Tuesday, 13 February 2024 - Volume 773 Sitting date: 13 Feb 2024 TUESDAY, 13 FEBRUARY 2024 The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m. KARAKIA/PRAYERS SPEAKER: Almighty God, we give thanks for the blessings which have been bestowed on us. Laying aside all personal interests, we acknowledge the King and pray for guidance in our deliberations that we may conduct the affairs of this House with wisdom, justice, mercy, and humility for the welfare and peace of New Zealand. Amen. LIST MEMBER ELECTED SPEAKER: Members, I have received from the Electoral Commission a return declaring Shanan Halbert to be elected a member of Parliament to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of the Hon Kelvin Davis from his list seat. I understand that Shanan Halbert is present and wishes to take an Oath of Allegiance. Would he please come forward to the chair on my right. MEMBERS SWORN SHANAN HALBERT (Labour): Ko ahau, ko Shanan Kiritea Halbert, e oati ana ka noho pūmau taku pono ki a Kīngi Tiāre te Tuatoru me tōna kāhui whakaheke, e ai ki te ture. Ko te Atua nei hoki taku pou. [I, Shanan Kiritea Halbert, swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles III, His heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.] ADDRESS IN REPLY Presentation to Governor-General SPEAKER: I have to announce that, accompanied by members, I attended upon Her Excellency the Governor-General with the Address agreed to by the House in reply to the speech at the opening of this Parliament. Her Excellency was pleased to make the following reply: Governor-General, Cindy Kiro MR SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I receive with much pleasure the Address which has been adopted by the House of Representatives in reply to my speech at the opening of the First Session of the Fifty-Fourth Parliament of New Zealand. I thank you for your assurance that the matters referred to in my speech will receive your careful consideration. Cindy Kiro, Governor-General. Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Leader of the House): I move, That the reply of Her Excellency the Governor-General be entered in the Journals of the House. Motion agreed to. SPEAKER'S RULINGS Ministerial Responsibility—Origin of Documents SPEAKER: I just wish to read a ruling that I said I'd come back to Parliament with at the end of the week prior. Members, when the House last sat I indicated that I would rule on the extent to which Ministers could be questioned about the origin of documents they use. In practice, a wide view is taken of the concept of ministerial responsibility. Ministers are responsible to the House for all actions taken and statements they make in their capacity as a Minister. Where they are questioned about a matter for which they are responsible, Ministers must give an informative answer. That's not new; it's Speaker's ruling 174/1. Members also raised the issue of prime ministerial responsibility. The Prime Minister is responsible to the House for all the actions of the Government that they head. However, it's not reasonable to expect that the Prime Minister will have detailed knowledge of every matter dealt with by the Government. So while it is fine to ask the Prime Minister what they know about the origin of a document used by a Minister in an official capacity, it is reasonable for the Prime Minister to answer they do not know. My ruling is therefore very much in line with the approach of my predecessors. Ministerial accountability to this House is fundamental to our form of parliamentary democracy, and I continue the expectation that Ministers address questions informatively. PETITIONS, PAPERS, SELECT COMMITTEE REPORTS, AND INTRODUCTION OF BILLS CLERK: Petition of Angela Clifford requesting that the House urgently direct the development of a Government-facilitated food strategy. SPEAKER: That petition stands referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered papers. CLERK: 2022-23 annual reports of the: Armed Forces Canteen Council Drug Free Sport New Zealand Fire and Emergency New Zealand KiwRail Holdings Limited Mercury New Zealand Limited New Zealand Artificial Limb Service New Zealand Lottery Grants Board Transpower New Zealand Limited Treasury, together with the Minister of Finance's Report on Non-Departmental Appropriations. Government Response to Report of Māori Affairs Committee on Māori Climate Adaptation Vote Building and Construction, Report in relation to selected non-departmental appropriations for the year ended 30 June 2023 Agreement between New Zealand and The Slovak Republic For the Elimination of Double Taxation with Respect to Taxes on Income and the Prevention of Tax Evasion and Avoidance, together with the National Interest Analysis Second Protocol to the Agreement between New Zealand and the Republic of Austria with respect to Taxes on Income and on Capital, Done at Vienna on 21 September 2006, together with the National Interest Analysis. SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House. A Select committee report has been delivered for presentation. CLERK: Report of the Petitions Committee on the Petition of Cheryl Singh. SPEAKER: There are no bills for introduction. We come now to questions. POINTS OF ORDER Speaker's Ruling—Request for Ruling on Content of Answers RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Point of order—thank you, Mr Speaker. Just in relation to your previous reflections, last sitting week I raised a point in relation to Speaker's ruling 205/5(1) around Ministers commencing their answers to a question with a political attack. At the time, you mentioned you were going to go back and reflect, and I was just wondering whether you had any views on the events of last week and how we move forward in relationship to that. SPEAKER: I will come back to you. ORAL QUESTIONS QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS Question No. 1—Finance 1. SUZE REDMAYNE (National—Rangitīkei) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has she seen on New Zealand's fiscal position? Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): I received Treasury's briefing to the incoming Minister (BIM), which was publicly released a week and a half ago. The BIM told me that between 2019 and 2023, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has calculated, according to their own cross-country measure, that net debt in New Zealand increased by 18 percent of GDP—18 percent of GDP. Suze Redmayne: Is that increase in debt greater or less than in other comparable countries? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: As I said, the increase in New Zealand's net debt over the period 2019-23 was 18 percent of GDP on the IMF's measure. Treasury's BIM tells me that Australia's net debt over this period rose by only 2 percent, Denmark's and Ireland's net debt reduced, and the average increase across 32 advanced economies was only 4 percent. Suze Redmayne: Was that 18 percent increase in net debt due to COVID? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: In part, it will have been. But I am reliably informed that all countries in the world suffered from COVID, so COVID is no excuse for New Zealand to have such a large increase in its debt. Hon David Seymour: Did the previous Government use this extraordinary 18 percent of GDP expansion in public debt to build valuable infrastructure, or leave some other legacy that would assist future New Zealanders in paying that debt off? SPEAKER: It's very borderline, that question. But a reasonable answer might be forthcoming. Hon NICOLA WILLIS: The question New Zealanders often ask me is: "Has there ever been a Government that has spent so much but delivered so little"— SPEAKER: OK, that's enough of that. Suze Redmayne: How high is New Zealand's net debt compared to previous years? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Historical comparisons are made a little difficult by the fact that in 2022, the previous finance Minister changed the definition of net debt in a way that instantly lowered it by about 20 percentage points of GDP. However, if you use the old, established measure of net debt, it is evident that New Zealand's net debt this year is forecast to be 44 percent of GDP compared to 22 percent when National left office in 2017. Furthermore, net debt of 44 percent is the highest it has been in New Zealand in 30 years. Hon Grant Robertson: Can the Minister confirm that two paragraphs below the one she quoted in her primary answer, the Treasury told her in their BIM that "Nevertheless, New Zealand's debt remains low relative to other advanced economies. The average Government debt among advanced economies in 2023 was 47 percent of GDP, compared with 24 percent for New Zealand."? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: The Treasury's BIM also said, "As a small, open economy vulnerable to external shocks and natural disasters, New Zealand needs to retain a large buffer for emergencies." What the member should understand is that New Zealand should always have relatively low debt compared to most other advanced economies, and it is silly to compare New Zealand's debt with countries like the United States and Japan. That Minister eroded New Zealand's buffer, thanks to the big spending of the previous Labour Government. Hon Grant Robertson: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That was a very specific question asking about a very specific paragraph in the BIM that the member's primary answer was about, and I didn't receive an answer to that question. SPEAKER: Well, I don't think you could say it wasn't addressed, and I think that's one of the problems, isn't it—that often questions are asked that don't elicit the answer that members wanting— Hon Member: It was very specific, though. SPEAKER: It wasn't that fine. Hon Grant Robertson: What's that? SPEAKER: It wasn't all of that fine a question—the BIM is quite a lengthy document. Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I am happy to keep reading from the BIM to inform the Minister about how this debt came to be and the structural deficit that he left New Zealand in, if he'd like. SPEAKER: Sorry, that's not a particularly helpful point of order. Hon Grant Robertson: Can the Minister confirm that the paragraph after the paragraph that I just quoted in my question says, in part, "the Crown balance sheet continues to have significant resilience and flexibility to respond to future events"? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: The member should read the full quote, which also says, "Current spending exceeds current revenues. The Treasury estimates much of this gap is structural, reflecting a mix of short- and long-term drivers. A substantial fiscal consolidation is required."—and that is what this responsible Government is doing. Question No. 2—Prime Minister 2. Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all of his Government's statements and actions? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes, and in particular I stand by this Government's recent actions to begin restoring law and order and cracking down on crime by removing taxpayer funding for section 27 reports to further discount sentences, and by chucking out Labour's prison reduction target. New Zealanders voted for a Government that's going to restore law and order, deal with victims over criminals, and that's what we're going to get on and do. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Who's correct when it comes to the proposed Government legislation on Treaty principles—the Prime Minister, when he said, "Well, we've never been open-minded, we've always said there's no intention, no commitment, no support for it beyond first reading", or David Seymour, who said, "But ultimately the bit I don't believe is he won't change his mind"? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, we have a coalition agreement that says we're going to support a bill through to first reading, and that's no commitment beyond that. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Is David Seymour correct that he's lost his nerve on the Treaty principles bill? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I reject the member's assertion, but what I'd say is that member should be the one that is nervous, because when Kieran McAnulty starts shaving off that beard, he needs to be ready to go, and as I would have said, as we observed over summer, who was the de facto leader of the Labour Party? Michael Wood. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Is it acceptable for one of his Ministers to tell the media that the Prime Minister's lost his nerve and he doesn't believe the Prime Minister's being truthful with the public? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I reject that member's assertion in that question. What I'd say to you is that we are a coalition Government, we have different views, different perspectives, and we are aligned on the things that matter, which is getting things done, cleaning up after your Government's mess. So that's what we're going to get on and do. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Was Newshub incorrect when they quoted David Seymour saying, "ultimately the bit I don't believe is he won't change his mind if the public really wants it."? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I can tell you David Seymour is doing a great job. He's going to make sure that we get our kids back in school. He's got special delegation getting kids back into school, which is something that this Government and you as education Minister didn't care about. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I accept that my questions are relatively political in nature, but the Prime Minister hasn't addressed any of them. SPEAKER: Well, I think you've answered your own question—or assertion. They're political in nature. But if the Prime Minister would like to make a further comment on that previous question? No, he's all good. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: If any Minister other than David Seymour was to claim publicly that the Prime Minister had lost his nerve and wasn't being truthful with the public, would they still be a Minister? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I support all of my Ministers. They're doing a fantastic job—they're doing a fantastic job. The only member in this whole House who should be nervous is the person answering the questions. