Better Regional Boundaries Bill

Better Regional Boundaries Bill First Reading TIM COSTLEY (National—Ōtaki) (20:59): I move, That the Better Regional Boundaries Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill, and at the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 21 September 2026. I am proud to be the MP for Ōtaki, and although the electorate is changing its name this year to Kāpiti, towns like Ōtaki still really matter to me. This country is full of small towns like this, which can sometimes feel like they have been left behind. They were, of course, the heart of New Zealand and the place in which our nation’s growth was built, in them and around them. But, over time, in the drift towards the larger urban centres, the big cities, the big smoke, we saw that sort of utilitarian approach. I spoke about this in my maiden speech—that thought that we just do the greatest good for the greatest number. The problem is it can marginalise those who are left on the edges. There has been great development that comes to places like Ōtaki. I think of Transmission Gully, the Kāpiti Expressway, and the Ōtaki expressway, which was built by the last National Government, and now our Government is extending it up to Levin. It’s important that we do things like bypass the traffic but not the people. As I walked down the street on Monday and I spoke with Jill, Gary, and Nicky, helping them with Kāinga Ora, and I think about Martin and Rob, who I was helping with health issues, and many others, and I think: what is it? As a backbench MP, we get to do one thing. We get to put one idea in the biscuit tin to try and do one thing. Some people will choose something that’s really important to them at a personal level, or it might be based on ideology or party values. I wasn’t going let that opportunity go past without doing something that would make a meaningful difference to people in the community that I have the privilege of representing. So, if you are in a town like Ōtaki—wherever you are around the country—this bill is for you. Let me tell you a story. It’s about a gentleman—and he’s given me permission to share his story this evening—from Ōtaki who is in his fifth year battling leukaemia. In fact, this Saturday, I’ll be climbing the Sky Tower with all our firefighters to raise money for Blood Cancer New Zealand. I’m doing that in memory of my dad, who passed away nine years ago, but also, now, Uncle Denny, who sadly passed away over the weekend. This gentleman from Ōtaki—he’s in his fifth year of battling leukaemia—and he tells me that when he needs care, he gets excellent care in Wellington Hospital—great treatment. The problem is, because our hospital boundaries are different to the primary health organisation boundaries, and they are also all different to the ambulance boundaries—because we have Wellington Free and St John’s—if he calls an ambulance, it will take him to Palmerston North, but the support he needs is in Wellington. Because of these conflicting boundaries, three times in the last five years when he has had to go to hospital, instead of being able to call an ambulance, his partner has driven him so that he can get to Wellington Hospital to get his support. It shouldn’t be that hard, but sadly it’s not just in health that we hit this issue. Police, courts, Corrections—they all have different area boundaries or inconsistent boundaries in our area. If you want social housing, you go to Kāinga Ora, and you have to go to Porirua, but they’ll say first of all go to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to get on the wait-list, but you can’t go to the Porirua MSD office. You don’t even go to the Paraparaumu one. You now have to turn around and go an hour and a bit up north, up to Levin, but there’s, effectively, no public transport between Ōtaki and Levin, because council lines, which organise public transport, divide the two in half. Civil Defence: well, Ōtaki is part of Kāpiti Coast, and so the civil defence committee meets in Paraparaumu, but the police that meet there aren’t actually responsible for Ōtaki. Now, I back our police to make sure people get looked after, but the ones they need are actually meeting with the Horowhenua Council in Levin. I could give you examples from education as well. In fact, I’ll give you one to show that this is broader than just my electorate. I’ve spoken to two staff members from Ruapehu College in Ohakune. Their support comes from the four winds. They might get Oranga Tamariki out of Whanganui, police out of Taumarunui, and MSD might come from somewhere else—they’ve had Taihape; they’ve had Tūrangi. Someone I spoke to today said, “Actually one lot are getting support from Rotorua.” The problem is that it is all over the place, it is inconsistent, and I could give examples like Mayor Tim King, the mayor of Tasman, who spoke to me and told me about the social services meeting he has and how it should be 10 people in the room from the 10 organisations. It’s 25, because their boundaries all overlap, and he needs a little bit from this area and a bit from that area. I think I’ve heard examples from Murupara, caught between Whakatāne and Rotorua. I’ve heard examples from Taupō and other parts of Waikato overlapping; East Coast and Hawke’s Bay, Southland—on and on it goes. What is the point? This bill fixes the messy web. I’ve just got to show the messy web of confusion. This is just a few of the many different conflicting boundaries that sit—here’s Ōtaki, here’s Kāpiti office, here’s Horowhenua; they’re all over the place—the boundaries. This is the web. This is the problem that this bill is going to fix, and it fixes it with a really simple and elegant solution. It requires that every Crown agency must use the same boundary. It’s that simple. We could get caught up and we could focus on the time frames for implementation—I’m sure we’ll cover that in select committee, if members will support it there. We can focus on exactly where the line goes, but let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture. It is requiring that there is one single line that every Government agency uses for consistency, and my starting point for that, in this first draft, is to use local council boundaries. We have asked local councils to do their homework this year to look at where regional councils sit—because they don’t all