jealousy. They haven’t had the opportunity to be a Minister. Maybe one day, but not today.

The other part of this bill is that the Act currently does not have grounds for councils to conclusively withhold information that may prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand or the international relations of the New Zealand Government. The bill will extend to local authorities the same protections afforded to central government agencies by the Official Information Act. As security risks increase, including an increase in cyber-attacks, it is even more important that the intelligence agencies are enabled to increase their outreach efforts with the local government sector. It is important that they have the ability to share any relevant threat information in a timely manner to mitigate the risks to local authorities.

This is a good bill. I appreciate the fact that it has broad support in the House, and I commend it to them.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. That speech reminded me very much of a Geoffrey Boycott opening innings, and I think we should really ask him to return it!

Yeah, using that as a point of order—the member should be aware of a bouncer from the Chair, for tortured trifling with the House. However—Simon Watts.

Well, well, well. Isn’t it great to hear a Minister so full of energy, only 80 days out from an election, being able to articulate this piece of legislation? You can pretty much hear in the Minister’s voice how tired he is of where we are in the cycle.

But it is our pleasure to speak on the third reading of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill. This is a sensible piece of legislation; it is without a doubt that—what we’ve heard this evening in regards to the contributions is that this is fulfilling a gap that has been identified and does solve a problem or an issue in which we’ll derive value. National always will stand behind and support common-sense ways in order to provide and ensure that the New Zealand public, in particular, have access to the information requirements that enable them to make better decisions.

In its essence within this bill—and it is an exciting bill; I think a few people have mocked it a bit this evening, haven’t they? They’ve said, “This is actually a bit, you know, down.”, but this is a pretty exciting and interesting bill because it does serve a purpose. But the—

Todd Muller: Really?

SIMON WATTS: Really? Yes, really. It does. Well, just to outline a little bit more detail just so you can get fully in, because I appreciate that maybe you missed it in the last contribution.

So the improvements around the recording of the natural hazard information in the land information memorandums (LIMs) is a really important factor. We’ve heard this evening—and again, echoing the impacts that we’ve seen across natural disasters across this country—flooding, cyclones, you name it: it’s happened to New Zealanders not just once, not just twice; actually, for many parts of the country, multiple times.

But that information, or the lack of information, in regards to the implications of natural hazards on properties has been an aspect that has been missing for consumers in order to be able to ascertain that as part of the due diligence process that they undertake when purchasing a property. This bill will bring in the requirement for that information to be in play. That is really, really important because we know that those significant weather events that we are seeing are going to continue and potentially get worse. So having access to that information is really, really important and that is sensible and is a good thing to be in play.

We’ve learnt, this evening, around the fact that the Governance and Administration Committee did put thought around the timing of when this legislation would actually come into play. Originally, the effective date was the beginning of 2025. The select committee did take on board some feedback in regards to that, and some may argue, “Well, you know, there’s pros and cons around that.”, but the decision was taken in regards to moving that to July 2025. At the end of the day, whether you want it now or you need to wait, the reality is it is going to come and that will provide some benefit in regards to that aspect.

The other aspect within this legislation, which is in there and many probably haven’t necessarily got into it, is—and I think it’s pretty fair and it’s logical—that there are provisions to be able to withhold some of this LIM information on the grounds of national security. We all think it; we all can understand that that’s logical and that there’s reasons, and there needs to be appropriate mechanisms to withhold that information. This bill puts in place the provisions around that, which brings it in line with the Official Information Act process as well. That all makes sense, right? That all makes sense and that’s a good thing to do.

In regards to this legislation, we talk about the implications of climate change and the implications on severe weather events. I want to just do a call-out and acknowledgment to our local government sector. Our local government sector do a significantly great job across our country. In particular, in relation to this bill, the implications around dealing with significant weather events has been very much front of mind for a large number of local government entities.

I think about Tairāwhiti in Gisborne—that small town but a town with a big heart—and the mayor there has been dealing with natural disasters after natural disasters for what feels like, you know, 18 months, if not longer. I think it is not often acknowledged, but the reality and the stress and the process of that placed upon our officials and our volunteers and our staff within our local government sectors—particularly in rural, provincial New Zealand—is really, really significant. So a big call-out to all of those people that work within our local government sector. National have got your backs and we appreciate what you do and the value that you contribute to our country and to our communities.

