Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill

DAVID SHEARER Link to this

I thank Mr Hayes. I am standing, in urgency, once again talking about local government or a bill about Auckland. Three out of the four local government or super-city bills have been brought in under urgency. It is a paradox that we come in here to do this under urgency, and we are talking about more transparency, more democracy, and more ability for people out there to have a say. This legislation removes a lot of the consultation. It is interesting that some of the people who came before us believed that some of the consultation should have been streamlined.

The key aspect of this bill is that it removes the obligation to consult, particularly when there will be some ability to privatise, or certainly put something into the influence of a council-controlled organisation. It also means, as a number of speakers have said, that water can, effectively, be privatised. It will be taken from a 15-year to a 35-year lease under this legislation. Effectively, that is privatisation. If we think about that, 35 years is half a lifetime. It is nearly two generations. I am open to discussing this. I am open to looking at the evidence that this will make our water more accessible, of a higher quality, and cheaper for people. But I have not seen the evidence of that. As Sue Kedgley pointed out this evening, all around the world this process has made water more expensive, of a poorer quality, and less available to people. The evidence is overwhelming.

Why are we trying to do it here? I can only suggest that it is part of an ideology that is being pushed through this legislation. It is not a bill, it is not a plan, and it is not a piece of legislation. This Government does not have a plan, and it does not have a strategy. This bill is a piece of ideology, being shoved through without any real evidence or analysis. It is focused, obviously, on funding. Again, there is not one person on this side of the House who would say that increasing rates is necessarily a good thing. But as the Local Government Commission pointed out to us in its submissions, overall, in relation to GDP, rates have not gone up. That is the evidence. This comes back to my key point. Let us put legislation through with evidence to support it, with the right sort of back-up, with the right sort of analysis, and maybe with a semblance of a strategy or a plan. But there is no plan, no strategy, no analysis, and no evidence. There is overwhelming opposition from the local people who have been elected into local government, telling us what to do. That point raises a very interesting question, and I am talking about Auckland in particular. How will our local body politicians interact with the National Government, in this case?

I turn to clause 5, which talks about transport. Transport is one of the core services that comes under this bill. Let me give members one example of this. Under the previous Labour Government, we took enormous steps to improve rail transport in Auckland. Mr Joyce has made it his business to turn up to every railway station opening throughout the Auckland region to get the kudos for something that he did not even have the imagination to put into place. What he has the imagination to do is to run a brand-new highway up to Warkworth, inside the new Auckland boundaries as part of the new super-city, so that his mates can have better access to the beaches up in Ōmaha. This is a travesty. You will be spending nearly $2 billion, and for every $1 that you spend on this highway, less than $1 will be returned.

DAVID SHEARER Link to this

I get carried away, just like Sir Roger Douglas did earlier, but I will not stoop to what he called the Chair in that outburst.

This will mean that the real opportunities for infrastructure development under clause 5—the real core services and the inner-city loop—are threatened in terms of being implemented. This will make an enormous difference to Auckland. Railway patronage in Auckland has doubled in 5 years, and when the railway is electrified—again, something the previous Labour Government brought into being—we will see a massive spike once again in patronage. It will not be able to cope with that, and we will need an inner-city loop. There has been a lot of talk from our mayor, Len Brown. He was supportive of this, along with John Banks, the other mayoral candidate, Christine Fletcher, and a number of the other Auckland councillors. What is this Government saying? We need to think about ways of paying for it. Actually, there was a way of paying for it before: it was called the regional fuel levy. That was taken away by this Government. Why? Because it did not want local government to have a real say in its own planning.

The Minister of Local Government might want to take a note of this. Why does he not get in behind Auckland and support something like a regional fuel tax, which might have enabled Auckland to get on and fund its own infrastructure programmes, alongside National Government funding? This is a narrow, stingy bill that is based on ideology. It is not based on anything but ideology. It is completely unnecessary, as my colleague said. It takes out the obligation for community consultation and effectively privatises our key assets, such as water. It increases the administrative costs in this pre-election report, which will enable our local government to cost more, rather than less. It is an ideology looking for a strategy and a plan. It is certainly an unnecessary waste of time, at 5 to 12 on a Wednesday night. Thank you.