Local Government (Facilitation of Remote Participation) Amendment Bill

on behalf of Cushla Tangaere-Manuel (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): I move, That the Local Government (Facilitation of Remote Participation) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The Hon Willow-Jean Prime.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is an absolute honour and privilege to take this call in the first reading of the Local Government (Facilitation of Remote Participation) Amendment Bill. I am standing in the place of our new member for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, Cushla Tangaere-Manuel, who sadly cannot be here tonight. She is the sponsor of this bill. She is unable to be here this evening because she is with her Wairoa community commemorating one year of Cyclone Gabrielle, so I want to acknowledge Cushla’s absence and say it is an absolute honour and privilege to represent in this first reading on her behalf.

When I think about my colleague Cushla, she was sworn in as an MP on the Tuesday and by the Thursday they had the first pull from the biscuit tin. Just two days after being an MP, before she’s even done her maiden speech, she was fortunate enough, lucky enough, to have her number pulled from the biscuit tin. So I’m sad that she’s not able to be here tonight to talk to this bill because I know that when it was pulled—and she did have an opportunity to speak to media at the time—it’s something that she has belief in and experience to support why this is such an important piece of legislation to introduce.

So, for the House’s benefit, what this bill proposes to do is to amend the Local Government Act to permanently allow local authority members to participate in local authority meetings remotely and to be counted towards the quorum for those meetings.

Now, I’ll talk from my experience as a former elected member in the Far North District Council. The Far North district, like many of our rural district councils and regional councils, covers an extremely large geographic area, and at the time I found it difficult that we were not able to participate remotely. We were not able to do that because the law simply did not provide for local councils to be able to make that available to elected members—prohibited by the law.

In the COVID pandemic and in recent severe weather events, we have actually seen the need for the ability to have remote participation, and temporary measures were put in place to allow that to happen. What this bill is proposing is to have that in the legislation so it is something that is available permanently. I think in 2024, with the advanced technology that we now have, everybody is very used to the comment, “You’re on mute”. “You need to unmute yourself” has become very, very common.

This is a very practical thing that this House can do to support local government. I don’t want to dwell too much on what happened earlier in the day in what we have done—or this House has done—that doesn’t support local government and isn’t practical, but this is something that the House should support and is a practical tool that we can give to local councils to allow them to operate effectively and efficiently.

So if I can perhaps bring some background and context to the contribution tonight to help people who may not be able to relate because they don’t live in a large rural area like I do. In the Far North district, there are currently four elected members who live north of the Mangamuka. The Mangamukas have been closed on and off for several years now. It takes them over two hours to get to the council chambers in Kaikohe. Being an elected member is not necessarily a full-time job for many—and the remuneration certainly isn’t that of a full-time salary. So many elected members have families, have other work commitments, have community commitments, have business commitments. In an area like the Far North, where it takes you four hours to get to a meeting and return and then be there for the meetings—and, in some cases, very long meetings—that is something that can be quite difficult.

Now, when we’ve had severe weather, it has been unsafe for members to travel from their areas to council chambers, so meetings cannot take place because quorums cannot be met. So this change to the legislation would allow the remote participation and in circumstances like severe weather, like we’ve seen, or in illness; too sick to attend a meeting but can still, you know, and not wanting to share things but can still do it by remote participation is an option for those who have—another issue we have is cancelled flights. So when a flight is cancelled—and that happens often in our regional airports—and they can’t make it to council chambers, having an issue in terms of getting a quorum, one, but also being able to participate in the important business that council does.

So I think, from a rural perspective—and I’d be interested to hear what others have in their contributions this evening—that this change will give councils more flexibility and it will ensure that they are able to participate. It supports democracy, will have elected members being able to participate in the decision making of local councils, and it will increase the opportunity for officials to meet and vote on matters of importance to their local communities. This will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the tools that our local elected members have available to them.

So I bring that contribution to the House this evening from my own personal experience as an elected member, and from my observations of elected members in my area that is home in the Far North district. I look forward to the other contributions from those around the House and them supporting this bill to give our local councils effective tools so that they can do their mahi. Kia ora.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Madam Speaker, thank you so much. We here in the National Party are standing against this. It’s another overreach—an unnecessary overreach—by this Labour Party, and, in fact—

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Giving them the ability.

CAMERON BREWER: Oh, giving them the ability, she says, to be able to do this. Well, they have the ability. Through their standing orders, councils have their ability, through their standing orders, to allow for remote participation. In fact, I was just consulting with my colleague here, the MP for the Bay of Plenty, Tom Rutherford, and he produced—he always has these documents on him—two standing orders, one for the Western Bay of Plenty District Council and one for the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, just two examples out of the mighty bay.

These standing orders make it very clear what a member can do. As long as they give two days’ written notice, they can attend by audio or audiovisual link where the member is at a place that makes their physical presence at the meeting impractical or impossible, when a member is unwell, and where a member is unable to attend due to an emergency.