That’s pretty much the key elements in regards to this bill. As I said, we think that the ability for New Zealanders to have access to that improved and enhanced information will make sure that people can make more informed decisions when they’re making significant property decisions. That’s important; it adds an element around personal responsibility—which is obviously a key value that we are supportive of—that they have the ability to be able to use that to make more informed decisions and it places the responsibility, also, back on that consumer. I think there’s also an opportunity there where central government and local government are, in effect, providing a mechanism in equal measure in order to facilitate that process. Again, we think that is very simple.

So in conclusion, National will be supporting this common-sense way to make information more accessible to New Zealanders across this country. We think that while this bill, in the context of the issues that our country faces, is reasonably minor, the fact that we are pushing this under urgency when it’s not going to be actually effective until mid-2025 is a little bit of a dilemma—but we shan’t place further emphasis because we made those points earlier on this evening. But on that basis, National supports this bill and we will be watching it flow through this House this evening. Thank you.

The question is the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m proud to be a member of a busy Government that is working hard for the people of New Zealand, and putting forward, as the previous member noted, a very important legislation like this law that will really help those areas that are potentially at risk of weather or other natural disasters. So it’s an excellent bill, we’ve covered a lot of the work that has been done on it throughout the evening, and I think it’s important that we get this legislation passed to give that certainty to councils so they have the time to prepare for it. They did ask for that extension of time so that we could ensure they had plenty of time to do all the necessary preparatory work, so that they’re able to actually comply with the bill. So on that note, I commend it to the House.

Well, I can assure you, Mr Speaker, that when that Government starts work, most New Zealanders are going to sleep, but a hard-working New Zealander has gone to sleep by the time that Government comes to life. Anyway, I just want to make a few comments about this bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr McKelvie, I’m still pondering whether you’ve actually said anything wrong there or not, but keep going.

IAN McKELVIE: I withdraw, Mr Speaker. I withdraw. Anyway, back to the bill. I think we’ve covered really a lot of what needed to be said about this bill in the second reading, but Simon Watts in his contribution made a number of interesting comments. One of those interesting comments, of course, is the work that we as a Parliament foist on to local government and have done all of my career and public life, and we keep on foisting it on to local government and hence the reason for—I think I’ve been through at least three or four funding reviews for local government in my time; not one of them has brought any change. Hopefully this last one will bring some change, because there are one or two suggestions in it that I think would be quite useful for the sector. There’s also a lot of suggestions in it that I don’t think will be any use at all, but that’s not the point.

The Minister did, in one of his contributions during the committee stage, talk about the fact that there was some difficulties—or he didn’t perceive them, but I think there are some difficulties with respect to the way information is transferred between regional councils, territorial authorities, and, of course, then you’ve got the unitary authorities that operate in a different manner. He did think that there was some suggestion in my comments that I’d do away with some of them. I certainly would. If I had my way, we wouldn’t have regional councils in the current form, and that would solve some of this problem. But, nonetheless, I don’t want to criticise my friends in the regional councils because they do do, under the circumstances, a pretty good job. And, of course, a lot of this information, as I said earlier, is already being provided by regional councils to the territorial authorities, and certainly in my part of New Zealand, which is the Horizons region, they have a lot of this information and provide a lot of it.

There’s no comment about one or two other things that change the nature of this information and change it quite quickly. If we look at our rivers—and we’ve been building stopbanks, I think, since the 1930s in New Zealand and probably earlier than that, but we’ve never concerned ourselves with what happens to the riverbeds themselves as a result of building those stopbanks. And, of course, we’ve seen both in the two big rivers in the Manawatū, the Rangitīkei and the Manawatū, and we’ve certainly seen in Hawke’s Bay and the Tairāwhiti or Gisborne region the significant impact of putting those stopbanks up, then not maintaining the rivers inside them, and consequently the information that we might have had on a land information memorandum (LIM) on the outside of the stopbank becomes a very different kettle of fish as a result of the changes that take place in those watercourses.

And so when we are considering managing what could be a potential fallout from the information that gets put on people’s LIMs, we’ve also got to realise that, as public bodies, we have a responsibility to manage the assets that we effectively manage or that those community organisations, such as regional councils and territorial authorities and Governments, manage on behalf of the property owners of New Zealand, because if we don’t manage those entities or those assets or facilities in the manner we should, then we end up with some very strange things happening.