line up—to look at where they should amalgamate and where they can work together and increase efficiency. It is appropriate that Government agencies would be doing the same thing and looking at how can we make Government simpler: less bureaucracy, less red tape—the kind of values that our Government believes in. That’s what this bill is about. Of course, there will be big cities that will have to—think about Auckland; it’s not just going to have one site or one hub. Yes, that can get divided up. This bill specifically allows for that. There may be some smaller councils that will group together into one area. That’s fine. There will be exceptions, and the bill specifically allows for this, but what we have now is a mess that is easily solvable. That’s what this bill does. Take my electorate for example. Horowhenua, Kāpiti, Levin and Paraparaumu—both have an MSD office; they both have health; they both have Oranga Tamariki; they both have corrections; they both have police. Ōtaki could always be going one way or the other, and I suggest to Kāpiti because it looks south and that’s the council it’s a part of. It could be doing that all the time, but at the moment, it is stuck in the mess that it is in and we can fix that. Now, I don’t want to create more work. I don’t want to increase cost. I’m not setting up a new office. It doesn’t employ more staff. In fact, it gives a five-year time frame for implementation. If the adjustment means that there’s one job that’s currently in Levin that has to move to Paraparaumu, it can do that through natural attrition over the next five years. This is not a rush of bureaucracy. This is about making pragmatic changes that make it easier for our community. Let me be clear, it is too hard to get help. There are too many small towns where good, honest Kiwis feel left behind, overlooked, where they feel undervalued or forgotten. They deserve support as much as any other New Zealander. We cannot let prioritising Government bureaucrats be the excuse that we don’t prioritise the people that we are here to serve. This is not about making it easier for the Government to exist; it’s about making it easier for every Kiwi to access the support that their Government exists to provide for them. That’s what this bill is about. I do believe this will make it easier for Government agencies and the civil servants that look after us, because simpler boundaries, consistent relationships, lead to simpler and stronger relationships, and that leads to better support for our community. I’m genuinely open to good engagement through the select committee process to look at the time frames, to look at the boundaries to see where this can be improved further. I would love to get to that point so that we can engage on this and say, “How do we make our Government agencies work for the people of this country?” I only have one bottom line, and it’s a really simple line; it’s a line on a map like this, but it’s a line that aligns every Crown agency so that we can all navigate our way with simplicity and clarity through what is, currently, a messy web of confusing and conflicting bureaucracy that makes life harder for the very ones that it is designed to support. Everything else is on the table. My motivation here is helping the people of Kāpiti, helping the people of Ōtaki; the people in every town across New Zealand so that they can live a better life, an easier life with more opportunity. If fixing the basics of our regional boundaries enables that, enables families where I come from to build a better future, if it takes one step towards that, I’m proud to put my name to it and I commend the bill to the House. DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to. TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) (21:09): Madam Speaker, thank you. Kia orana. I want to acknowledge the member who has had his bill drawn. This is a sort of strange, peculiar thing of the New Zealand Parliament that we rely on a DEKA biscuit tin to determine what’s going to be debated on members’ days. I do want to acknowledge Tim Costley for having his bill drawn. Those members who have had their opportunity know that it is something that’s unique, but also pretty special. I also know that Mr Costley alluded to his sort of family connection and why he’s doing certain things, and I also want to acknowledge his late father, Mr Costley, who was my lecturer at Teacher’s College—who was a fellow history teacher. I do want to acknowledge that. It just reminded me actually of that. He was a fine man, and I just wanted to make the connection there. I’ll put the member out of the misery of having to wait: the Labour Party will be supporting this bill through to select committee this evening. The interesting thing is that there are a number of issues that Mr Costley has touched on that we think, actually, the select committee process will be a good way to tease some of that stuff out. One of the interesting things that many in this House will know—and it’s actually not just if you are located perhaps in a rural or provincial area; sometimes, when you are located in wholly urban areas, it kind of beggars belief where you happen to be lumped into in terms of a regional sort of construct there. We do think there are some opportunities here to try and make things a bit easier for households in terms of who they can liaise with when they decide they need some support or they want to go and have a conversation about something, because it is very frustrating. I acknowledge that primarily in regional New Zealand, this is indeed an issue, but I also want to note that it’s not just in regional New Zealand. Sometimes, in other parts of the country, this is the same issue that folk do come up against. If we look at a family that might be engaging with a whole range of different Government departments, entities, agencies—they go to one place which happens to be where the Ministry of Education region is located; perhaps in Whanganui, whereas the Ministry of Social Development location might be further south. If a family or others might need to engage with Oranga Tamariki, that might be a whole different region as well. We get into this kind of web where the points of contact that a family has to go through or an individual has to go through—one day you are contacting the person based in Palmerston