Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) - New Zealand Parliament

16 May 2009 Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill 3705
However, Part 2 comes into force on 1 November 2010, because that concerns the
Auckland Council. Clauses 27 and 28 in Subpart 3 of Part 3 come into force on the
close of 31 October 2010. I commend the title and commencement of this bill to the
Committee.
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): The Minister has pointed to a very important
issue. He is quite right that, except for Part 2, which comes into force on 1 November
2010, this legislation comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the
Royal assent. Of course, therein lies the problem, because by the date that this bill
receives its Royal assent there will have been no proper consultation with the people of
Auckland as to its effect.
One of the amendments that will be put forward by members on this side of the
Chamber is to delay the date of that Royal assent to a date that is substantially later, so
that the normal processes that precede legislation coming into force can, in some other
process outside this Parliament, take place in order to protect the citizens of Auckland
and to give the fourth estate the time to properly identify the effects of the provisions
contained in this bill.
Let us consider that issue. The provisions of this bill were not available to the media
or to the Opposition until shortly before this debate began. We have not had much time
to properly get into the implications of this bill. It is true that Parliament has been sitting
very long hours. We have been embroiled in the detail of each provision as it has come
before us, but we have had to do that under the pressure of urgency, sequentially one
issue after another, and we have not had the time to consider other issues that may be
there but which we have not thought of in the limited time we have had to deal with this
bill.
But that does not apply just to Parliament. It applies to everyone in Auckland. They
have been prevented from having the time they would normally have to look at these
things. These are very technical matters. They involve the interrelationship of the Local
Government Act 2002, the various Acts of Parliament that cover Watercare Services
and the like, and the various Acts of Parliament that control local assets and the
environment, such as the volcanic cones and the lovely marine environment around
Auckland. In order to get our heads around the complexities of all of those
interrelationships, it is very important that we give ourselves the time to reflect on these
issues, and the time to take the appropriate advice.
Some of these issues are so technical that a lot of laypeople are not able to get their
heads around them in a short period of time. They need time to be able to talk to nongovernmental
organisations that have expertise in these areas, to their lawyers, and to
their local body politicians. Those local body politicians themselves have not had the
time to get their heads around these issues, so they are not yet in a position to inform
their ratepayers and citizens as to where the hooks in this lie. Some of those hooks have
been well identified by the Opposition, including Labour and the Greens, but a lot of
them still lie untested because the process has been rushed. So one of the important and
necessary changes to the bill would reverse the provision that currently states that the
bill comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent—
which could be next week—and puts it out to some later date.
Labour members are open as to the range of dates. The date has to be substantially
later than now, but I do not have an unreasonable view as to what that date might be. If
we could have a date that was similar to the date that would have been achieved after a
full select committee process, followed by a second and a third reading debate in this
House, then that would be an appropriate period of time to consider the date by which
this bill ought to come into effect. Although the process by which we could have some
decent scrutiny would not have the advantage of the officials’ advice, would not have