And the other thing I wanted to really comment on was that whilst we haven’t had this information on LIMs in most parts of New Zealand before, nothing’s really changed in the last hundred years. And if you look at the significant floods that have taken place as a result of Cyclone Gabrielle and Bola before it and probably going right back into the 1890s, very similar things happened in our communities. Sure, the riverbeds and those sorts of things have changed, but nonetheless the differences between the events that are happening now and the events that happened then are only really caused by the infrastructure that we’ve put in place since those events initially. And I know that one of the major bridges in Hawke’s Bay has washed out three times since 1931, so it’s not the first time it’s washed away in this event. And so we can get that sort of activity going on through generations.

And, of course, historically, when you’ve got to be a little bit older, you remember things that have happened years ago. Now we’re going to shove them on LIMs so everyone knows about them. There’s no advantage of being old anymore, because the advantage was taken away by the fact that they’re recording all this information that they never used to record. Only those of us that were there could remember it. And, of course, if you think about interest rates in our younger generation today, we could have told them it was coming.

Anyway, I don’t really need to say much more about this bill. It has been mentioned and there is some interesting parameters around some of the information we acquire, because some of the information, for one reason or another, needs to be kept under lock and key, for want of a better word. This bill also—and, of course, it’s called the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill—goes some way towards enabling councils and public entities to retain that information where it’s required, and it’s mostly for security reasons that that would be the case, because there’s certainly no reason for us to keep information from the public and property owners in our regions. I hope this bill makes its way into law in about three years’ time. I hope I’m still around, and I wish the Minister of Local Government at the time it does all the best with the complaints they get as a result of it. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I might say, to your reference to age, you do get largesse from the Chair as respect for age, Mr McKelvie!

It’s always great hearing our chair of the Governance and Administration Committee depositing knowledge into the bigger web of ChatGPT knowledge, and all of the databases that we will have into the future as well. I spent the first part of my contribution, the second reading, in the point about making sure that our land information memorandums are up to date in the face of climate change, and this reading speech, I wanted to use it on the part about our national security.

As we go around the country, we see different cities engage with diplomacy, whether that’s sister cities, whether that’s exchange programmes for economic development and investment. But more and more and more, we see—and I do encourage different cities getting out there and getting out into the world and promoting the best interests of their own cities and their own regions. With that does come risk and responsibility, and more interest from other parties across the world, and I do think that this makes this Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment legislation extremely important. That’s why I commend this bill to the House.

ACT will support the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill, but there are some problems that this bill tries to solve that in solving creates some consequences, such as additional unfunded liabilities, unfunded obligations on local government that the bill doesn’t solve.

The bill is providing for councils to put information about natural and physical hazards, soil contamination as a result of industrial activities—for example, agricultural or horticultural sprays that were once used on market gardens in places that are now a suburban or urban residential property. And so it’s important that people developing that land or people living on it now know whether their land was used for those type of activities, hazardous activities, on their land, and therefore what they should do about it.

That’s one of the other problems with this bill. It’s one of the other things that’s missing. It says councils have to put the information or should put the information on the land information memorandum (LIM)—should be disclosed—but it doesn’t say who should do what with the information. And if you live on a property, have a young family, and council says your property is contaminated or it’s at risk from slips or liquefaction or some other kind of hazard, you’ll want to know “What should I do?” Well, who knows? Because what this bill does is it gives councils cover to put the information that they might have held for some time on the LIM but does not provide a mechanism to resolve between landowners, between regulators and local government, policy makers and local government, and central government how existing risks that have a financial implication should be resolved.

And one of them, climate change risk, potentially we’ve heard this evening from another member of the House, a very trusted member, the Hon Eugenie Sage, that there will be a climate adaptation bill brought to the House at some point in this term of Parliament.

Hon Eugenie Sage: No.

SIMON COURT: Apparently not—apparently not. Don’t worry.

Hon Eugenie Sage: It will come.