North; the next day you’re contacting someone based on the East Coast; the next day you’re contacting someone perhaps in Whanganui or in the Hutt; and you have not moved house—you are in the same location. There are some opportunities around trying to clarify how far that goes. At the end of the day, it creates, often, another barrier for dealing with some of these agencies. Sometimes, you don’t have the choice as a person about where that agency might reside, because you have to engage with them, but if this is the difference between actually wanting to find out some information and not, the fact that you are dealing with multiple locations could be a disincentive for you to want to engage. I would hope that the focus of this bill is about encouraging a little bit of conformity in that sense, and also making it easier for people to engage with the process. I know that the member whose bill this is talked about wanting to be pragmatic around that, and I think the select committee process will certainly be a part of that. We in the Labour Party welcome the aspiration around the possibility of what has been defined as regional hubs: that you could have one singular door that you would go through, in terms of being able to access regional services, based on where you live. Where the lines on the map are, I think, will be the interesting sort of situation there. It is interesting, though, that the reason why we are discussing this is because it has relied on a member putting this bill in the tin and the luck of the draw of being drawn out. The reality is that the Government could initiate a change like this tomorrow. The Cabinet could issue a minute that would give effect to entities and agencies having a particular focus in a regional sense around where they would function. I guess it’s peculiar, or curious, that if this is something that makes some sense, the Government is relying on one of its own members to pursue this rather than utilising the options that are already available to it. There are some consequences that might be expected if an agency doesn’t follow this or the reporting mechanism, in terms of a requirement to report back to the House if not followed through with, but there are actually no consequences in the bill as drafted if nobody takes that course of action. The bill itself says that there’s a requirement to inform or disclose—what might that look like? I take the five-year time frame, but what happens if someone doesn’t do that? In that sense, the bill should perhaps have some teeth as a penalty provision or an incentive to ensure that someone does actually abide by it. There’s nothing at the moment, that I can see, that actually acts as a disincentive, to ensure that, actually, “This is the expectation; you need to do it.” What are the consequences if someone doesn’t do it? That might be something that the select committee turns its mind to, around, “OK, these are the expectations and obligations or responsibilities, but if they’re not done, then what is the consequence?” If there’s a five-year time frame—and let’s say Manawatū is a particular region that needs to be drawn up—there’s an expectation under the bill that, once those lines are drawn, that information is effectively tabled, but if the people that are making these decisions don’t do it, what is going to be the consequence or the follow-up of that? While it’s important to have these things, having some teeth in that space is important. One of the other avenues the Government could pursue is that the Public Service Commissioner could issue some guidance around how that works with the Public Service Act 2020—but, of course, the Government wouldn’t be doing that right now, because they’re too busy looking at sacking people in the Public Service, which seems to be their modus operandi at the moment. Dana Kirkpatrick: You were going so well, Tangi! TANGI UTIKERE: I just speak the truth and the reality of the circumstance, Dana Kirkpatrick—that’s what it’s all about. There are options available to the Government, and it’s, again, just a little bit peculiar that they haven’t decided to exercise that. One of the things that is also going to be perhaps a bit of a challenge is that there is an expectation that local government, as a sector, would be part of this process, in terms of looking at a map and where one might draw the lines. Of course, the current Government have started on a bit of a process—this head-start process—that still is a little bit uncertain. There is a little bit of unease around where the role of local government might sit within the context of the member’s bill. Now, who knows what might happen in terms of the future. Some of those boundaries might look different than they do today; they might look similar, we don’t know. I accept that the bill itself was lodged well before the current Government’s local government reforms were initiated, but I do think that is a tricky area, which certainly colleagues on the side of the House would be keen to tease out through the select committee process around this expectation that local government—the boundaries and catchment opportunities that sit there. It makes logical sense that, if you’re looking to have some better regional boundaries, surely there must be some applicability of local government and local councils. The issue that we would have at the moment is just the uncertainty that might present itself as a result of a process that’s currently under way without that particular process being concluded. The select committee will have a number of things that it will need to turn its mind to. We are supporting this bill here at first reading as a way in which we’re supporting it going to select committee, so that some of these issues can be ironed out. I know the member is keen to make this bill workable; he has indicated that. The Labour Party is keen to work with him to ensure that what is coming out of the select committee process is something that we can perhaps continue to support. I hope that the sort of observations and reflections that have been identified already will be part of a constructive approach to trying to make this bill a better bill, and fundamentally that’s what the select committee process is about. We’ll hear from the community and look forward to seeing what emerges. For now, I’m happy to commend this bill in