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: If David Seymour doesn't believe the public should be able to trust the word of the Prime Minister, why should the public? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We have a coalition agreement. It's crystal clear. We're going to support a bill to first reading, and there is no commitment beyond that. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he agree, then, with the Rt Hon Winston Peters about David Seymour: "Well, it's disgraceful that somebody is so desperate, and this petty, childish schoolboy behaviour just won't do"? Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order. This is a matter of chronology, and that questioner did not say when that statement was made, and therefore the Prime Minister could not be responsible for that. Get a life and learn how this process works. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. It's immaterial when Winston Peters said that. I didn't ask him whether he agreed with the Deputy Prime Minister; I asked him whether he agreed with the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who I still believe is Winston Peters, even if he has a different job. SPEAKER: Well, you better ask the question again. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Happily, Mr Speaker— SPEAKER: But I'll tell you what, try and keep it contemporary, because going back in history is not good for us. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he agree with the Rt Hon—well, it might not be good for the Government, Mr Speaker. Does he agree with the Rt Hon Winston Peters about David Seymour: "Well, it's disgraceful that somebody is so desperate—this petty, childish schoolboy behaviour just won't do"? Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order. The Prime Minister is responsible for those obligations and duties that he has undertaken from the day he first took the job on and not a day earlier. And in this case, this question should be ruled out. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Unless the Speaker was to rule out that any statements made by anyone other than a Minister were not the Prime Minister's responsibility, we couldn't ask him whether he agreed with anything, and, actually, nor could many of the Government's patsy questions be allowed by that criteria either. SPEAKER: We just had a ruling that makes it very clear that the Prime Minister is responsible for things that relate to his Government or her Government, and there is a point that if a statement relates to a time when the current Prime Minister was not Prime Minister, then that might be the case. But I actually think— Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point— SPEAKER: Hold on—hang on. I don't want to have to stand up on you. I think this is a question the Prime Minister is probably capable of answering. Hon Chris Bishop: Speaking to the point of order, clearly Ministers can be asked about whether or not they agree with statements made by other members, or indeed any members of the public, but it's useful for the House to know exactly what time period the member is being asked to reflect upon. It may well be that Mr Peters' comment was talking about the childish behaviour of the Labour Party, for example, but we don't know, because the Leader of the Opposition hasn't given a time period. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I'd ask you to reflect on the ruling that you have just indicated, and consider that in light of question No. 1, which was a Government question to the Minister of Finance that was all about a period in which she was not a Minister, and yet she was quoting liberally from a document about something that she did not have responsibility for at the time. If you are ruling that the only thing Ministers can be asked about is stuff that has happened since the election, then the entirety of question 1 was out of order. Hon Chris Bishop: Speaking to the point of order— SPEAKER: No, I don't need further on this. Hon Chris Bishop: It's about the— SPEAKER: I'll come to you if I need to, believe me. Firstly, on question 1, that question relates entirely to reports that the Minister has seen. That's perfectly legitimate. And then, if you look at all of the supps that came—and I listened to them carefully, and you'll recall that I did cut one of them off—they were all about the answers given by the Minister, and they related to current figures. So that's that dealt with. I better hear from Mr Bishop— Hon Chris Bishop: No, no. SPEAKER: Oh, you're over it? OK. Hon David Seymour: Mr Speaker. SPEAKER: Hon David Seymour. Is this a point of order, or what? Hon David Seymour: I think I might be able to assist with it, yes. SPEAKER: No, well, I don't want your assistance. You're either taking a new point of order or not. Hon David Seymour: Look, your loss, Mr Speaker. SPEAKER: I've got a very long memory. So could we have the question one more time, and I think it would be useful to put context around that. Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he agree with the Rt Hon Winston Peters about David Seymour: "Well, it's disgraceful that somebody is so desperate—this petty, childish schoolboy behaviour just won't do"? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What I'm going to say to you is that this is a coalition Government of three parties. We have different views from time to time, and that's actually quite OK. It's quite healthy and it's quite constructive. And unlike that previous Government that was all about control and spin and management, I have not heard—in the whole time since he's become Leader of the Opposition, we haven't had one question on the economy, not one on health, not one on education, not one on housing, not one on infrastructure. Question No. 3—Prime Minister 3. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori ) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government's policies and actions? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes, and particularly in the context they're made, and particularly about our efforts to try and improve Māori health and education outcomes for young Māori. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does he agree with Te Hunga Rōia Māori o Aotearoa, the New Zealand Law Society, and the New Zealand Bar Association that scrapping funding for section 27 reports will disproportionately impact Māori, undermine rehabilitation, and lead to higher rates of offending, and, if not, why not? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No, I don't. The reality is that Māori are higher victims of crime than anybody in this country, and we're making sure that Māori feel safe in their own businesses, their homes, and their communities. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does he accept that his policy will create a double standard in sentencing—for the wealthy, who can afford to privately fund their own section 27 reports, and for those who cannot? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No, I don't. The intention of section 27 reports was that someone could bring a friend or a family member to speak to their past. That was what was intended to happen. Instead, what's happened is that there has been a cottage industry of reports, often prepared by people who don't even know the offender. So the reality is that we're putting it back to its original purpose. That option still exists and will continue to exist. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What work is this Government doing to ensure that Māori and those on lower incomes will not be unfairly sentenced as a result of this policy? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, we are making sure that we actually have a fair system, that is fair and that stands up for the victims of crime and doesn't stand up for the offenders. Rawiri Waititi: Supplementary— SPEAKER: Um— Rawiri Waititi: You've forgotten me so early, Mr Speaker! SPEAKER: Rawiri Waititi. Rawiri Waititi: Does he find it acceptable that Māori women make up 64 percent of the female prison population while Māori men make up 50 percent of the male prison population, and, if not, what are his Government's solutions to reduce that number and ensure it doesn't increase as a result of this policy? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No, I don't find it acceptable, and that's why we're working so hard on lowering crime. Rawiri Waititi: Point of order. I don't think he answered that question, Mr Speaker. SPEAKER: That's not the test. What is the point of order? Rawiri Waititi: The point of order was that he didn't answer the question around whether he finds it acceptable and what is his Government going to do about it. SPEAKER: Well, I think he did. The Hansard will show that there was an answer to that. It might not be the answer you want. Please carry on—OK? Question No. 4—Health 4. RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has the Minister made to increase the number of New Zealand-trained doctors? Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Just two hours ago the Government completed another key commitment from our 100-day plan, the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a third medical school. This is the first step in our process to help increase the number of New Zealand - trained doctors. Ryan Hamilton: What are the next steps following today's signing of the MOU? Hon Dr SHANE RETI: The signing of the MOU enables the Ministry of Health and the University of Waikato to progress with establishing a business case and carrying out a cost-benefit analysis as described in the National-ACT coalition agreement. This is an important step as our country faces a dire shortage of Kiwi doctors, with many planning to retire over the next 10 years. Tim van de Molen: What is the significance of the MOU for our provincial and rural communities? Hon Dr SHANE RETI: Many provincial and rural communities are already experiencing large shortages of doctors, and with many GPs planning to retire over the next 10 years this issue will only get worse. A medical school which further considers the needs of rural areas will help ease the pressure felt on rural healthcare. Tim van de Molen: How will this impact New Zealand's ongoing workforce shortage? Hon Dr SHANE RETI: New Zealanders have been facing longer and longer delays in accessing healthcare. Tackling the workforce crisis is key to solving this issue. With this initiative we aim to retain more New Zealanders in our domestic medical school programmes, given more than 300 New Zealand students each year have been training in Australian medical schools. We will train more home-grown, culturally competent New Zealand doctors. Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Will the full cost-benefit analysis of the proposed Waikato medical school committed to in the National-ACT coalition agreement include comparisons with the costs and benefits of training additional medical students at New Zealand's existing medical schools? Hon Dr SHANE RETI: The Ministry of Health is currently scoping out what the cost-benefit analysis in the business case will look like and we'll be happy to keep the member informed as that progresses. Question No. 5—Local Government 5. Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour) to the Minister of Local Government: Does he stand by his statement that he is confident repealing the Affordable Water Reforms will be "cheaper"? Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): I am confident that the Local Water Done Well will be implemented cheaper than the previous Government's Three Waters reform that cost the taxpayers over $1.2 billion with very little to show for it. My focus is on ensuring this Government delivers what the vast majority of councils have consistently asked for, which is local water done well, which means local assets and local council control with the flexibility to structure their delivery of services in a way that works best for them and their communities. Hon Kieran McAnulty: When the Minister uses the term "cheaper", does he mean cheaper for ratepayers? Hon SIMEON BROWN: Ultimately, councils set rates for their local communities, and this is about ensuring that councils can access the long-term funding and financing tools they need so they can deliver the infrastructure. This will be far cheaper than what that Government was proposing—over a billion dollars spent with nothing getting delivered. Hon Kieran McAnulty: Why won't the Minister guarantee that his repeal and replacement will be cheaper for ratepayers? Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, it will be cheaper for ratepayers, because we won't be spending a billion dollars—like the last Government did—with nothing to show for it. The last Government thought there was a magic money tree that they could throw around and apparently solve problems, but, actually, they didn't, after six years, even solve this problem for local councils. Hon Kieran McAnulty: Is he aware of advice from the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), currently still available on the DIA website, that states what he is proposing as a replacement to the affordable water reforms won't work and will lead to higher rates for ratepayers? Hon SIMEON BROWN: There's a range of advice out there, in terms of what the member may be pointing to. But what I would say is this is going to give councils what they asked for, which is ensuring they can deliver and have the long-term funding and financing tools that they need. Mayors across this country oppose that Government's plan. They oppose the mega entities and the forced mandated bureaucracies on local communities. We believe in local councils choosing and delivering for their local communities. Hon Kieran McAnulty: Isn't it actually the case that the Minister is setting things up so that when rates inevitably rise—unaffordably for some—he can blame councils instead of taking responsibility himself? Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Well, the last Government said most of these entities weren't going to come into force until 2026. So the rates that were being proposed over the next couple of years were actually going to be proposed regardless of that Government's reforms. Now, councils are ultimately responsible. We're giving the long-term funding and financing tools that councils need so they can invest sustainably, in a fiscally responsible manner, in water infrastructure for their local communities. Question No. 6—Social Development and Employment 6. RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Will indexing benefit levels to inflation rather than wages result in lower increases to benefits? Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): That will depend on the actual increase in inflation and increase in wages in the given year, and, of course, how you measure inflation and wages. For the last 31 of 35 years, main benefits have been indexed to the Consumers Price Index (CPI) as a measure of inflation to ensure they increase with the cost of living. We think it is fair to protect the real purchasing power of those on main benefits, and this is the approach our Government is taking. Ricardo Menéndez March: Why is it the case, then, that projections given to me via parliamentary written answers show that people will see lower increases to benefits? Hon LOUISE UPSTON: The difference this year will be approximately $2, and our Government is absolutely focused on, first of all, reducing the number of people on jobseeker benefit, because we've seen a blow-out in dependency under the last Government; and also, we are focused on reducing the cost of living and the pressures that households—those receiving benefits and on low incomes—are facing. Ricardo Menéndez March: Does she accept that because a person on the jobseeker is likely to be up to $50 worse off by the end of the decade, demand for hardship grants and advances will increase under her Government? Hon LOUISE UPSTON: So the member is talking about projections 10 years out. If we look at it in the one-year, it's $2—$2 a week. This Government is relentlessly focused on getting the economy back to where it was so there are more opportunities, higher incomes, and the cost of living is not presenting the same level of pressure and hardship that Kiwi families are facing today. That is affecting those on benefit as well as those on low incomes, and there is a need to balance the two. Ricardo Menéndez March: Why won't she index benefits to wages or inflation, whichever is higher, to ensure everyone is supported in good and bad times? Hon LOUISE UPSTON: This Government has made the decision to be consistent, to follow what has been done in 31 of the last 35 years, which is to increase it based on the CPI. What we won't do is allow a young person who goes on to the jobseeker benefit under the age of 20 to have a forecast of 24 years on welfare. We won't be doing that. Ricardo Menéndez March: Is she confident that disabled people are treated with respect and dignity when they are forced to continuously prove lifelong medical conditions to remain on the supported living payment as opposed to going on to the jobseeker benefit? Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Not sure it's related to the primary, but I'll answer it anyway. We have a range of policies in place in New Zealand for the welfare system that do two things. A check-in with front-line staff also ensures that somebody's needs for support are being met. I think it is fair to working New Zealanders who fund the welfare system that we ensure that those who are receiving support have regular check-ins. In some cases, that means reapplying for benefits to make sure that the setting is right. Ricardo Menéndez March: Why would those regular check-ins include having to continuously prove lifelong medical conditions? Hon LOUISE UPSTON: That's the way it's been for many years, and I don't forecast it's going to change. Question No. 7—Local Government 7. KATIE NIMON (National—Napier) to the Minister of Local Government: What recent announcements has he made about water infrastructure? Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you to the member for that question. The coalition Government is restoring council ownership and control of water assets by replacing Labour's three waters legislation. Three waters was divisive and hugely unpopular, and all it would have delivered was a mega - co-governed bureaucracy. We heard the concerns that many New Zealanders had with the proposals, which is why we're committed to repealing three waters and replacing it with Local Water Done Well. Katie Nimon: Why is the Government repealing the Water Services Entities Act 2022? Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, as I said, the last Government's proposals would simply have created mega - co-governed bureaucracies and failed to actually address the infrastructure challenges that New Zealand councils are facing. Later today, I will be starting the process to repeal three waters. This was part of the Government's hundred-day plan, and I want to acknowledge our partners, ACT and New Zealand First, for their support in this. Katie Nimon: What are the next steps in making sure that local water is done well? Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, good question. There will be two further bills progressing through Parliament to transition to Local Water Done Well. The first bill will provide streamlined requirements for establishing council-controlled organisations, enabling councils to start shifting the delivery of water services, and a second bill to provide for a long-term replacement regime will be introduced in December this year. This will set out the long-term requirements for financial sustainability and provide for a complete economic regulation regime and a new range of structural and financial tools. Katie Nimon: How will Local Water Done Well help councils prepare for future water infrastructure? Hon SIMEON BROWN: New Zealand's water infrastructure is facing significant challenges, and Local Water Done Well will enable councils to have the tools that they need to access long-term funding and financing. Local Water Done Well recognises the importance of local decision-making and flexibility for communities and councils to determine how their water services should be delivered in the future, rather than the Government coming over top like the former Government. Question No. 8—Education 8. Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour) to the Minister of Education: Does she stand by her statements and actions? Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Yes. In particular, the actions that I took earlier this year to support the roll-out of NCEA level 1. On becoming the Minister of Education, it was very concerning to find that the implementation of NCEA level 1 standards had been rushed without providing key components to teachers, like subject learning outcomes or external assessment exemplars. After being contacted by subject associations and teachers who raised their serious concerns, this Government took immediate actions to produce subject learning outcomes for all level 1 subjects, and we managed to get this work done with the help of those subject associations so they were delivered to teachers at the start of term 1. The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) exemplars were not going to be released until May this year, when much of the teaching would have already taken place. On becoming the Minister, I instructed NZQA to urgently expedite the availability of all level 1 exemplars. Exemplars for science standards were available before the start of term 1, while other subjects will become available through February and March—much earlier than the May deadline. This Government wants students to succeed, and we've stepped in to ensure teachers have the tools they need for NCEA level 1, which the previous Government failed to do in their rush to implement. SPEAKER: I'll just say to the Minister that that was an exceptionally long answer. And I appreciate it probably comes from the ministry and that it's not unusual for them to write long documents like that, but—[Interruption] Hon Jan Tinetti: How many schools are currently facing cuts to building projects? Hon ERICA STANFORD: I'm pleased the Minister—oh, the ex-Minister—asked that question. On becoming the Minister, it was very concerning to find that there was an enormous pipeline of school build projects that were not able to be delivered on. Schools had had their expectations raised, buildings costs had sky-rocketed, there were properties that were being designed with bespoke arrangements and architecturally designed buildings. Schools had had their expectations raised and there was poor communication. I'd like to just point out that the Minister herself said in a recent article: "You've got schools that have been really suffering, and suffering for quite some time"—that is the point. This has been ongoing and left to us by the previous Government, and now we're having to come to a point where this Government are having to tidy up a list of schools that I am still coming to grips with the total number. Hon Jan Tinetti: Does she stand by her statement: "You know, it is, and it's part of, that is, the increasing costs of building, but part of it is because we are building these extremely bespoke classrooms, rather than just going, look, here is option A, option B, and option C.", and, if so, is she aware that the Ministry of Education currently has a modular-building programme and off-site classroom construction options with a suite of standard designs introduced in 2018, helpfully available on the ministry's website for her reference? SPEAKER: That's one all on the question and answer, isn't it. Hon ERICA STANFORD: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'm pleased that the member asked that question. The point is that the ministry are only just at this point in time starting to roll that out. The pipeline that we are dealing with that runs into the billions of dollars includes architecturally designed classrooms that teachers have spent many hours outside the classroom dealing with. And many, many classrooms in that pipeline are in exactly that position. I have now directed the ministry to make sure that we have repeatable modular designs that we can save on these costs, rather than these architecturally designed classrooms that blow out budgets. [Interruption] Hon Jan Tinetti: What does she say— SPEAKER: Hang on a minute. The rules are: no talking while a question's asked. So some of your colleagues were speaking then. Hon Jan Tinetti: What does she say to James Hargest principal and Secondary Principals' Association of New Zealand executive member Mike Newell who, when asked about the property cuts, said, "no one seemed to know what the priorities were or [had] been able to sit down with the new minister. So that's really frustrating that we have a new education minister in there, and we're unsure of what [her] priorities are."? Hon ERICA STANFORD: I have sat down and had multiple meetings with the property team to try and get to the bottom of how it can be that we have such an enormous pipeline of raised expectations that this previous Government was unable to deliver on. I can assure that Minister that I am across the detail and getting to the bottom of this enormous, enormous mess that they have left that we are about to clean up. Question No. 9—Internal Affairs 9. LAURA TRASK (ACT) to the Minister of Internal Affairs: What recent announcements has she made regarding the royal commission of inquiry into COVID-19 lessons? Hon BROOKE van VELDEN (Minister of Internal Affairs): On 2 February, I announced that the Government is delivering on its commitment to enable public input into expanding the scope of the royal commission of inquiry into COVID-19 lessons. Both the ACT - National, and New Zealand First - National coalition agreements recognise expanding the scope as a priority. A royal commission is independent, but the Government sets the terms of reference. The current terms of reference of this inquiry were decided by the same Government responsible for the COVID-19 response. That's why this Government is open to expanding the scope of the inquiry. Laura Trask: Why is the Minister consulting the public on broadening the terms of reference for the royal commission's inquiry? Hon BROOKE van VELDEN: All Kiwis were impacted in some way by the previous Government's policies. There were social and economic impacts of COVID-19 widely felt throughout the community. For example, in education, I've already heard from principals who say they've seen the effect of kids not being able to attend school, lack of attendance, the ability for kids not to have peer groups that they're socialised with; and businesses having a lack of certainty, stress, and also not being deemed essential businesses. There were Aucklanders who had plunged into extended lockdowns, and people unable to access non-urgent healthcare like breast cancer screenings that were put on hold. We want to hear from New Zealanders, and it's essential for New Zealand to know what to do right in the future that we're asking the right questions now. Laura Trask: How can the public have their say on the terms of reference for the royal commission's inquiry? Hon BROOKE van VELDEN: The public can submit through the royal commission's COVID inquiry website: covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz. The public submissions are open until 24 March 2024, and I would encourage all New Zealanders to have their say. The Government will be considering the public's feedback before making any final decisions on the scope of the inquiry. Tanya Unkovich: Can the inquiry's terms of reference be expanded further than what's been suggested, based on public submissions? Hon BROOKE van VELDEN: Yes, there were nine bullet points put forward by the coalition Government after consultation in Cabinet. The Government will take public submissions into consideration before finalising new terms of reference. Tanya Unkovich: Can she provide an update on what the next steps are for the positions and vacancies of the COVID-19 inquiry commissioners? Hon BROOKE van VELDEN: There are currently two commissioners for the COVID-19 inquiry. The third member of the commission, Hekia Parata, resigned prior to the election. My first steps have been to open up the scope of inquiry by inviting public submissions, but now I'm turning my mind to the membership of the royal commission. I've asked for advice on appointments and I will be consulting with my coalition partners throughout this process. Rt Hon Winston Peters: On the question of Hekia Parata having resigned, has she found out that, first of all, she was offering her resignation but then the Prime Minister Mr Hipkins persuaded her not to proceed with her resignation, but it came too late because the Minister in charge had accepted her resignation and therefore there was a fait accompli by mistake? [Interruption] That's true and you know—you're the Minister! SPEAKER: Well, who's answering the question here? Rt Hon Winston Peters: Mr Speaker, I could do both. Just say yes. [Points to Minister of Internal Affairs] SPEAKER: Thank you, Rt Hon Winston Peters. That's very helpful. We'll leave it at that. Thank you. Question No. 10—Transport 10. TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister of Transport: How does he expect Auckland Council to meet the $1.2 billion funding hole over the next four years to meet the costs of transport projects that the regional fuel tax was to fund as priority projects for Auckland. Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): I disagree with the member's assertion. Removing the Auckland regional fuel tax will save Aucklanders at the pump $150 million per year, or $600 million over the next four years, not the $1.2 billion mentioned. Around $341 million of regional fuel tax revenue remains unspent, and the Government will ring-fence these funds to deliver the priority projects such as the Eastern Busway, City Rail Link trains, and local roads. If Auckland Council wants to continue to fund cycle lanes, red-light cameras, $500,000-speed bumps and blanket speed limit reductions they are welcome to put that proposal forward to Aucklanders. Tangi Utikere: What percentage of the Auckland regional fuel tax revenue gathered to date has been used to fund projects such as cycle lanes, red-light cameras, and pedestrian crossings in Auckland? Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, of the, I think, $700 million that has been raised to date, around $340 million—almost half of it—remains unspent, so that's a fail on the former Government. The second point is around over $100 million was spent on safety improvement projects, which was basically speed bumps, and then a whole lot of other bus lanes and cycle lanes received funding as well. What we want to focus that money on is—the remaining funding—is on the priority projects and not wasting it on low-value priorities. Tangi Utikere: Point of order. That was a very specific question that followed the member's response to the primary. It was the Minister who cited some of the very items that I asked him in my first supplementary. It was a percentage— SPEAKER: OK, ask him again; just move on. TANGI UTIKERE: Thank you, sir. What percentage of the Auckland regional fuel tax revenue gathered to date has been used to fund projects such as cycle lanes, red-light cameras, and pedestrian crossings in Auckland? Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, if you look at the amount which is allocated to various elements, over $100 million is allocated to those particular initiatives but $300 million is unspent, and I would encourage the member to put the formal percentage question to Auckland Council to get the finer detail. Hon James Shaw: Point of order, just to reiterate the point made by Tangi Utikere. He did ask specifically about the money that has been spent, and that was specific. The Minister did not address the question of what has been spent. He gave an answer about what had been allocated and unspent, and that's a different question. SPEAKER: Well, I think if you have a look at the Hansard record you'll find he started by saying, on the points that were raised in the question, around $100 million, and I think that's a reasonable answer. Tangi Utikere: What commitment, if any, has the Minister given to Auckland Council about his Government's commitment to Auckland's transport infrastructure, and what additional funding has he agreed to look into? Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, thank you for the question. We are currently working through our Government policy statement on transport, which will include investment in our roads of national significance, which includes projects within Auckland. That Government talked a huge game when it came to Auckland and transport. Remember Auckland light rail? $228 million for consultants; no delivery. We're going to be a Government that delivers, not just talks. Tangi Utikere: Point of order. Apologies, Mr Speaker, but, again, this is a very specific question to the Minister about commitments that he has given to Auckland Council. Now, his rhetoric might be fine for himself, but he has decided not to specifically address the question. SPEAKER: Well, I think he addressed it by saying the Government is currently working through the mational transport plan. Tangi Utikere: What does the Minister say in response to Auckland Mayor, Wayne Brown's, view: "this is a problem that can't be solved just by making cuts. Every Aucklander agrees that our transport system is a mess and it's going to cost a lot of money to fix. That money must come from somewhere. Unfortunately, the Government has just made it a lot harder for us,"? Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, I say to the member, we are not going to be a Government which taxes Aucklanders to fund $500,000 speed bumps—that is not our priority. We want to invest in the infrastructure which actually makes a difference, and that means ring-fencing the remaining funds to the Eastern Busway, the City Rail Link, local roading projects, and we'll have a range of funding and financing tools which help ensure we have the tools to deliver infrastructure across New Zealand for New Zealanders. Hon Nicola Willis: How much would an Aucklander driving, for example, a Toyota Hilux or a Toyota Corolla save every time they fill up at the pump thanks to this Government's focus on removing the regional fuel tax and helping address the cost of living? Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, that's a very good question, and this is all about the cost of living for Aucklanders. If someone's driving a Hilux they'll save around $9 every time they fill up their car; someone who's driving a Corolla around $5. That's money that won't be funding $500,000 speed bumps in Auckland. Tangi Utikere: Is it in fact the case that his attempt to give relief at the pump on the one hand and his desire to take critical transport projects away with the other is because he has hit his own speed bump and wobbles, and, instead, he is quite content on committing Auckland to more gridlock as a result of the Government's inability to fund our largest city's proposed transport projects? Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, the gridlock in Auckland was caused by that Government who spent six years saying they're going to deliver Auckland light rail—$228 million and nothing to deliver. The City Rail Link started by National will be completed by National. We electrified the Auckland rail network; we completed the motorway network. That Government did nothing for Auckland over six years. SPEAKER: Before I call the supplementary, at the start of the last question there was talk on both sides of the House so it would have been difficult to single out anyone. Just saying, again, if people are asking a question they get to ask it in silence. The Hon—oh, the Hon Damien O'Connor. Hon Damien O'Connor: That's all right—I'm just a new member, Mr Speaker! SPEAKER: Just for clarity: I've know him since 19—whatever. Hon Damien O'Connor: The 1980s. We can't go back that far, Mr Speaker! SPEAKER: No, it was actually 1972; anyway, carry on. Hon Damien O'Connor: Can the Minister tell us the average price of a litre of 91 fuel in Auckland today and how that compares to the $2.95 that people are paying in Westport? Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, when I drove past the local Z on the way to the airport on Monday, it was around $2.88, $2.90 a litre for a 91. Question No. 11—Emergency Management and Recovery 11. CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki) to the Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery: What recent announcements has he made regarding cyclone recovery? Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Firstly, can I acknowledge that tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of Cyclone Gabrielle, which caused much devastation across the North Island. I'm looking forward to being on the ground in Napier and Hastings tomorrow to be with the communities there and to attend their commemoration event in Hastings. The devastation caused by the cyclone was profound, and I'm proud to be part of a Government that is firmly focused on ways that the response can be accelerated so that people have answers and can move on with their lives. I'm pleased to share in the House that on Sunday, the Prime Minister and I visited Napier and, alongside a tour of Bearsley Farms, which was hit particularly hard, and celebrating the hard-working first responders and volunteers across the region, we made a significant announcement of $63 million to support and accelerate the clean-up of silt and debris in both Tairāwhiti and Hawke's Bay. Catherine Wedd: Where is the funding going? Hon MARK MITCHELL: The funding will be split across respective councils: $40 million is going to Hawke's Bay Regional Council for urgent work to continue to remove sediment and debris across the region, with $3 million of that ringfenced for debris removal in Wairoa. The Gisborne District Council will receive $23.6 million to ensure urgent work will continue for the processing and removal of woody debris across the region. Catherine Wedd: What feedback has he had from locals on the ground? Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, Hawke's Bay and Tairāwhiti are two regions that are very well served by their local members of Parliament. They're regularly in touch with me, providing me feedback about the recovery. Additionally, I've had lots of positive feedback from communities and people that I've met and engaged with in the region, who welcome the funding and have called it a boost for local employment and said that the clearing of silt and debris is a high priority in terms of restarting the region's economy and freeing up productive land. Catherine Wedd: What is the Government's approach to the recovery? Hon MARK MITCHELL: We're firmly focused on delivering a system that delivers better outcomes and gets the recovery happening in a much quicker way. The message to the people affected by Cyclone Gabrielle is that this Government is listening and working as hard as it can to speed up this recovery. We are behind you. Question No. 12—Prime Minister 12. CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his Government's statements and actions? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes, in the context they were delivered. Chlöe Swarbrick: Does he agree with Christopher Luxon, who said—and I quote—"there's no point building back houses if we don't have flood protection in place.", and, if so, is he concerned that more than 1,400 homes have been consented in Auckland flood plains since the Auckland anniversary floods? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: That is exactly what I believe, and what we need to work hard on is making sure that we can move through property categorisation in a much quicker way. I've asked for a weekly update on that so that we can make sure that that job's getting done across the cyclone-affected regions. Chlöe Swarbrick: Why, then, did his Government roll back—under urgency, no less—the last Government's Resource Management Act reforms, which Victoria University Economics of Disasters and Climate Change chair Ilan Noy said were "way better" than the status quo he's returned us to? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Because it stultified New Zealand and stopped investment in infrastructure happening, and it wouldn't have helped this problem. Chlöe Swarbrick: Is urban sprawl good or bad for climate mitigation and adaptation? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We need both city densification and we need to open up new greenfields and new green spaces too. Chlöe Swarbrick: Mr Speaker, if I may, point of order. SPEAKER: Well, are you going to call one? Chlöe Swarbrick: A point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was relatively straight forward: is urban sprawl good or bad for climate adaptation mitigation? The Prime Minister did not answer that question. SPEAKER: The member will know that you can't ask for definitive yes/no or good/bad answers. You can simply get an answer, and the answer was, the way I heard it, they're both good and bad. Chlöe Swarbrick: All right, Mr Speaker; it'll stand on its own, then. Supplementary. SPEAKER: No, no, don't make those comments; just ask your supplementary. Chlöe Swarbrick: Will the Government's policy decisions increase or decrease urban sprawl? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We want to make sure that people who can get houses have access to houses. We have a major problem in our housing market here in New Zealand. It's linked by the fact that if you can't own a house, you end up having to rent a house; if you can't rent one, you end up on a social house wait-list; if you can't get a social house wait-list, you end up in emergency housing. We are determined to solve housing in New Zealand. We're going to do that job. Chlöe Swarbrick: Does the Prime Minister agree with Christopher Luxon, who said that climate adaptation is going to require "bipartisan support", and, if so, will he commit to restarting cross-party work, as started under the former Government, on climate adaptation within this parliamentary sitting block? Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yes. Our climate change Minister agrees with me that we want to be able to make sure we can work in a bipartisan way to make sure we deal with climate adaptation, which has impacts over multiple generations, with landowners, local government, central government, insurers, and banks involved. So we're very comfortable moving forward in the same manner as the previous Minister of Climate Change did. URGENCY Hon SIMEON BROWN (Deputy Leader of the House): I move, That urgency be accorded to the introduction and passing through all stages of the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill and the Social Security (Benefits Adjustment) and Income Tax (Minimum Family Tax Credit) Amendment Bill; and the committee stage of the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill. The Government is today according urgency to progress key aspects of our 100-day plan, which includes repealing the last Government's three waters and indexing benefits back to the Consumers Price Index, and progressing work on the social workers legislation bill. A party vote was called for on the question, That the motion be agreed to. Ayes 68 New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8. Noes 55 New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 6. Motion agreed to. INTRODUCTION OF BILLS SPEAKER: The Government is going to introduce bills. CLERK: Water Services Acts Repeal Bill, introduction Social Security (Benefits Adjustment) and Income Tax (Minimum Family Tax Credit) Amendment Bill, introduction. WATER SERVICES ACTS REPEAL BILL First Reading Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): I present a legislative statement on the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill. SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website. Hon SIMEON BROWN: I move, That the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill be now read a first time. This bill embodies the National Party's commitment to repealing the previous Labour Government's divisive and unpopular three waters regime. It marks the first step towards implementing Local Water Done Well—our plan for addressing the country's longstanding water infrastructure challenges. I want to start by acknowledging the commitment and support from our coalition partners, the ACT Party and the New Zealand First Party. I also want to acknowledge a number of mayors who are in the House here today and who have come to Wellington to witness the passing of this piece of legislation. This bill serves multiple purposes. Firstly, it repeals the Labour's three waters legislation, thereby removing the 10-entity model which prescribed co-governance, and this will ensure water assets remain under the local ownership of local councils. Additionally, it halts the establishment of the economic regulation and consumer protection regime for those 10 mega, bureaucratic entities. Secondly, this bill disestablishes the Northland and Auckland water services entity, ending the costly and unnecessary activity involved in setting up this body, including significant IT contracts. In December last year, it was revealed that the previous Government's reforms cost the country an eyewatering $1.25 billion while achieving very little. The termination of this work is anticipated to save a further $343 million, aligning with our Government's objective to curb irresponsible spending. Thirdly, the bill relieves pressure on councils that will now need to include water services in their long-term plan (LTP). Councillors are in the midst of preparing these plans and require direction and support to plan for and finance water services that they will continue to hold responsibility for. The bill provides a range of options that recognise that different councils will have different needs and preferences and will be at various stages of developing their long-term plans. The options include having an unaudited LTP consultation document, adopting the long-term plan for up to three months later than usual, or deferring the 2024 LTP by one year and preparing and consulting on an annual plan for 2024-25 instead. This is about providing flexibility to councils. All of the options are voluntary, and councils can choose to use them or not depending on their local circumstances. Unlike the former Government, which came in and mandated the approach on local councils, we instead are taking the approach of flexibility in terms of this particular issue. The bill provides much-needed clarity about the choices available to councils, in addition to standard processes and what is required if particular options are taken up. Repealing the previous Government's three waters legislation is just the first step in our plan. The coalition Government is committed to addressing New Zealand's longstanding water infrastructure challenges. We cannot ignore the fact that, while some communities operate and maintain efficient, high-quality water services, many are struggling to maintain and upgrade critical water infrastructure and fund new investments. There is a pressing need for futureproofed reform in our water infrastructure in the face of aging assets, inflation, population growth, and regulation. With Local Water Done Well, we will enable councils and communities to determine what works best for them while establishing clear expectations and bottom lines. The Government's plan for water reform will require councils to demonstrate how they will meet strict regulatory standards that ensure safe, resilient, and cost-effective water services. This approach will improve transparency, accountability, and efficiency by identifying where there are areas that can be improved. And, as outlined yesterday, we'll be doing this through a two-step approach. The next piece of legislation will be passed through this House by the middle of this year. It will deal with issues in regard to how councils can more efficiently set up council-controlled organisations. Currently, when they set up a council-controlled organisation, each council has to consult separately with its local community. This will include changes which streamline that process and enable them to be able to consult widely across the region or amongst the councils which want to work together. It'll include elements around the requirements to put forward their financial sustainable plans to demonstrate what they're doing to be able to meet the requirements, so they have long-term sustainable plans. And it will have the first steps towards ensuring that we deal with Watercare, to ensure that Auckland Council is able to have balance sheet separation for Watercare. This approach will improve transparency, accountability, and efficiency for those local councils in the investments that they're needing to do. The second step, in terms of legislation, will be another bill coming to the House later this year which will have more detail around setting up specific balance sheet separated council-controlled organisations. It will include full regulation under the Commerce Act for these water entities to ensure that they're investing responsibly, that prices are set appropriately, that infrastructure is not gold plated but that they're pricing appropriately, and that investment is done over a long period of time, so that we improve the water infrastructure that we have here in New Zealand. And I look forward to bringing those future pieces of legislation to the House. Our Government aims to set standards for critical infrastructure delivery, focusing on value for money, investment to drive economic growth, productivity, and quality of life. Taumata Arowai will continue to retain its role as the water-quality regulator and will be tasked with setting safe water standards and overseeing that for local councils in a proportional way which meets their needs. Economic regulation will play, as I said, a key role in ensuring that the necessary investment in infrastructure is made without making charges unaffordable. Clean, quality water is a fundamental expectation of every New Zealander. Changes are needed to build better water services for current and future generations, and this is what Local Water Done Well will deliver. We do not need more centralised and bloated bureaucracies, which is what the last Government imposed on local communities but after six years failed to deliver. Instead, central government will provide the tools for local government to deliver and the oversight necessary to ensure an efficient system. To those who voted for the National Party, the ACT Party, and the New Zealand First Party, we have delivered on our promise to end the last Government's co-governed, mega entities, mandated three waters regime. We will now begin the process of implementing Local Water Done Well so that local councils are able to invest in the long-term infrastructure that they are responsible for. I commend this bill to the House. Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The issue facing this country in regards to water services is one to the tune of $185 billion. It is quite telling, I feel, in a speech where the Minister introduces a bill that will repeal a structure that will save ratepayers thousands of dollars a year, come 2051—no details as to how his proposal will save ratepayers the same, no detail at all. Because the issue that the Government has is the same issue that they had throughout the campaign: they've promised everyone everything and eventually they won't be able to deliver. They promised that local control can be maintained. They've promised that local ownership can be maintained, and they've promised that balance sheet separation will be a key feature of it. Yet we've seen no details as to how that is going to happen. And that is very consistent with the history of the National Party's position on water reform. Originally, it was: "We will repeal." When it was pointed out the cost that the status quo would impose on ratepayers, they changed their view to: "Repeal and replace." We asked them a very simple question: "Replace with what?" And here we are today with a repeal bill being introduced with no details whatsoever as to what the replacement will be. I feel it is quite simply because they cannot deliver on all the things they have promised—they cannot deliver it. A very simple question to the Minister that I look forward to hearing at the committee stage is: how is he going to deliver balance sheet separation when the very advice from his own department says he cannot have direct council control ownership and balance sheet separation? We saw alternatives put forward during the debate—and I will give Communities 4 Local Democracy credit, and I recognise that some of those mayors are in the Parliament tonight. At least they came up with an alternative. Throughout the debate, the National Party had no alternative and, lo and behold, what they signalled when they announced the repeal is very similar to—almost exactly the same as—what Communities 4 Local Democracy put forward. And good on them, they've been effective in their advocacy. However, my concern is that on the Department of Internal Affairs website there is advice for the Minister that says that that approach will not work and will not deliver balance sheet separation, which is a critical part of ensuring that water services are done affordably. Now, I can see this is a confusing, complicated debate. It is very technical, and the solutions are convoluted, but it doesn't mean that this Parliament should allow the issue to be pushed to the side, downplayed, and left for future councils to deal with. Because that is the reality. What the Minister is setting up is that when unaffordable rate bills come for many councils, he will be able to say: "That's a council issue." Right throughout this debate, when the original reform proposals were made, the National Party promised councils that they would help them pay for it. They went around the country, they said, "Don't support the water reforms because we will do it differently and we will help you pay." Well, that is a broken promise. That is a promise that they never intended to deliver and they haven't delivered on now. You only need to look at statements made by senior members like Matt Doocey, who stood up and promised councils in this House—in fact, I believe it was in this seat. He stood up in this House and said to councils, "We will help you pay for it if we are elected." Well, they're elected now and there is no help. There is no financial support. And when it comes to affordability for ratepayers, they are being sold a dud. It's the mayors and it's the councillors and it's the ratepayers who will cop it. Because councils cannot do this by themselves. They cannot do it without balance sheet separation. Mayors and councillors will be forced to increase rates, they will cop it from ratepayers, and ratepayers will cop it in the back pocket. All of this could be avoided if the Government was upfront with New Zealanders and said, "If we want balance sheet separation, you cannot have direct council control." But even now, in the face of advice from their own departments that said they cannot do it, they are ignoring that fact. This will not work. And when ratepayers face bills they can't afford, they can look back on this day and see how that came about. LAN PHAM (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Everyone has a right to—and deserves access to—clean, safe water. Unfortunately, past decisions and political inaction has meant that for many of our communities across Aotearoa, that is not currently the case. Our waste water and stormwater networks and systems need to be designed and managed responsibly so as not to damage and degrade our environment, and in a way that is integrated with the actual environment in which the infrastructure sits and in a way that upholds te mana o te wai. Again, past decisions and political inaction mean for so many of our communities and for te taiao—our environment—that is not the case. These are the basic issues of what the water service reforms were seeking to address. The repeal of these bills today is definitely getting us somewhere. It's getting us back, but not on track like this Government purport to be doing. It's taking us backwards away from our water service and environmental goals. The Minister just talked about flexibility for local government. What I see and what we see is that he and his Government are dishing out uncertainty for local government, right at a time when they are consulting on what is often the most important conversation they have with their communities in their entire term: their long-term plans. Ultimately, councils will then be faced with putting in place higher rate rises, meaning higher costs for households who are already