SIMON COURT: Don’t worry. I’ve asked the Minister in a written question. We’ll find out one way or the other. So what’s missing? The climate adaptation Act. That might tell people who live in an area exposed to coastal hazards when their property is tagged with a hazard layer: what should they do, who should they call, how will it be resolved if their land is no longer safe to occupy and their buildings are at risk? Again, this provides just one small piece of a much larger puzzle that’s no doubt left to future Governments, to much smarter people, to solve.

There’s another missing part, and that was raised by officials in the regulatory impact statement, which is that there is no funding to create a more unified and comprehensive database of information about natural hazards. Because many, many councils, particularly smaller councils, don’t have the budget to do that, they don’t have the competencies in house to do the LiDAR, to do the aerial surveying, or to do physical surveying on site. It can be very, very expensive getting drilling rigs out, doing bore holes, and creating geotechnical maps or maps of natural hazards like landslides. But there are organisations that do that and that the Government does fund to some small extent, such as Geological and Nuclear Sciences or the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, and the Earthquake Commission. But that information is incomplete. I’ve spoken to people about those databases and they said they need a secure, long-term funding stream so they can build an information set for New Zealand, which means that whether you’re building a shed on a farm in a remote valley or you’re trying to build a subdivision in an urban environment, you have access to good quality information that is, essentially, repeatable across districts and across regions.

Now, the Government had undertaken to fund some of that work in financial year 2021-22 but, as officials point out, that level of funding was insufficient and that programme was scaled back. So at a time when we’ve never been more acutely aware of natural hazards, natural risks from cyclones, storms, floods, landslides such as at Muriwai and Karekare in West Auckland, where I live, the Government has created, essentially, another unfunded obligation on local government to do the work that central government said they were going to do but decided they weren’t going to pay for it. So that’s very disappointing.

Now, funding’s missing, a climate response Act or a climate adaptation Act’s missing. A lot of information can go on land information memorandums about climate risk. If you go on to Auckland Council’s GIS database, you can click on a layer that will tell you about whether your property is in a coastal hazard area, a coastal risk area, and what different levels of climate change - induced sea-level rise will do to your property. So, for example, you can click on a layer that says what happens if there’s half a metre sea-level rise in the next hundred years or 1 metre in the next hundred years or, you know, heaven forbid, 2 metres in the next hundred years. And what that layer will tell you is there’s many, many properties in the Auckland region that may well be subject to coastal hazards, to the risk of sea-level rise, but in the absence of a climate adaptation Act, which is supposed to tell us about managed retreat and adaptation—what do we do to protect vital infrastructure, what do we do to stop land that has public assets on it, for example, falling into the sea? It’s all very well knowing about it, but what are we going to do about it?

That is what New Zealanders have come to rely more and more on the ACT Party to provide answers for. What do we do about it? Practical solutions. Practical solutions to how do we fund councils so they can do the work to collect the information about natural hazards.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Court, there are a number of Speakers’ rulings about third readings not being about what’s not in the bill. You can touch on it. We’re now two minutes to go, so let’s just start concentrating on what is in the bill, shall we?

SIMON COURT: Well, thank you, Mr Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You’ve had a pretty good run.

SIMON COURT: Thank you, Mr Speaker. You’re right. The ACT Party’s had a great run, so I will come back to the bill. There’s some important amendments in here, particularly around official information as it relates to cyber-security and central government agencies sharing information with councils, because many local councils around New Zealand own critical infrastructure. I’m aware that many of them have traffic control systems, enormous networks of CCTV camera, traffic light systems—all kinds of systems that govern how rail tracks operate, for example. You know, where and when trains should be or should not be, what trains should do when they come to a red light—we should probably tell KiwiRail they should probably stop. But if those systems are compromised because their cyber-security is not adequate, then of course that has really significant and potentially life threatening consequences for people using public infrastructure owned by councils.

So it’s important that if central government agencies—and if we’re talking about people who might be collecting information about scams, about malware, about attacks on our information systems—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s a long way from the bill and you’ve 43 seconds left, Mr Court.

SIMON COURT: Well, in fact that’s actually—I’ve got a quote from the bill. Amendments relating to official information—it’s important these amendments allow councils to protect information that would otherwise prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand or the international relations of a Government to New Zealand. So, again, it’d be very interesting to know if Wellington City Council declaring Ramallah, part of that terrorist State of Palestine, a sister city or a friendly city—whether that would have breached any rules, Mr Speaker.