the House. MIKE DAVIDSON (Green) (21:19): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak to the Better Regional Boundaries Bill. I’d like to acknowledge Tim Costley for the luck of drawing this one out—and, not only that, just 20 days later, it is in front of us. Well done on that effort. When we look at this this bill, as mentioned earlier, this doesn’t need to be legislation to happen. It didn’t actually require that legislative change. The Ministers do have the levers right now to actually make these changes. There is a little bit of concern that this bill could lead to unproductive restructuring of regional offices of departments, which needs to be worked through to ensure that doesn’t happen—and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to see that happen yourself. But in reality, it’s a pretty small bill, but it does have the potential to actually make a bit of difference for a lot of people that are finding access to Government agencies difficult if they’re in different locations, and so therefore, it does have merit. It is a shame that we’re having to use legislation to actually do this when it could have been done without it, and potentially imagine what else you could have had as a member’s bill if they had just actually done this, which potentially does make sense and could achieve a lot of issues for people that are struggling, especially in those more isolated communities. The Green Party will be supporting this to the select committee, and it is interesting with the timing, which was also just mentioned. Obviously, you probably weren’t aware of what was happening in the local government space when you drafted this bill, but obviously, regional councils will soon not exist and local territorial authorities are going for a big reform of lots of restructure, boundary changes, mergers. It’s just making sure that the outcome of that doesn’t impact too greatly your intent here, and how that also all works together when it’s all tied together. This will be good when it goes through the select committee process. I think it’s actually got the nuggets of a really good outcome for people, and especially people that that you serve and other MPs in similar constituencies where their constituents are isolated a bit more than in the urban environment. Once again, the Green Party will support this bill to the select committee. Kia ora. CAMERON LUXTON (ACT) (21:22): Thank you. Madam Speaker. I would like to acknowledge the hard work of a local MP who has identified issues that he feels are important in his community and drafted what he’s put on the table as a potential solution to that. Well done, Tim Costley, on your hard work in your constituency on coming up with this. I think the debate highlights some issues that small towns across New Zealand are torn in different ways, and the member himself acknowledged that as the society, the way our demographic spread has happened, the way our country has built up, boundaries have been changed, created, drawn apart, pushed together, spread out, and boundaries have grown and changed, perhaps not as originally designed but evolving as our country has changed. There are towns like Ōtaki and Levin that the member has mentioned. He also mentioned another town, Murupara—I think I know where he got that suggestion from—that is divided in different ways for different public services. I can see the rationale, and there is a rationale there. However, when I read this bill, without going too hard on the member, it’s a little bit toothless in a way. It says that a relevant agency must divide New Zealand into administrative areas “to the greatest extent possible”. As the member Tangi Utikere has described, there’s not a lot in there. It said that the relevant agencies “must co-operate with and coordinate activities with … other relevant agencies.” That begs the question: when this is going through, when St John says this should be our boundary and Health New Zealand says we want this boundary, how is the conflict worked out? In the hierarchy of decisions, who actually gets the say on that? When it’s coming to coordinating these, that is something that I feel like a piece of legislation passed through the House without, as I’ll go on, some more teeth, and perhaps a hierarchy and a schedule, it’s hard to make the call on who holds precedent there. And you can imagine some public servants would be protective of their patch and the people they serve in their part of that process. It’s got another part here, “Before issuing guidance the Commissioner,”—meaning the Public Service Commissioner—“must consult with Local Government New Zealand.” Well, as has been identified, we have a change in local government coming over the next five years. Yeah, it’s good to consult and that, but writing it into a bill in the middle of a change process sort of doesn’t seem like it’s going to make things any simpler. The member has acknowledged—and rightfully so, because I know he’s in it that efficient member of this House who wants things to be done right and cost-effectively—he doesn’t want to create more work and I worry that this would be a costly process to go through. There’s another part in there that, “The Commissioner must report annually to the Minister on how relevant agencies have been complying with this Act.” I know in my area of Tauranga, there are specific requirements about how much housing supply has to be organised. And ever since the dark days of the commission, Tauranga City Council has just been writing to the Government and saying, we can’t comply with this law, and nothing changes from that. It’s one thing to pass law, it’s another thing to actually have it enforced and just writing and saying, “no, we haven’t complied yet” seems like another bureaucratic hurdle that will be in place until some future Parliament decides maybe this wasn’t relevant anymore. The bill does not confer—and this is something Tangi Utikere talked about, the consequences, as the bill does not confer or impose a legal right or obligation, which is kind of the point at the end of the reading of this not super long bill. It doesn’t seem to have a force function. It doesn’t seem to get anywhere if you haven’t gone through it. As I say, there’s a whole lot of friction in the process before that that I can’t see, without something making that friction