So these, amongst our 60-odd territorial local authorities’ (TLA) standing orders, are in practice. I would call this electronic entrenchment. It’s not required, it’s already in practice, and, in fact, we on this side of the House would argue, and many of us have some experience in local government—of course, Tom Rutherford has been in and around in senior roles in local government; Ryan Hamilton, a long-serving Hamilton city councillor. We here on this side of the House believe that when you put your hand up for local election, the responsibilities and the rules and the expectations are very clear—are very clear—and that is that you have to front up.

It’s particularly important, when we’re asking as a House here, to get our public servants back into the city post-COVID. When the Chamber of Commerce and business associations here in Wellington city are telling people to get back to work to support the auxiliary businesses, the cafes, the sandwich bars, and the restaurants and the likes, then we just make ourselves and make our colleagues and local government exempt from turning up; it is totally unnecessary, given the standing orders that most territorial authorities have. Frankly, if you haven’t got a good enough excuse, if there’s not an emergency, or if you’re not unwell, then you should be there and that is the expectation. You can’t say, “Well, my house is too far away.” or “I live on a metal road.” or “It takes too long.” You put your hand up knowing the parameters and expectations of local government.

Again, Labour had six years—six long, long years during COVID—and a lot of these measures post-COVID, they’re trying to continue, to carry them on. It’s not required when it’s within the Local Government Act which was amended, I understand, Carl Bates, in 2023 to allow standing orders to give councils the discretion to allow for remote participation. Listen to this busy-body, bossy Labour Government. I think Local Government New Zealand’s going around talking to MPs and senior staff in Parliament as we speak, promoting localism, promoting that they have the ability to make the decisions for their communities. They are not wanting Government to throw more stuff on to them. They don’t want that Wellington overreach; they want to make their decisions inside their own chambers.

Yet this explanatory note—if I can read that—“The Bill will amend the Local Government Act 2002 to permanently”—to permanently—“allow local authority members”—i.e., forget the public; let’s just worry about the elected representatives here—“to participate in local authority meetings remotely and be counted toward [a] quorum for those meetings.” “To permanently allow”. Well, we don’t need that. Frankly, people, like the general public—those kind of people, the general public—they are fronting up in huge numbers to long-term plan submissions and the likes, as we speak, 10-year plans, 10-year budgets, and they want their local representatives there.

We don’t want a situation that Wellington City Council has got themselves into over the years, where half of them are sitting there in their pyjamas. We don’t want a situation where the Wellington City Council was taking submissions for their long-term plan last, and an American prankster with 150,000 YouTube followers got on as a submitter and said a whole lot of rubbish, and eventually the Wellington city councillors woke up about five minutes later and realised they were being pranked. Why is that? Because there’s such a distance between elected members in the flesh and those who are teleporting themselves electronically in.

The public deserves better. The local representatives deserve their colleagues to do better. Frankly, allowing them, potentially, to sit up in bed with a cup of coffee, and their dressing gown on to participate in a local government meeting as an absolute right of that person is not necessary.

As we’ve said, the standing orders of most of the TLAs, if not all of them by now post-COVID, allow for remote participation with good reason and with notice. That is working a treat.

We on this side of the House do not believe that this needs to be mandated. This is another example, isn’t it? We thought we got rid of it on 14 October, but it’s now coming back in members’ bills, Tom—it’s coming back in members’ bills one at a time. It’s “Wellington knows best!” That was not what Local Government New Zealand wants to hear. That’s why they’re not meeting with their members of Parliament. They say local decisions is where they want it at. They support local decisions, local control of water assets, and water control as well—they want it local, and it’s all going back.

There’s a global movement away from centralisation—and, man, we saw a lot of it over six years, didn’t we? Geez, let’s not go through the list, because I’ve only got two minutes left. But we saw a lot of busybody “Wellington knows best” centralisation that’s now being repealed at speed—at speed. Forty nine action points in 100 days. How are we going? It finishes up on 8 March, I think. That’s why this Government is pushing through on urgency.

But despite that, and despite a record—a record—electoral swing, a rejection of the busybody, big government model of the last administration, they are now coming out. They’re coming back out. It’s like the last throes of the orchestra on the ship. They’re just coming back out via members’ bills trying to entrench us on different things, and including allowing some of their friends in and around local government, as a matter of right, to be able to sit there in their pyjamas and participate, when ratepayers are trying to make submissions. As representatives—

Shanan Halbert: Far too experienced for such a bad speech!

CAMERON BREWER: —we need to expect more of our colleagues that put their hands up for local government. That member over there might have sat watching Parliament TV in his pyjamas for the last few months, but we need to expect more, and, frankly, the public expects more of their representatives. They put a lot into submissions, and we are united in the fact that the local government amendments of 2023—the fact that these guys had six years—and the Green Party could have helped them out. How many seats did they have for six years? Did they have 70-odd seats with the Green Party? They could have pushed all this thing through. But no, no, no, no; they didn’t. They didn’t; they just amended the local government to put it back on the councils, but now they’ve changed their mind, six months later. So we do not support this and nor do the good people of New Zealand.

This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Pō marie.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.58 p.m.