No. Sit down, Mr Court.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. With the ACT Party worried about climate adaptation and keeping on talking about the bill that’s coming, I do wish they would similarly focus that same level of attention on climate pollution and reducing our emissions instead of sometimes almost denying that climate change is happening.

This is a useful bill and I will start where the previous speaker was talking about the Official Information Act changes in relation to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, because the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties opposed clause 11 of the bill and the changes it’s making to allow councils to withhold official information to put them on the same base or the same grounds as apply at the national level. The Green Party, of course, looked very closely at that submission by the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties, but was reassured by the work of the Ombudsman in considering the bill before it was introduced, and the Ombudsman noting that local authorities increasingly are finding themselves involved in security and defence matters and would seek advice and guidance from central government agencies on issues like cyber-security. We only have to think about the Waikato District Health Board issue there—the cyber-security issue in 2021. And so it’s an anomaly if local authorities don’t have that same protection that exists at the national level, when information is sought from the security and intelligence agency, and others, to withhold information.

So the Green Party is comfortable with supporting the bill and that section of the bill, even though others have raised civil liberties issues about it. But the major issue is around the land information memorandum and the fact that climate change is exacerbating the impacts of natural hazards in Aotearoa, that land information memorandums aren’t currently required to include information about the potential for climate change to exacerbate those risks. But this bill does rectify that. And so that’s another of the good changes. But I do note, and it didn’t really get a clear response from the Minister, that there have been a lot of submissions about the need for guidance in terms of how this information is provided, because as the Minister noted, a lot of the information on land information memorandums (LIMs) can be too technical—so it’s not understandable by those who are using the LIMs—or there’s not enough information. So we really do need those regulations to provide the guidance about what level of information councils should provide and how it should be presented. Because talking about one-in-100-year floods, some members of the public think that means that the flood will only happen once a century, when that’s not the case. So this information about natural hazard risk can often be quite technical. If the LIMs are to be really useful, then it’s got to be very clear and accessible to purchasers.

I guess the other issue, too, is that we haven’t seen any major drop in property prices of houses in areas that are at risk of hazards. Is that because of the deficiencies in LIMs to date? Because we really need to see that sort of signal going into the market so that people don’t buy houses in areas that are at risk of flooding and prone to other natural hazards. So the bill is only a small step. It’s now got delayed time in terms of implementation. But this requirement around this information being provided on LIMs, and also the removal of legal liability for councils when they provide that information in good faith, I think, will ensure that we don’t have the chilling effect that the Kāpiti Coast court case really had on other councils, that there was a risk of them being taken to court if they did include good hazard information, in that case in their plan. So that’s also a useful initiative in the bill and the Green Party supports it.

Mr Speaker, thanks for the opportunity to take a brief call. This bill has been well-canvassed over the past recent period of time. I don’t see any benefit for the House, in terms of going over the key points again. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I expect I might have a slightly longer call than that speaker who spoke before me from Hamilton East, but I’m here to speak in the third and final reading of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill.

This bill does two things, really. One is that it changes the disclosure requirements in terms of official information for local government and it brings it into line with the Official Information Act, and the reason for that is because there are reasons why certain information should not be released if it’s likely to prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand or the international relations of the Government of New Zealand. There have been concerns raised that information regarding matters of national security that should be shared with local government potentially isn’t being shared with it, and local government is not seeking that information. The third concern is that information may be provided that could potentially affect the international relations of New Zealand and/or prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand.

So these things are covered already under the Official Information Act, but they’re not specifically covered in respect of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, and this bill will bring those into line with each other so that that particular concern is addressed. There have been some issues raised that there is an increasing number of reasons that the information may need to be shared with local government, and so this tidies that up. I stress that it is bringing it into line with existing law in the Official Information Act.

The second thing that this does is it brings in some changes to the land information memoranda—otherwise known as LIMs—that local government will provide to prospective property buyers. In particular, if we have a look in clause 8 at what will be the new section 44B, “Natural hazard information to be included in land information memoranda”, we see that it will be “(a) natural hazards: (b) impacts of climate change that exacerbate natural hazards.”, and this information is to the extent the information is known to the territorial authority. So that’s addressing that. If the territorial authority isn’t aware of it, then they don’t have to provide that, but if they are aware of it, that will need to be included on the land information memoranda which will then be available to prospective purchasers to make decisions about their purchase or otherwise.