move, is going to go anywhere. Finally, I’d just like to say we do have a Minister for the Public Service. The Minister for the Public Service and the Minister of Finance oversee the Public Service Commission. There is a pathway to having this sort of change brought about. It’s writing to the Ministers in charge, advocating for this, saying maybe we should do some rationalisation. Having it as a policy to simplify government is a direction that could be pursued. But up until this point, Madam Speaker, I cannot commend this bill to the House. ANDY FOSTER (NZ First) (21:27): Thanks, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on this bill, and first of all, congratulations to Tim Costley and the work you’ve done to get to this point. The purpose sounds admirable, the rationalisation of boundaries and the lining boundaries and so on, but we’ve already heard—and, in fact it was from that very member himself on a previous bill tonight—about problem definition, about actually making sure that there actually is a problem, and this to some degree feels like a solution which is looking for a problem. The question to us is: what is the scale of the problem, and then what is the cost of fixing that problem? It is not a cost-free one as I will come to very, very shortly. The question is whether a problem naturally exists. Now, what we’re talking about here is central government services. Now, if it’s central government—if I want the police, I ring the police. I don’t actually care particularly whether it’s the Wellington Police, the Otago Police, whatever it might be—I want the police. If it’s the hospital, it’s the local hospital. You know what I’m saying. If it’s the Department of Conservation (DOC), I want—which conservancy do I want? I will ring that one. It doesn’t matter that I happen to live in that area or don’t happen to live in there. I’m going up Mount Taranaki? OK, I’ll get in touch with the Taranaki ones. That’s the way that you deal with Government agencies because they are national agencies—they just happen to be split or organised across the country in particular ways. Now, the idea here is, unusually, to have central government agencies aligned with local government. Normally, we do it the other way around—central government tells local government to do, but anyway. The interesting thing there is we’ve got this idea that we will consult with Local Government New Zealand in putting this together. We’ll probably do more consultation on doing this than we will on changing the local government boundaries, I might say, as Tangi Utikere has just said. Now, I do note that many councils want change, but they’re a little worried about the rate and the way in which it’s being proposed at the moment. Now, let’s have a look at how many agencies we’ve got. At the moment, we have 67 territorial authorities (TAs), 67 local government councils. That may well reduce over a period of time. Now, think about the central government agencies. NZTA is actually pretty well-aligned. Why are they aligned with local government pretty well? Because they work hand in glove all the time with local government. That is not generally true with most of the others. I invite you to think about what the complexities will be, and the costs would be, of changing not just the boundaries, but inevitably you would need to change the organisational structures of just about every single Government agency to respond to this if it was mandated. Think about the police. We’ve already said—how many did we say?—67 TAs. The police have 12 districts—three of them are actually in Auckland, so they’d have to combine those three because we will not have three of them where you’ve got one council. That means nine for the rest of the country. That’s the police. The Department of Conservation (DOC) has 15 conservancies. They’re not actually badly aligned; a little bit off in the North Island but the South Island’s actually pretty well aligned with wider regions, but not entirely. Social welfare; 11 districts. Fire and Emergency New Zealand, one of Tim Costley’s and my favourite organisations at the moment; they have five districts. Health has four regions; they used to have 20 district health boards. Heritage New Zealand has six. That’s just a starter. Now, my point is that if you said to every one of them, they’ve got to start aligning their boundaries in some way, or their organisational structure in some way, with territorial authority boundaries, you’re going to have to throw the whole lot up in the air and they will have to work that out. Instead of having X number of district commissioners, they’ll have to have a completely different number of district commissioners. That is not a cost-free exercise by any stretch of the imagination, and that is not the direction that this Government has been going. It’s been trying to make things more efficient. This potentially could make things a lot less efficient. There’s one thing I’ve learnt and that is things are usually a way for a particular reason. Each one of those Government agencies has probably arranged itself in a particular way because that fits with the way in which it delivers its services. Police, Health, DOC do not deliver the same services in the same way, by any stretch of the imagination. I think we all know that. They’re organised to deliver completely different services, and so they are organised in the way that works for them to do that. Now, we don’t want to create more work. I think Tim Costley said that. This, I think, will create a lot more work. You said it wouldn’t change one job, that it wouldn’t matter whether the job is in Levin or Paraparaumu, but it’s not about doing that. It’s about changing entire organisational structures, and that is the challenge. Just to finish off: Tangi Utikere also said, look, if we had an agency, if I’ve got to go and deal with one agency in Palmerston, one in Hawke’s Bay, and one in Whanganui, are we saying to them, actually, instead of doing that, I want them all in Palmerston? That is a very expensive proposition to start doing that, to relocate organisations. The one other thing I would say, just to finish off: if this does go through—as it looks it probably will at this stage, and I will counsel you to think again about it—how do Government agencies engage with this bill as they go through? Normally, we