1. Everyone agrees that the Local Government Act is well overdue for rewriting. In recent years local government has been treated increasingly as a business supplying goods and services to residents for a fee. It is good to see the purposes and principles proposed for this reform moving away from that and towards seeing local government as the way in which citizens collectively provide for those aspects of their social, economic, cultural and environmental wellbeing they can't provide individually. The broadened mandate to be involved in more than roads and sewers, and perhaps to become key agents in local sustainable economic and social development takes local government much closer to the Green Party vision.
However this is provided there is a genuine mandate from the community for councils to undertake those additional functions, and provided they are carried out with consultation and accountability. There is not enough detail in the review document to tell whether the consultation processes will be any better than they are now - in other words, quite good in some areas some of the time, dreadful in others.
2. And this leads me to the biggest disappointment which in itself has led some of our members to ask that we do not vote for the introduction of the proposed legislation. If this is a fundamental rethink of the place and role of local government, and not just a consolidation of the old Act, surely a central question must be the relationship of local government to the Treaty. Amazingly, this has been left to add later.
It is not surprising if Government found it a difficult question and failed to reach agreement. It is good to ask the public for input. But surely if that input is to be of high quality the public need some analysis of the key issues, some alternative arguments, some options, to stimulate their views.
I'm told there was little consultation with Maori and a refusal to resource a Maori advisory committee to assist the process. There is certainly no guidance or leadership in the document to start the process of building a framework for Treaty relationships at the local government level. What exactly is the Crown in relation to the Treaty? When central government devolves some parts of its governance, rule making and management of resources to local government, does it devolve those parts of the Treaty relationship with them, and if not how is the relationship to be preserved in those things that are no longer done by central government? I could understand it if those questions had not been finally answered in the document but I cannot understand that they were not even posed.
The Treaty relationship needs to be part of the framework of the new Act, not an add on that is decided later. Local Government has been crying out for guidance on these issues for years. A "Treaty clause" is not enough. It must be part of the architecture.
The time available now for consultation on this document cannot possibly remedy this gap, especially as the legislation is already being drafted. It leaves us a real dilemma, especially as there are many things in the proposals we would like to support.
3. In considering the legislation the Greens will be looking particularly for local government to be given the mandate, powers, funding mechanisms and encouragement to be a facilitator of local sustainable development because we believe that a sustainable economy must be driven from the bottom up. We would be appalled if the WTO and TRIPS agreements, over which neither local government nor citizens had any say, were to be used as suggested to prevent local procurement as a tool for regional development and local jobs. This would truly be ideology gone mad. We would like to see the principles of Agenda 21 become guidelines for local government activities.
4. I note that there are to be no new mandatory functions. There is one I think is needed, in relation to water and wastewater. The mandatory waste management plans are to be carried over pending the outcome of the Waste Minimisation Working Party. Waste management plans were a good addition to the functions of local government, though less effective than they might have been because there was no timeframe to have them in place and no requirement to implement them.
There is an even more urgent need to have plans for the three waters -potable, waste and storm waters - where the options of new supply are weighed against the options of reuse and conservation before investments are made. This would require a water cycle approach and public consultation which could greatly improve outcomes. We will be proposing this through the review, and if it is not adopted will look at a Member's bill to add it to the Act.
5. Finally, this is an opportunity to look carefully at integrating all the legislation under which local government operates, and particularly the interface between this Act and the RMA. Some parts of local government reform are already before the House - the Local Electoral Act was passed earlier this year, a bill on remuneration and the purpose of LATES is before our committee and a bill on funding powers is about to be introduced. I have some concerns about overlaps and integration even among these. For example, the document makes it clear that this bill will deal with performance agreements and accountability for LATES, which has me wondering why we are dealing with issues like social responsibility clauses and triple bottom line reporting for LATES in another bill before seeing what is to be in the main Act.
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