There is also new section 44C in clause 8, and that states that regional councils must provide territorial authorities with natural hazard information. It largely replicates the one I spoke to before, but the information, which the regional council must provide as soon as reasonably practicable, is to provide the territorial authority within or partly within its region with information about each natural hazard and each impact of climate change that exacerbates natural hazards and affects land in the territorial authority’s district. There is a provision also in the bill that a territorial authority or regional council is not liable in civil or criminal proceedings for making available in good faith that information that I referred to regarding natural hazards and each impact of climate change that exacerbates natural hazards.

So this provision is to ensure that there is full information, or at least fuller information, available to prospective purchasers of property. We certainly have seen, particularly on the East Coast of the North Island this year, some particularly big weather events that have had quite significant impacts. It has been the case—I’ve just read it myself—that in terms of some of those regions, local government have had information that they’ve identified in the past and issues from rainfall events that have occurred in the past as well, and this is ensuring that more of that information, hopefully, is made available to prospective purchasers so that they’re aware of what they’re getting themselves into when they buy.

So there are two relatively straightforward changes with this bill, but they will have some significant impact, particularly with regard to the land information memoranda that my colleague spoke to earlier. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. It’s my pleasure to take a short call on the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill, and essentially this bill is a common-sense bill to make that homebuyers are able to get good information about natural hazards that could affect the properties that they are interested in. It also makes common-sense amendments to the provisions in the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act that deal with national security information, and this is a simple alignment with the Official Information Act.

We support this bill because we believe that New Zealanders have the right to know whether properties they’re considering buying are in a natural hazard zone. This bill makes sure that councils provide that information to prospective buyers through their land information memorandum reports. It’s a good bill, it’s a common-sense bill, and I commend it to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a short call on this bill, Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill. As we’ve heard many of our speakers this evening clearly state—the sensible legislation, the advantages and changes of the provisions, how helpful it will be, and it’s clear and concise.

At this time, I do want to acknowledge the many local government representatives across the motu. In particular of the events this year, we were very unfortunate of the weather events that happened in Auckland, particularly in our area, Māngere, and very quickly many, many people in the community came across to help. But the confusing part was some of the property owners who were not aware of their homes being built in floodplain areas, particularly when council comes with information that nothing is going to happen in 100 years—and that was only like four, five years ago, as a previous member of council.

So I do want to just point that out and highlight that. The bill is common-sense, it builds resilience for our communities, and it will really help property owners to understand and be better informed and manage the expectations. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, the House is pretty uniform in its agreement tonight on the bill. However, it does raise some issues, though, around when councils change the dimensions of a property. For example, if you had a property that was in a gully at the moment and there’s nothing on your land information memorandum (LIM) report, and then suddenly this comes along and it said that this is a flood prone area. Is that person going to have some recourse to the council? We’re seeing the Government talking about wanting to buy-out people from a certain area. Well, you know, the issue when you do change these LIM reports is that there is a financial consequence on somebody.

Hon Andrew Little: If it’s not now, it’s 50 years’ time, when they get flooded out of it.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: So what’s that? So Mr Little says their answer is: in a few years’ time, they’ll be flooded out of it. Well, that’s really helpful for the person that bought that house in good faith. Now, they bought that house in good faith, on the ability of what the council said.

Hon Andrew Little: They want to kick the can down the road.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: “Kick the can down the road.”

Hon Andrew Little: Kick the can down the road; it’s somebody else’s problem.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: “Somebody else’s problem.” Well, those are all good lines—

Hon Andrew Little: Failure of leadership.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: —but I want to—maybe this member—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Little, short and sharp and preferably witty.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yes, I was hoping you were going to add the “preferably witty”, because we weren’t getting any wit coming from there.

But I want to draw that member’s attention to the thing called “leaky homes”, and what happened there with councils and how they stood behind people that actually had leaky homes—didn’t they? They were right there, the councils of New Zealand, helping those people out. They were the people that stood behind you if you had a leaky home. Are the councils going to stand behind you if your LIM report now says that you’ve got a flood-prone area? No way—no way—are they going to do that. This Minister of Local Government’s given no money for that. If he was genuine about looking after people in the future and protecting their interests, where’s the dollars to protect people? Because there’s going to be a financial implication for this.