don’t have Government agencies come and advocate to us, but we would need to make damn sure that the Government agencies could tell us why they’re organised the way they are organised, and if they think this is going to be a problem and think it’s going to be a costly problem, we would need—sorry for the pun, there: a “Costley” problem—we would need to make sure they told us that and they were enabled to do so. I do not commend this bill to the House. Hon Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangārei) (21:32): I’d like to congratulate the member Tim Costley, one, for the work going into this bill and, two, for having it drawn through the ballot box. Well done, and thank you. It’s really clear what the problem is to solve here; the problem definition: it’s Government agencies administratively being able to use different territorial and regional boundaries. That’s the problem we’re trying to solve. It’s really simple. There are five mechanisms that the member is putting forward to do this: the Public Service agencies and Crown agents must use the same geographic administrative boundaries as territorial local authorities (TLA) and regions; agencies are required to consult with each other; the Public Service Commissioner is to issue guidance. Point 4: the existing administrative boundaries have a five-year transition period. The final point there is that it’s not legally enforceable—the Act as it’s being described here now. Now, of course, there will be challenges. I could think of a challenge, for example, in Taupō. That is one TLA that actually has four regions passing into Taupō district. That could be a challenge, but this is all navigable. If I look at Northland district health board (DHB), Northland DHB region had three TLAs: Kaipara, Northland, and Far North. Their southern boundary was all the same, at Topuni, which is the southern part of Kaipara. This has been done before, and I’m sure it can be done again. I think the member’s putting a very reasonable proposition, giving a reasonable time frame for transition, not making it specifically legally enforceable. I’d make the point that there are many things that come through members’ bills that, for one reason or another, are not Government orders of the day, and that relates to a number of things including the attention that a private member’s bill can bring in a busy legislative agenda, the resources that a private member’s bill can bring, as well. I don’t find this at all unusual that a quality proposition like this should come through as a member’s bill. In fact, again, I congratulate the member for the work he’s done to get it to this place. I commend the bill to the House. CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) (21:34): Madam Speaker, thank you. I’m pleased to take a call on this member’s bill, and, like the other members’ bills I’ve been honoured to be able to take a call on today, I’d like to take the opportunity to congratulate the member for having this bill drawn from the ballots. It’s a difficult thing, and it’s always something to celebrate when it does happen. My colleague Tangi Utikere has really set out Labour’s fundamental position in relation to this. I think it is worth noting that the intention here really is for efficiency and ease, as far as I can see, for members of the public. I think, especially for those who live in regional New Zealand, that can be particularly tricky. I think it can be difficult. One example that especially sprung to mind as I was looking at this bill was the Chatham Islands. For example, they have a number of different areas which are responsible for them. I know that’s probably not the area that the member was thinking of, but health and their council—I mean, they’re in different islands, literally, where they get different services, on the Chatham Islands. So I do think there is value in this. We have heard that this could be something that the Government could do separately, and there is, of course, the review of local government that’s happening at the moment. Obviously, that’s not something the member can control—either of those things, actually—and so I do acknowledge that, with members’ bills, we often take the path that is available to us in order to make a change. It is interesting to hear others speaking against it in relation to cost. I would assume—and it would be good to know in select committee and to have that through the member’s submission on this—that the objective in due course would be to reduce cost, and that would be the basis of us supporting this and also supporting the greater alignment of this bill. I didn’t catch exactly where this bill is going to be sent. I assume it’s the Governance and Administration Committee, which is a great committee. I enjoyed my time on the Governance and Administration Committee very much, and I think it will be the perfect place to make sure any issues are ironed out. I’m sure this will be a popular bill and many of the people who are very passionate about local government will submit to it. I hope, and I know, the member will take it really seriously, as well, because that’s the type of MP he is, and we’ll make sure that it’s in the best possible place when it comes back to the House. I don’t really have that much more to add on it. I do have quite extensive notes here, but I won’t delay the passage of the bill any further by going through all of them. They have been covered extensively, mainly by Tangi Utikere. I do want to commend the member and also commend this bill to the House. Hon MELISSA LEE (National) (21:37): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d like to begin by saying that obviously I support this bill, and I’d like to acknowledge my colleague Tim Costley, who is an excellent local member. I just want to say I was really jealous when this bill went into the ballot, when it actually came to caucus. I don’t know how it is in other parties, but members actually draw up a member’s bill and they have to take it to caucus and it has to pass caucus before it can be put in the ballot. The reason why I say I was really jealous is that I was working on something very similar. The reason why I was actually working on something very similar is that one of the things that I found very annoying, as a member of Parliament, is trying to engage with Government