stretched to the limit. Investment in water services matters and it is urgent, especially in this climate-impacted world. As droughts, flooding, and other pressures become more common, water infrastructure needs to be resilient to climate change. Again, something that becomes further out of reach with not only this repeal today but with the Government's reckless repeal of the Spatial Planning Act, which would have provided a much more integrated approach to water service infrastructure and land use planning that we so desperately need. Water is a taonga, and hapū have always exercised kaitiakitanga over water. As we face the challenge of improving our water infrastructure and a changing climate, iwi, hapū, and whānau should have a governance role that recognises kaitiakitanga and whakapapa connections to wai. Whatever this Government proposes ahead—and we don't yet know what that is—we strongly support effective co-governance for management of water. However, given both the Government's response to these bills passing in the first place and their current proposals that threaten Te Tiriti and the rights of iwi Māori, we have significant concerns about the coalition Government's fear-mongering approach to co-governance—or, given we live in Aotearoa New Zealand under Te Tiriti, one might more accurately call it governance. The Green Party wants to see us grow up and move forward as a country with a management approach that embraces Te Mana o te Wai and that leads entities that deliver genuine partnership with local iwi and hapū. The legacy of our underinvestment in water infrastructure is significant, not just for our people but for our environment too. This Government's approach of repealing these reforms under urgency is yet another missed opportunity, taking us further away from community resilience, further away from protecting our environment, and further away from allowing Kiwis access to their most basic rights of safe, affordable, reliable water. The Green Party will once again be pushing to not let these immensely important fundamentals be overlooked. Thank you. SIMON COURT (ACT): Mr Speaker, thank you. The ACT Party offered to work constructively with the previous Labour Government on developing a sustainable three waters reform model, but what the previous Government did—and why we're repealing this three waters legislation today—was ignore offers to collaborate with councils and with all of those participants in the supply chain in terms of developing a reform structure that would be durable. Instead, they proceeded to introduce legislation that they hadn't campaigned on and that the public knew nothing about which introduced concepts of co-governance over publicly owned water assets. This concept of Te Mana o te Wai, which is an anti-scientific concept that was going to be embedded in the legislation—when I've spoken to councils around New Zealand, what they've told me is that under that previous legislation, the legislation that's going to be repealed today, even if we treated the waste water to drinking-water standards under Te Mana o te Wai, that flawed concept, we wouldn't be allowed to discharge treated waste water into lakes or rivers. Now, this Government has a different approach. We believe in science. We believe that by making good investments in infrastructure, councils can deliver clean drinking water and deal with waste water and stormwater effectively. Now, it's true that some councils haven't done that, but when presented with the glaring problem such as all the water leaking out of the pipes in Wellington, even a Green mayor of Wellington has had to accept that councils have a responsibility to invest in underground assets like three waters assets. Mark Cameron: Plumbing—piping. SIMON COURT: Plumbing—you could call it the city plumbing. Instead of going after all of these other Green dreams like walking and cycle projects, councils will now be getting back to business and focusing on what's important, which is managing assets well. Steve Abel: Where's the money coming from? SIMON COURT: Oh, this member here—Mr Abel—asks where the money is coming from. Well, guess what? Who pays for water? The consumers of water could pay. Some councils say that their ratepayers should pay. Under the previous Government's three waters model, who knew who was going to pay? But what's important is that if you're receiving an infrastructure service like water to your home or business, if you're flushing or you're sending stuff down the trade waste pipe, it's pretty clear that the user should be the one who pays, and that is why even some of those who have been almost religiously opposed to water meters in the past have had to accept that metering water is one of the ways of actually working out how to reduce use, how to manage down leaks and wastage, and how to link who uses it with who pays. Now, that makes perfect sense to most New Zealanders—if you use the water, you get a bill and you pay—but it's been an absolute revelation to the anti-business, anti-capitalist members of the Green Party who sit here in Parliament. So if we think about who's going to pay for water infrastructure going forward, one of the problems that this Government intends to solve is that with this massive deficit, this under-investment in existing infrastructure and in maintenance and renewals, combined with the need to provide water infrastructure to enable growth in our largest cities and in our new, fast-growing metros like Tauranga, the money needs to be raised to pay for these long-term assets, but they are long-term assets. These are assets that have 50-, 100-, 200-year lives. It makes no sense at all to force ratepayers of today to pay over a period of three or 10 or 15 years for an asset that has a very long life. So for one of the problems that this Government intends to solve, one of the ways to do it is by establishing council-controlled organisations who can make these long-term investment decisions, raise long-term debt, and make sure that the cost of those assets is spread over a fair amount— Steve Abel: Privatisation. SIMON COURT: —of time, and not lumped on current users, Mr Abel. Mr Abel talks about privatisation. Well, what's been very clear in the commitments made by this coalition Government is that water assets will not be privatised. But if this member wasn't aware of it, the contractors who turn up to fix the water pipes are, typically, private sector contractors. They're subcontractors to councils or to larger firms. If you're going to insist that this drinking water and all of these water services don't cost anything, then you've got it dead wrong. The users will end up paying. Whether they're ratepayers or whether they're getting a bill based on their water meter, what New Zealanders will have is much better water services as a result. ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, I'm delighted to speak to this and support the repeal of Labour's three-headed taniwha of three waters legislation. Look, there's no question that there are real issues with water infrastructure around our country; but, actually, that's true of many other aspects of infrastructure, many of them run by central government, of course. But Labour's centralisation, "We know best" was not the right way of doing it. The last Government, as we know, spent $1.2 billion—if you're going to be more efficient about doing something, spending $1.2 billion not even having it set up doesn't strike as being efficient. But trying to bulldoze that through against what they knew was significant opposition around the country—certainly from councils, who owned the assets, but also from the public as a whole. And that $1.2 billion, of course, does not include the costs to other parties, such as councils. It was Chris Hipkins who acknowledged that "We didn't take the people with us"—"We didn't take the people with us". And no, they didn't take the people with them. In fact, they built up more and more opposition. I suspect, had they not done what they'd done, they may not be where they are now—on that side of the House. I also want to acknowledge, as some others have, some of my friends and mayors up in the gallery there. I want to acknowledge you for your brave, courageous, and steadfast fight for what you believe was right on behalf of your communities, to say that we as communities want to be able to have a say over and control the direction of the assets which have been built up for generations and generations of ratepayers and water consumers in your area. So congratulations to you all. Three Waters was mis-sold. We can all remember the wonderful advertising campaigns that the last Government put out. They, basically, blamed local government—there were dying fish all over the place—for poor asset management. It started off as a voluntary opt-in scheme, so councils would be able to choose to opt in if they wanted to. Then it changed to be an opt-out scheme. Then, of course, it became compulsory. That's really good-faith bargaining! And that's one of the things that is wrong with this. Secondly, when the pressure came on around co-governance, there was all sorts of dissembling about saying, "Oh, it's not about co-governance. This is not a problem at all because look at co-governance of various rivers, various mountains." This is completely different. This is co-governance of services which serve every single New Zealander. Those New Zealanders have built those assets up, and yet the Government wanted to expropriate them essentially without compensation. And then we kept hearing about Havelock North being the reason for all this massive change right across the country. Well, with all due respect, if that was the problem, it was a massive overreaction. So what was wrong with it? Chlöe Swarbrick: People died. ANDY FOSTER: Well, if that was the problem, then we close our roads down tomorrow, but we don't do that either, do we. It was ideological, centralisation, one-size-fits-all, the establishment, for of all of four entities, and then 10 big entities. And we heard the Hon Kieran McAnulty talk about all the savings that were going to be made. Well, the reality was that if you put in massive gains in efficiency into one model but you don't put them into any other, of course you're going to make it look as though it's cheaper. But I think that was mythical. We've already seen, as I said, $1.2 billion spent on going, essentially, nowhere. It was also based on massive borrowing: $180 billion—$180 billion—and you think that's free? Where's the money going to come from? Well, it certainly wasn't going to be from some magic money tree. It was going to replace ratepayers with somebody—either ratepayers or water consumers; that hadn't been decided. Quite clearly councils were still going to have to keep on charging for it regardless until that had been worked out. Who was going to pay? Probably water consumers in the end, probably through water metering. By and large, those are exactly the same people as were paying for it already: the ratepayers. So there was nothing free. There is nothing free in this life, and there wasn't there. Then it was a massive asset grab, essentially—as I said—without compensation. The High Court actually recognised this. Again, I pay tribute to some of the councils who brought a case against the Government, and the High Court said, "Yes, this was expropriation." Of course, it's for Parliament to decide whether there was any compensation paid, but the High Court said, "Yes, this is expropriation.", and I think this is a real concern that a Government can just reach into and say, "Well, just because it's local government, we can take your assets away because we feel like it." That to me is wrong, and the High Court, effectively, said it was wrong as well. So I'm delighted to see this legislation passed through here. It is the repeal of some very, very poor legislation. And I look forward to having a much more locally responsive way of making sure that we deliver good three waters for our communities up and down the country. Thank you. TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. E ara ake nei au ki te waha i ngā kōrero me ngā whakaaro o te iwi Māori e hāngai ana ki tēnei o ngā panonitanga ture e hāngai pū nei ki te wai Māori. Kua roa nei Te Pāti Māori e tū ana i runga i te ōhākī o te Tiriti o Waitangi, me te kī ake nō te Māori te wai. I roto i tēnei rā tonu, e tohe tonu ana te Māori kia kake tōna tūranga i roto i ngā mana whakahaere, ngā mana whakarite i te wai. Hei aha? Hei painga mō te katoa. Nō reira, anei rā ko ētahi whakaaro e hāngai nei ki tēnei o ngā pire, ahu atu i a mātou o Te Pāti Māori. So, e te Speaker, tēnā koe. [Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to convey the statements and thoughts of the Māori people with respect to this, one of the amendment bills that directly concerns fresh water. For a long time, the Māori Party has stood on the final instruction of the Treaty of Waitangi, that states that water belongs to Māori. On this very day, Māori continue to fight to elevate themselves to positions within management authorities, organising authorities over water. For what purpose? For the benefit of all. So here are some thoughts about this particular bill, coming from us of the Māori Party. So, Mr Speaker, thank you.] Te mana o te wai—it's a concept. It's a concept, and it basically translates to "the importance of water". Te Ao Māori is extremely invested in the importance of water. We're completely aware of all of the debate around the delivery of water, around the nature of ownership of water, as quoted by our friend over here—not quite on the money but quoted nonetheless. I heard today that Three Waters was quoted as being a "hugely divisive" policy. I think that might be a little bit of an exaggeration. It became a hugely divisive policy after a great big race war centred around Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Māori rights, and co-governance was propagated around the country. But if you refer back to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and understand that all of the rights that Māori had pre-existing European arrival were guaranteed to continue and be protected in article 2, your view might change somewhat. But nevertheless, te mana o te wai as a standpoint continues to be strong for te Iwi Māori and it will be the basis for Te