Ladies and gentlemen.

I want to acknowledge the elected officials in the room today: mayors, regional chairs, councillors, community board members.

In a few short weeks you’ll face your electors. I know that for all the noise of election campaigns and media focus on the spending of local government representatives and officials, those who seek to serve their communities don’t do so for personal reward.

Your motivation is a desire to see our communities do better.

Community and service are at the heart of Labour’s vision for local government.

I want to talk about our vision today.

Labour values the word ‘local’ in local government.

Because it is local it is able to be responsive.

I want everyone to have a sense of belonging to their community. Community is the bedrock of security and opportunity.

I see local government as a partner for central government, providing services that make communities safer and stronger.

So that’s our vision: strongly democratic local government, responsive to its own community, working alongside central government to create development and provide services.

When I listen to the Minister of Local Government it too often seems that he sees not the potential for you to contribute, but rather he sees local government as a monster that needs to be restrained. Often it sounds like he sees local government as out of control, doing far more than it should and being reckless and irresponsible with ratepayers’ money.

His ideology is that corporate and unaccountable decision-making is better than transparent and democratic decision-making.

He thinks decisions made in Wellington, and in boardrooms, are better than decisions made by communities.

The Minister trusts hand-picked appointees more than he trusts the people to run our communities.

The Government talks about transparency and accountability – but it is shifting decision-making power, and the management of assets and services, into private hands.

Moving behind closed doors.

That vision mistrusts communities, and it replaces the wishes of the many with the decisions of the few.

I reject that vision because it’s not local, and it’s not responsive.

Labour’s 2002 Local Government Act was based on the idea that local authorities would be responsive to their communities.

Councils were required to consult, and to be transparent.

There were things that it couldn’t do – such as privatising residents’ and ratepayers’ assets against their wishes.

At the end of consultation, councils need to be able to make and implement a decision.

They also need constantly to strive to improve their performance, and reduce costs.

Rates must be kept at reasonable levels, especially in these times when families are finding it tough to have something left over at the end of the week.

But what I don’t support is taking away the power of local communities and councils to make their decisions locally whenever appropriate, rather than being constrained by tight restrictions written in Wellington.

The Government is setting up local government with too many restrictions, new costs and controls.

The result is they are making councils less responsive to local communities.

Instead of what communities want, it is all about what central government wants.

In his speech to you here yesterday, the prime minister said the Local Government Amendment Bill is aimed at getting council decision-making to focus on what he called ‘core principles’.

He described these as waste collection, transport, and water supply.

That’s his list of core services, but look what is missing from the new Bill:

Involvement in economic development.

Involvement in protection of the environment.

A council role in social well-being through, for example, pensioner housing.

What if communities want their councils to do those things?

Many councils won’t be clear about if their communities want a focus on these things.

That’s because the Bill before parliament sets aside some vital requirements to consult – for example on community outcomes in the long term plan, or on the sale of important assets.

Consultation can be demanding for councils, but it is essential to strong communities.

The same principles that have been behind the changes in the Local Government Amendment Bill have also been driving re-organisation in Auckland.

Labour recognised the need to reform Auckland. We set up the Royal Commission there to look at the region’s governance.

I support a vision for a united Auckland.

What I don’t support is re-organisation that takes the local out of local government.

You can’t make communities stronger by reducing the community voice and the responsiveness of local government to its own community.

There are huge possibilities for Auckland, and what the new council can achieve.

Strong communities, that make the city a great place for families and a great place to enjoy its stunning physical environment.

Smart economic development, that creates jobs and opportunity out of clean twenty-first century technology and infrastructure.

A cheap, fast and convenient transport network, and dual waterfronts that will become a magnet for Aucklanders and visitors from around the world.

All this is within our reach.

It’s a vision for a great city, and great communities.

Essential to achieving that was to ensure Aucklanders had a say in – and a sense of ownership over – the future of their city.

But this historic reform of Auckland has been soured.

Aucklanders weren’t listened to, and the rushed process has only alienated us further.

People feel steamrolled.

Opinion polls consistently report a majority of Aucklanders feeling negative and doubtful about the Super City.

Only a fifth to a third support the changes.

The mistakes the Government has made in Auckland are important – because they are not simply flaws in a shambolic process. They are the result of the way the National-led Government thinks about communities.

They distrust communities, and so they constrained the powers of local boards.

Labour will change the law to guarantee local boards real decision making powers.

The Government trusts the boardroom over the ballot box, and so it has handed 75 per cent of the new city’s operations and services to council companies.

Labour says that how council controlled organisations operate is a decision Auckland should make, not Wellington.

The Government sees the city not as a community, but as a corporation, and clearly intends for the business side of local government to be privatised.