departments, for example, the Police. When you’re in a particular electorate, sometimes you don’t just deal with one policing district; you’re having to engage with three or four, because the boundary actually means that the police boundary is different to the electorate boundary. I thought this is totally annoying and then realised that it’s a similar thing with the Ministry of Social Development, Kāinga Ora, all that kind of stuff. I thought, “Oh my god, there’s got to be a better way.” I started working on something very similar. I got the Library to help me, and by the time they actually finished, I had this map. Tim Costley called it a web. Mine actually looked like—I don’t know what to call it; it was just a gigantic mess. It was like boundaries everywhere, one after the other. Nothing really aligned. Then I thought, “This could be an absolutely perfect member’s bill to take to caucus and actually do this.” And then he beat me to it. He had already written up the bill. That’s why I say I’m really, really jealous. I hope this actually works—you know, Speedy Gonzalez he is. Anyway, I’m really proud that he worked on a very similar concept, and I just think this will actually be a fantastic thing for a lot of the communities who find themselves in situations that Tim explained, having to go to hospitals and if they’re taken by one particular ambulance, they go to one part, as in Palmerston North, and the other one actually goes to Wellington. I think that will be something that we can iron out through this bill. One of the things you find when you’re talking to people is that people want simple answers to their issues. When you are ill, you want to know that you’re looked after—not exactly wanting to know “Do I belong in this health district?”, or “Do I belong in this Kāinga Ora office?”, or “Do I have to go to this Ministry of Social Development office?” They actually want to know there is one place they can go and get their business sorted. When you actually get the Public Service agencies and Crown agents—I mean, the way that Tim’s said, we need to set this boundary and it will take five years for each Government entity to align their boundaries and align them with local authority boundaries. I like the fact that, when he spoke on this, he said there might be some areas where you can’t exactly align it to the local boundary areas, because rural areas will be different to the city areas. Urban areas will be very different to, let’s say—Auckland will be very different to Palmerston North or Ōtaki or Kaipara, wherever it is. Tauranga will be very different. The thing is that, if there is a boundary that is very clearly lineated so that people are not having to cross over, they’re not actually having to ring three different entities trying to get to the one that they need to actually get to, to get the answer or the help, I think that would be a very, very good thing. I am unsure, because I never actually got to work out how much what I was working on was going to cost, and I have to take the member’s word that this actually doesn’t really have a financial cost to it. Having said that, I look forward to hearing submissions from the public as to what they think of this bill, because I think there’ll be lots and lots of people who would have an opinion. I would urge the public to make submissions on why this will help or hinder them. I commend the bill to the House. LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour—Māngere) (21:42): Thank you. Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call on this bill. I want to acknowledge my colleague Tim Costley, and it’s good to hear that this bill is going to the Governance and Administration Committee—probably one of the best select committees in the House. A number of us sit on that committee. A lot of the points have been traversed already by colleagues, in terms of trying to get efficiency for better regional services, and it doesn’t just exist in that part of the North Island; it’s actually even in Auckland, and my colleague just spoke earlier on the difficulties of the various Government agency boundaries and the confusion with local government boundaries. I look forward to it, because I think that public submissions need to be tested in terms of the efficiencies and cost, in terms of achieving the intent of the bill. I do welcome the bill, and Labour will be supporting this bill to the select committee process to try and achieve alignment and better coordination, because we’ve seen the Government just make a recent announcement on cuts to public services. It’s going to be interesting, but it is needed work. It needs to be reviewed to achieve that. My colleague Tangi Utikere spoke on some of the components—[Interruption] Just waiting for my colleagues here because they’re talking over me. No, they’re just reminding me of a few things. DEPUTY SPEAKER: That’s fair—they were probably distracting you more because you could hear them. LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE: It’s important to attain accountability of the various Government services, so I do welcome and I thank member Costley for raising all those issues and the processes and also the rationalisation, because if there is a better solution that is cost-effective, I’m sure public officials would want to hear that, as well as CEOs and Ministers who do the Votes. I am interested in just hearing from the public what they think, because it’s one thing to deal with Government agencies; it’s different to deal with people from diverse backgrounds. If you’re trying to explain to a matua who’s about 75 going to an appointment that, because they live in one area, they have to go to another area, they just don’t get why it is that that’s the case. In terms of the alignment of the bill, better regional boundaries, that would be very helpful. But it’s also true: are there cost savings that can be made in delivering different Government agency services? I know for local council it’s actually quite frustrating for a lot of residents, and I’m using an example up in Auckland. I did hear a colleague talk about simplicity of rules and regulations, and so, hopefully, we are trying to fix the problem that has been identified. It’s important that infrastructure and investment is aligned as we go into quite a difficult time with the cost of living. I don’t have much more to add. Labour will be supporting it to select committee. I commend this bill to the House. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Tim Costley, in reply. TIM COSTLEY (National—Ōtaki) (21:45): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to, firstly, thank parties across the House who are supporting this bill and enabling it to go to select committee, where we can iron out some of the issues. They were well surmised; there were no surprises in there, but let me just quickly race through a few just to acknowledge the points that were made. One of them was: “Does it need teeth, does it need a bit more?” Tangi Utikere mentioned that; so did Cameron Luxton. It’s an interesting question. Is putting something in law and saying this is a requirement—is that enough, or do you have to have a stick as well to punish someone if they don’t do it? I don’t think New Zealand is the kind of country that you have to have a punishment for everything, that we have to do that. There are a lot of things that are put into law, into legislation in New Zealand, that impose a requirement on someone but don’t have a penalty out the other side. That’s OK. I can think of many from my days in the Defence Force, I can think of some in local government, I can think of them across different agencies, but it’s something I’m very happy to explore in select committee, and I’m open to options, if there is a sensible one, to go with it. The local government amalgamations, obviously, as was mentioned, weren’t happening at the time this was done. I don’t think that changes it. What we’re saying is the fundamental point is that everyone needs to work within the one area. If you live in Horowhenua-Kāpiti; let’s say that they amalgamate—that could just be one big area, because at the moment we’re stretched between offices in Palmerston North, Levin, Paraparaumu, the little one in Ōtaki, Porirua, and Wellington. What we’re saying is let’s have everyone get consistent access. They can pick between Levin or Paraparaumu—that’s fine—or you could split it into two sub-areas that are roughly the current Kāpiti and roughly the current Horowhenua. Auckland will clearly have to be more than one big area, because it’s such a large area. I think that’s a fair consideration and one worth exploring, but also I would note that by the time this passes into law, anyone that’s taking the head-start approach with the current council amalgamations will be locked in; we will know what it is, then the five-year clock starts, so there’ll be plenty of time. The one good point that I thought Andy Foster made was about what will be the impact— Arena Williams: Lots of good points—lots of good points. TIM COSTLEY: —yeah, the one good point—on Government agencies that maybe can’t submit to the select committee. That’s why I will be asking for advisers from the Public Service Commission to see if they can come and give us that perspective. I think it is a useful perspective to consider. I pick up the point that Tangi Utikere made about having regional hubs as an end goal. That’s certainly what I would like to see, where we can one day, as buildings and facilities gradually get done—we just had a new Ministry of Social Development facility last year in Paraparaumu—have a hub where you can literally go to a one-stop shop and get the support you need across Government. It’s not just about one place to go for customers; if you’ve got staff that are regularly working together, building those collaborative relationships, I think that ends up generating a much better experience. I’ll just touch on ACT, and I’m obviously disappointed that colleagues there aren’t supporting this bill. I was actually going to, if it wasn’t drawn a couple of weeks ago—I thought, if I don’t get drawn today, I know how I’ll get this done: I’ll just ring the red tape hotline, because there are some people out there that don’t like regulation that’s holding this country back. They love to do it. That agency seems to be OK, growing, but apparently this one’s not going to help. That’s OK. I don’t know, I just wonder if through the select committee process there might be an opportunity to demonstrate that this is actually about simplifying government—limited government. It’s about having smaller hurdles in the way. It’s about cost savings and efficiency and things that I think are pretty important, but perhaps I don’t share those views with ACT. Can I just finish with Andy Foster, who encouraged members across the House to not support this. I think the fundamental point that may be demonstrated is when you have a party that doesn’t have electorate MPs. The way he described things is, “When I pick up the phone, I just want to get the police. I don’t care where they come from. When I pick up the phone, I just want to get an ambulance.” Well, that’s great, but the problem of the people that I meet day in and day out, in Kāpiti and Ōtaki, is that when they ring 111, they can’t get the ambulance because it will go to the wrong hospital, and that’s where they need to get their care—their specialist care for leukaemia. That was the fundamental point. When they go to see the Ministry of Social Development, they can’t get the service because that office gets supported out of somewhere else. When the when the principal from Te Horo School meets with all the other principals in Kāpiti, and meets with the Oranga Tamariki, it’s the wrong person because it’s from the wrong office. I am not here to make it easier for Government to do government and bureaucracy. I’m here to support the people that sent me and sent every one of us into this place to make it easy for them to get access. That’s what this bill is about, not supporting Government for the sake of government. It’s about supporting people. I commend this bill to the House. A party vote was called for on the question, That the Better Regional Boundaries Bill be now read a first time. Ayes 97 New Zealand National 48; New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15. Noes 25 ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi. Motion agreed to. Bill read a first time. Tim Costley: Madam Speaker? DEPUTY SPEAKER: We have another question here. It’s OK—I know what you’re going to recommend. I think I’ll probably be able to deal with it from here, OK? Tell me if I’m wrong afterwards.