Pāti Māori's arguing for te mana o te wai, and te mana o te Māori i roto i te whakahaere i te wai [the importance of water, and the authority of Māori in the management of water]. I might just also add that at this point in time, te Iwi Māori are not contesting the ownership of water, although there are many precedents set around this country already that would lead our friends on this side of the House to consider what they say about who owns water. So, te mana o te wai—te taiao and the importance of te taiao. As the māngai of the New Zealand Māori Council for the last three years, I had the responsibility of presenting the New Zealand Māori Council's views on te mana o te wai, on Three Waters, and the nature and the place of Māori—Māori thinking, Māori rights, Māori solutions, in the improving of te mana o te wai, the importance of fresh water to New Zealand. I can unequivocally say that Te Ao Māori has the solutions that our country needs. They are, of course, unfortunately not rooted in making money. They are rooted in delivering clean, fresh water that will sustain this land's people and sustain this land's environments. This is a phrase captured in this piece of legislation as "te mauri o te taiao" [the vitality of the environment]. I guess my friends on this side of the House wouldn't understand a concept like te mauri o te taiao, but I can give you a quick little example. Te mauri o te taiao just requires that you place yourself on a lower rung on the ladder than everything else you rely on to live, nē? So money comes second. Maybe the health of your children comes first. Maybe clean water for everyone to swim in comes first, and delivering water for big business comes second. These are all concepts that this House will struggle to deal with, will struggle to articulate, and will struggle to frame policies that deliver it. But we will be here to ensure that these messages are held high in this House, that they are delivered clearly in this House, and that this House does not get to continue on and disregard Māori rights in te wai māori. Well, I might just conclude by directing my friends over here to a simple short clip that's on social media. It's Gareth Morgan, one of the leading economic minds of this country, describing Māori rights to water. And I'll just summarise it by saying he concludes by saying this: "Māori own the water". Now, as I said, Māori are not contesting the right to ownership of water—kia kaha. We are not contesting right to ownership of water, we are contesting the right to delivering Te Mana o te Wai, the importance of fresh water for every New Zealander and the rights of te Iwi Māori in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Kia ora tātou. Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Thank you Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to be talking on the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill and having endured the 88,000 submissions through our long period on the Finance and Expenditure Committee that some of us enjoyed—and I'm looking at the other side of the House here at Ingrid Leary who also had to endure that dreadful thing—it is an absolute pleasure to be talking today about repealing it because it was evident through the last term of Government what a divisive, dreadful three pieces of legislation it was, that this proposed change that Labour Government sought to bring about was causing in our communities. I acknowledge our council CEOs up in the audience. The bill raised a whole lot of issues but of specific importance to me are the issues relating to the Water Services Economic Efficiency and Consumer Protection Bill. My job is to work with Minister Brown to bring about new changes, new rules in terms of economic regulation of the water entities that will be formed under our new proposal of local water made better. What we want to ensure is that New Zealanders do get access to high quality water but we want to make sure that the decision making for that occurs at a local level. The big issue with the previous economic efficiency and consumer bill was that it assumes that these entities were all about making profit and ripping off New Zealanders; that, of course, was the wrong approach and that's why the overzealous economic regulations were totally inappropriate. What we will do is pare it back and make sure that we have adequate economic regulations that do ensure that councils invest properly to meet their minimum health standards, to meet the needs of their consumers. But perversely, actually, the regulations are about making sure they invest enough, not ensuring that they make a profit because of course they're separated stand-alone entities; that is why they'll be ring-fenced, and that is not about profit maximisation. It's about creating better infrastructure, and I'm looking forward to doing that over this year and putting the proposals back into the House at the end of the year alongside Minister Brown. Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the ability to take the call on this repeal bill. Before I start, I hope to indulge the House for a moment. It has been a year since Craig Stevens and Dave van Zwanenburg from Muriwai fire brigade passed away due to the events of Cyclone Gabrielle, so I want to acknowledge them and their families, and the fire and emergency crews across New Zealand, who are having their flags at half-mast today. Though, we are here today and it feels very much like déjà vu on this side of the House, and also some déjà vu from when we were on that side of the House, that again we are going through another repeal bill, again another urgency, and again nothing, no solutions, from the other side of the House. The Minister earlier today said there is a pressing need to move on these water reforms, and yet the bill that is tabled on this side of the House is just the repeal of the previous Government's bill, of the previous Government's work. There has been no solution tabled today. So if there was such a pressing need, why was not the Government who are now in force—why were they not working on something beforehand? Why all of a sudden, for the six years that they say that we've been doing nothing? Well, actually, we've been doing a lot, and if you look at the Department of Internal Affairs website, you will see that there was a royal commission of inquiry into the Havelock North affair, which started in mid-2017. That needed to run its course. Then there were a number of officials' papers and discussion documents and consultation that happened in that six years. The Hon Kelvin Davis, who is no longer a member of this House, said if things were easy then everybody would do it. Unfortunately, the problem with water reform: it has been kicked down the road for so long that it came down to the point where a Government, the previous Labour Government, had to take a stand and had to say we need to change this. We cannot have the situation where our children cannot swim in the beaches, in the rivers. We cannot have the situation where people are dying because of water. We need to ensure that our councils have the support in order for them to be able to invest in the infrastructure, because they all couldn't afford it. They've got three council authorities who are within my area of Mana, and they are all in very different situations as to what they can afford. But the three waters reform project, Affordable Water, basically allowed the ability for there to be balance sheet separation, and in the end, it's the money that counts. There's a Jerry Maguire movie where he says, "Show me the money." There is no money in this bill. I do remember the other instance of déjà vu I had was sitting on that side of the House watching the Hon Matt Doocey on this side saying, "When we become Government, we're going to co-invest."—that is on Hansard—and yet there is nothing in this bill. There has been no commitment since the election that that Government is going to co-invest with councils. Instead, they're passing the blame now on to councils, and we saw that in question time today, where the Minister said, "We're going to give it back to councils.", and, basically, if the rates are going to go up— Dr Tracey McLellan: Not their problem. Hon BARBARA EDMONDS: Not their problem, because they've given the responsibilities back to councils. That was the whole reason why we did those water reforms, to help ratepayers not see the large increases that they were going to see. Standard and Poor's have basically said that you need to have balance sheet separation in order for councils to be able to borrow more. If the Government's going to go ahead with their current reforms, which, again, is at the moment just repealing a bill, Standard and Poor's says the devil will be in the detail. There is insufficient detail here for any devil to be able to have a look at, and so it's going to be really interesting to see how this Government comes up with a plan to save ratepayers moneys, because the Minister today said that rates are not going to go up—nevertheless that Far North District Council's looking at 33 percent rate increases, the West Coast council's at 30 percent, Hamilton at 25.5 percent, and the Mayor of Porirua just said today 18 percent. These are increases that are going on to ratepayers, that this Government has done none of the work on in order to be able to provide that pressing need, that pressing solution, except for removing an actual policy solution that has Standard and Poor's stated approval, which allows a balance sheet separation so that those entities can borrow more to bring down the cost of that infrastructure project across the time so that it's cheaper for our ratepayers. So, again, we are here in a situation of déjà vu: no solutions, repealing a bill, and again in a situation where there were broken promises, where they said they would co-invest but the Government has not committed to it. STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to speak on this repeal bill. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the mayors in the audience in the Speaker's gallery, particularly one of my constituents: a mayor in in my area, Dan Gordon, who I know needs special acknowledgement for all the work that he did in rallying the rest of the troops—those sitting with him—to get this where we are today and actually delivered a pretty good plan for the future. So thank you very much for the work that you did collectively. This was a divisive bill—this was mentioned earlier by my colleague Andrew Bayly. In fact, it divided up Marlborough, and Marlborough ratepayers were going to be either on one side of the border and be in one entity or the other. It was incredibly divisive. No communities of interest were considered when these boundaries were set up. I mean, as the great President of Argentina, Javier Milei, says, collectivism does not work. This was a great example of collectivism that would have spiralled out of control, and it needs to be repealed. I commend this bill to the House. INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): The one thing that is really certain about the lack of plan that the Government has over its water reforms is that there will be rates hikes. I could almost feel smug about saying that if it wasn't so devastating for the people that it will affect, which are ratepayers but, actually, also renters, because those costs will be passed on to renters. It really continues the assault that this Government has on vulnerable members of our community. Here I'm thinking about the people in my electorate of Taieri: pensioners, who at the moment are paying $1 in $8 to their council rates, who over the next 10 years face the prospect of $1 in $4, according to the maths done by Clutha mayor Bryan Cadogan. I'm thinking about families who have maybe just managed to purchase their first home, who are now dealing with the cost of living, who are thinking about insurance, who are thinking about transport costs, and who will suddenly be facing these huge rates hikes. And they will happen. In Clutha, they're projected to be 20 percent, not just for this year—and I heard the Minister say in the House that this is about the short term. This is over the next 10 to 12 years. There will be a succession of rates hikes. In Dunedin, we've had councillors on the front page of the Otago Daily Times urging people to brace, saying that the rates hikes won't be pretty, that we cannot afford the infrastructure costs—the flood of costs, pardon the pun—that will be coming our way. This is why southern mayors have been pleading for the affordable water reforms to stay. It's because what is needed is scale and efficiency, and what the Government has said to date provides neither of those. When we think back to what the reason was for the affordable water reforms, it was not only Havelock North but, actually, what played out really significantly and devastatingly a year ago this week, around stormwater damage in Auckland. Now, when we sat on the select committee, which I had the privilege of chairing, we put a lot of thought into changing some of the gaps that existed in the previous law, not just in the way that the legislation that came to us was formulated, to make sure that there was fairness in the way that stormwater systems were managed. It was a lot of the mismanagement of stormwater and the regulatory gaps that led to a lot of the devastation last year. So I'm looking forward to the committee stage to ask the Minister what he is going to do about managing stormwater now that he is pulling back those reforms and those suggestions that we as a committee made. In Gore, 13,000 residents face $435 million worth of infrastructure costs with the peel back of the affordable water. That's according to the mayor, Ben Bell. Tim Cadogan, Central Otago mayor, has described the rates hikes they will face as eye-watering. They'll need to raise $100 million over the next three years from a ratepayer base of just 26,000 people. Three waters is a mess. The Government's solution does not respond to the question of who is going to pay, and what the Minister has said is that there will be some kind of regulatory solution. That is a wholly inadequate answer. I'm looking forward to asking him, with these council-controlled organisations, how he is going to make them happen. What about debt-heavy