Anybody that owns a block of land that now is going to have this on their land report has just lost money. They have just lost money. And it’s alright saying, “Oh, we’re going to stop you getting flooded out.” They’re actually stuck there now. They can’t sell that property—nobody in their right mind’s going to buy it. They are really in trouble. So what does the Minister say about that? What’s his great, one-line witty answer for that, for those people that have actually lost money tonight because of this bill? Because they have. And the reality is: not only losing money, but then are councils actually going to get it right?

So just say a council doesn’t actually identify an area that is flood prone, and then you are flooded—because some of the areas that we’ve seen flooded this year, nobody necessarily expected. Nobody thought the Esk Valley was going to be flood prone, did they, Minister? Otherwise, you would have done something about it. But the reality is that not every council is going to put down every flood prone area. And therefore, if you are flooded, can you go back to that council for not actually doing their job—not actually doing their job. Not actually putting on the LIM report, when you bought that bit of land, that it was flood prone. Are you going to be able to sue the council for that?

It’s very quiet on the Government side now, isn’t it? You know, very quiet over there. They hadn’t thought that anyone would lose any money. They hadn’t thought the councils could get it wrong. They hadn’t thought about the legal liability. They hadn’t thought it through. They thought, “Oh, we’ll just do a change to somebody’s LIM report. We’re the big hand of Government, we can do whatever we want. We don’t have to care about individual property rights. We don’t have to care about actually getting it right. We don’t have to care about actually having the right information.” That’s what that Government does all the time.

Hon Andrew Little: The member should get out of fantasyland.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Fantasyland, now—fantasyland. Well, I just ask that Minister to remember the words about leaky homes. Was that fantasyland, Minister? The fantasyland leaky homes. I tell you, you go to anybody that had a leaky home and tell them they’re in fantasyland, and they’ll tell you what land you’re in. And it won’t be a good space.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m not in any land, Mr Bennett.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: No, you’re not, you’re higher than us—I know that. On a higher plane, coming from a good Catholic family. It’s all good.

Now, the Minister over there hasn’t thought about those issues. And I really think we need to be very careful in this House every time we put a blanket thing over people’s property rights and say, “Hey, we’ve got it right. We know best. It doesn’t matter if you had that house, we can just put a sign on top of it, now, for anybody that wants to come purchase it, and say that it could be flood prone. Don’t worry about your economic loss.”

What are we going to do if the councils don’t get it right? What are we going to do then, Minister? If they don’t get it right, are they going to then be excessively going out there and doing every flood prone area to make sure they don’t get it wrong, and then hurting more people? Because I don’t think anybody can tell where the next natural disaster in New Zealand will be. I don’t think anybody can tell which the next valley that will flood is. They don’t know—they don’t know. Nobody thought Christchurch would have an earthquake. Nobody in here. Nobody knew that that was going to happen, you know. And the reality is that these things happen in situations in that people don’t understand or don’t know. To have blanket legislation like this can have a detrimental impact on people.

So the practical realities of it are that it sounds good and it’s all great legislation and all that, but the reality is: every time we do this, somebody’s going to lose some money.

Todd Muller: We are supporting it.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: And the middle New Zealanders are going to lose some money. And that member, Todd Muller, says that we are supporting it, and we are. And that’s why I said it—because it was a practical thing. But the reality is that there are some detrimental issues in it.

Hon Member: Benno’s crossing the floor.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: He’s not crossing the floor. It’s a bit late to do that, I think. But no, I just think that there’s some elements of this bill that probably haven’t been thought through 100 percent. The reality is that blanket attempts from local government on landowners’ rights do have an impact. There will be an impact on many people, and sometimes that can be detrimental.

Again, I am pleased to be able to stand and speak to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill. As I said earlier, it makes absolute sense to amend the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act as a result of climate change. Something had to be done, and we had heard earlier on, from across the way over there, it is a sensible solution, common sense, and even an exciting bill. It will fix some of those issues by providing all that relevant and pertinent information to local government, to make their decision making a lot better than what it is now, given the environment that we now live in. I commend this to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.