It has removed the requirement to get support in a binding referendum before the Ports of Auckland can be sold.

Labour will legislate to restore protection to public assets.

Labour wants to see New Zealand building our assets up, not selling them off.

The Government doesn’t think ratepayers need to be consulted before strategic assets are sold.

Labour will give Aucklanders a say, through consultation and, where it’s needed, through a referendum.

It is generations of Auckland residents and ratepayers who paid for these assets, and Aucklanders as a whole should determine their future.

In Auckland the democratic process has been compromised. In Canterbury it has been chopped off at the knees.

The decision to suspend elections for three and a half years has deprived Cantabrians of a voice.

It means they no longer have access to protections under the Resource Management Act that other New Zealanders enjoy.

Frustration with decision-making there is not a reason to remove the ability of the community to make decisions at all.

The Government appointed commissioners in Canterbury to make decisions about resource consents and to make Water Conservation Orders.

Those orders can’t be challenged.

It is taxation without representation, and that has never been a good way to govern.

There is nothing local, representative or responsive about it.

I think the Government has under-estimated the depth of public concern over this issue in Canterbury.

Labour will rescind the Act that removed the voice of the people of Canterbury. We will hold elections as soon as possible.

Behind the swinging axe in Canterbury are water issues.

And water is a major area of local reform where the Government has an agenda Labour cannot accept.

It is proposing to allow private ownership of water infrastructure for up to 35 years.

That is almost two generations, and eleven electoral cycles.

That is effectively, to all intents, privatisation, even if the asset is returned back to the Council at the end of the contracting period.

New Zealanders want their water infrastructure to be run efficiently but not as a money-making venture for private profit.

We do not want the profits from water disappearing to overseas owners.

I am clear about this – private ownership of water infrastructure for 35-years will result in New Zealanders’ hard earned cash disappearing into the hands of the foreign investors who will buy up the asset.

We can’t afford that in good times. In tight times like today, families will not be able to find the extra costs that private owners will demand.

The record of privatised monopolies around the world is a record of higher prices for consumers.

Water is a natural monopoly. No one is ever going to build a competing set of pipes.

If there is one thing worse than a public monopoly, it is a private one.

It will charge as much as it can. And no one will be able to choose to buy water from a competitor.

If public utilities over-charge, voters can throw you out. That is a fierce control on you.

If you don’t do an adequate job of your water supply, they will remove you at elections.

But protections on foreign-owned utility investors have a habit of slipping away.

Many cash-strapped local authorities are looking for ways to find the long-term investment funds needed to build their infrastructure.

Central government has an obligation to partner local government in resolving this issue.

There is a lot we can do to help.

I want to tell you that Labour is carefully looking at far-reaching options to help.

It is obvious to me that we have a savings problem in New Zealand; We don’t save enough and at the same time we have a savings industry gutted by the collapse of so many finance companies in recent years.

Meanwhile we have local needs all over New Zealand for infrastructure investment.

Central government faces similar challenges funding infrastructure.

New Zealanders’s can earn a return on their savings and help to build our national and local infrastructure at the same time.

We can do all that in a way that provides the capital required and protects communities from unfair price rises and privatisation.

One idea is the concept of local government bonds, which would allow local authorities to efficiently access capital markets and lower the cost of their funding.

This idea originated with the Capital Markets Development Taskforce last year.

Labour set the Taskforce up, and this is an idea that came out of it with a lot of potential.

We see bonds as an opportunity for Mum and Dad investors who have been burned by finance company collapses to invest their savings knowing it’s good for the community. Their investment can achieve a fair rate of return, and it’s safer.

The use of bonds avoids privatisation of assets that are often monopolies.

Since the Taskforce proposed the bonds, the Government has so far failed to implement it.

I am less persuaded about the merits of public-private partnerships.

Any infrastructure ultimately has to be paid for by either rates or user charges. In a PPP the final cost to the public must take into account the private contractor’s return on investment.

Its cost of capital will always be higher than the cost to government. Governments can borrow cheaply because they are less risky.

So I am sceptical that PPPs are the major answer to the funding challenges councils face.

At the heart of our vision for local government is our commitment to truly local government dedicated to providing services to strong communities.

Democratic control is the best way to ensure services align with community wishes. It’s the best way to make sure everyone gets their say.

I want institutions of government to be managed in the public interest, and for the public good.

The actions of this Government in Auckland, in Canterbury, and with the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill, are not consistent with a vision of stronger communities.

They are not consistent with developing local economies, nor good environmental management.

Labour will support efforts to improve efficiency and reduce red tape and unnecessary costs.

But we will build them into our vision of government that is closer to communities, not further away.

That is an agenda for the future. It is Labour’s agenda now in Opposition, and when we return to Government. 

Ends