councils? How will they raise more funds? What funding role will central government have? What is the most cost-effective way to raise funds? What are they going to do to deal with stormwater? I was really surprised to hear Andrew Bayly talk about consumer protections, because he was very invested, in the select committee process, in ensuring that there were good and straightforward and streamlined consumer protections, which we managed to get through in that particular bill. To hear him now saying that he wants to go back to the drawing board is surprising, and I heard no plan from him about what he plans to do for consumer protection under these reforms. What we can see is that there is no plan coming from this Government. It is trying to stick to its coalition agreement to pull back the affordable water reforms. It doesn't have a plan. It is trying to distance itself from councils. I feel sorry for the mayors who are sitting in the gallery today, because I don't think they'll be around very long once they have to implement the rates hikes that they will be implementing in their councils. This is an assault on homeowners, it's an assault on ratepayers, it's an assault on renters, who will have costs passed on to them, and it doesn't do anything to assure people that this Government has a plan for affordable water. NANCY LU (National): I am standing here to support the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill. I wanted to make a mention, when the member talks about the visitors that we have in the gallery—our mayors—about watching their back and no longer having a job, that she should probably look up. Because the mayors are really shaking their head and disagreeing with the member's comments. But I support this bill because there are many New Zealanders who have had enough of the lack of water infrastructure and the poor water planning locally. The last Labour Government, while they were in Government and in power they had all the time and resources and votes to do something, and they did not. So I support this bill because many voters have openly called out for the last Labour Government to stop the mega-merge into the three—and then later, 10—services entities. All the talks, but no delivery. So I support this bill. A party vote was called for on the question, That the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill be now read a first time. Ayes 68 New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8. Noes 55 New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 6. Motion agreed to. Bill read a first time. DEPUTY SPEAKER: This bill is set down for second reading immediately. Second Reading Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): I move, That the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill be now read a second time. I commend this bill to the House for its second reading. This bill serves as a decisive step in stopping Labour's unpopular and divisive three waters regime. This Government is determined to do things differently, in a way that recognises the importance of localism and flexibility while ensuring a strong emphasis on ensuring there is investment in infrastructure and regulatory requirements are met. As I outlined in my first reading speech of this legislation, our plan for addressing New Zealand's longstanding water infrastructure challenges, Local Water Done Well, will provide the tools for local government to deliver and the oversight necessary to ensure an efficient system for New Zealanders. The previous Government's lack of trust in local councils led to the imposition of a mandatory and centralised co-governed 10-entity water model—a model that spent $1.25 billion without even implementing their policy approach. This flawed, one-size-fits-all approach would have burdened councils and it would not have actually delivered what New Zealanders need. The coalition Government intends to make changes to build better water services for current and future generations in New Zealand, ensuring strict bottom lines for water service delivery and are met without entangling local councils in co-governance structures. We know the status quo cannot continue. The reality is we need to have a plan which supports local councils to make the long-term investment decisions that they need so they can control the water infrastructure and invest over the long term, and that is exactly what Local Water Done Well will do. The first bill that we'll be passing by the middle of 2024 will set out provisions relating to council service delivery plans and transitional economic regulations. It will also provide streamlined requirements for establishing council-controlled organisations under the Local Government Act 2002, enabling councils to start shifting the delivery of water services into more financially sustainable configurations should they wish to do so. A second bill providing for the long-term replacement regime will be introduced in December 2024 and passed by the middle of 2025. This will set out provisions relating to long-term requirements for financial sustainability, provide for a complete economic regulation regime and a new range of structural and financing tools including a new type of financially independent council-controlled organisations. This second bill will also establish regulatory backstop powers to be used when required to ensure effective delivery of financially sustainable or safe water services. In addition, we will also make necessary amendments to the water regulations legislation to ensure the regulatory framework is fit for purpose and workable for drinking water suppliers. All legislation to support the implementation of Local Water Done Well is expected to be passed by mid-2025 ahead of the local government elections in October 2025. The Water Services Acts Repeal Bill, which we are passing through the House today, is the first step in restoring continued local council ownership and control of water services and responsibility for service delivery. Local Water Done Well recognises the importance of local decision making and flexibility for communities and councils to determine how their water services will be delivered into the future. We will do this while ensuring a strong emphasis on meeting rules for water quality and investment and infrastructure. Financial sustainability is a key principle of this Government's plan to implement Local Water Done Well. Financial sustainability can include revenue sufficiency, balance sheet separation, ring-fencing, and funding for growth. We're creating options for councils around how they choose to ensure their water services are financially sustainable. Balance sheet separation is one of the ways that councils can achieve this, and ultimately this Government will be working alongside councils, not forcing solutions upon them. This is a Government which actually believes in the importance of local government and in the responsibilities that they have towards their local communities. That is why I just want to acknowledge my colleague from the ACT Party, Simon Court, in his speech before, which was saying water delivery is a local government issue; they are responsible for this infrastructure. It is our job as a Government to ensure that they have the foundational policy and the ability to make the long-term investments in the long-term assets that water is for their communities. They need to ensure that they are funding for the long term, they need to have access to long-term funding tools, and they need to ensure that they are funding this as a must-have, not a nice-to-have. Council-controlled organisations can help make those long-term decisions and raise that long-term debt and spread that cost over the life of those assets rather than upon ratepayers today. So we commend this legislation to the House. This is about repealing what was a divisive policy from the last Government—policy which wasn't even implemented despite six years and over a billion dollars spent on it—and we're actually going to act in pace to get this implemented so local government has the tools and the policies to be able to get on and make the long-term infrastructure investments they need for New Zealanders. Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The first point that I would make is that if this was such a crowning glory for the Government, wouldn't the Minister want to use the whole time that he has to explain why? Because ultimately I think that touches on something quite crucial here, and it touches on exactly why we oppose this repeal bill: we oppose this repeal bill because it won't work. We oppose this for the very simple reason that this will not help. This will cost ratepayers more and it will not lead to more affordable water services that meet the regulatory requirements. That's not just us saying that; it is the Minister's own advice. It is quite clear that the only way to achieve the level of expenditure across all councils, noting that there are a very small number of councils that are in a particular position, unique to themselves, but on the whole, across the board, $185 billion needs to be spent. Councils cannot do it by themselves. Many are at their debt cap; they can't borrow more. Many councils aren't at their debt cap but represent communities that simply cannot afford to pay higher rates. What on earth are they going to do? They have to do the investment because this Government, quite rightly, is keeping the water regulator which will ensure that councils meet the minimum standards. That is something that the local government sector themselves welcomed and, actually, many said should have been in place years ago, and I agree with them. So I at least congratulate the Government for keeping that, but let's see what that will do in practice. We have a water regulator that will require councils to meet minimum standards. For some councils that will require significant investment almost immediately. What are those councils that can't borrow more going to do? What are those councils, be they in lower socio-economic areas or rural areas with a low rate of paying base, many of whom are on fixed incomes that can't afford to pay higher rates—what are they going to do? I've heard nothing to suggest that the Government has a solution to that other than allowing them to do council-controlled organisations. They already can and it hasn't worked. Look at Auckland; that's unaffordable. Look at Wellington; that has not worked. Many councils in the Wellington region as part of Wellington Water concede that something else has to be done. There is nothing new being proposed aside from ring-fencing of funding which will force councils to put rates up. It's not councils' fault; they will have no option. I absolutely oppose the language being used by the Minister, saying that this will force councils to spend money on the necessities rather than the nice-to-haves. How offensive is that to hard-working councillors and mayors who are trying their hardest to make sure that they are investing in infrastructure with the limited means that they have? And here we have a Minister criticising their decisions while one hand is being tied behind the council's back, and once this bill is repealed and the so-called replacement is brought in place then both hands will be tied behind their back. If we take the Minister on his word that there will all of a sudden be massive council-controlled organisations across the country with councils working together, I would pose a very simple question which I hope that the Minister answers at committee stage: why would a council that is in a relatively good financial position voluntarily agree to work with a council that is at their debt cap, has a very small number of ratepayers, and simply cannot afford to do it? I am deeply concerned about a number of councils in particular. I am especially concerned about the Tararua District Council. The Tararua District Council, which is part of northern Wairarapa and southern Hawkes Bay, has 12,000 ratepayers. Obviously there are more people living there but there are 12,000 rating units in that area. They need to find $600 million over the next 30 years. That's not our numbers; that's derived from the council's own numbers. How the hell are they going to do it by themselves? The Government might say they won't be by themselves. So the next question is who is going to voluntarily join with them? They are going to be left on their own, high and dry with no capacity to pay for what they need. Now the Tararua District Council also has the fourth-largest roading network in the country, something that they have to also service themselves, and this was a cyclone-affected area. They have taken on considerable amounts of debt as a result of being hit by Cyclone Gabrielle. They cannot do it; I've used this example a number of times and the Minister has never given me a credible response as to how they as to how they are going to do what they need to do. They are going to be left high and dry, and I think it's a disgrace. There are many other councils who, by 2051, are going to be facing costs that ratepayers simply cannot afford, and it is a legitimate question that deserves an answer: who would join with them? I'm not convinced that the entire Canterbury region would voluntarily join up, as was proposed under the current settings in the affordable water reforms. I can imagine that Christchurch, Selwyn, and Waimakariri might join together but why the hell would they voluntarily accept Ashburton where, without reform, each individual ratepayer is facing $8,690 each year, by 2051, just for water? They have massive costs; they have a small population compared to other areas. I am not convinced that the larger areas that are in a better financial situation would voluntarily join with them. Listen to the Minister's language today at question time being asked whether he will guarantee that ratepayers will save money as a result of his repeal. He said it would be cheaper. Cheaper for who? Not for ratepayers but cheaper for them, and this touches on this Government's priorities. They're more than happy to give money away to landlords but won't invest on core, key infrastructure. They have broken a promise. They stood here in the House—they went to every single district council in the country and said, "If you back us, we'll back you." They said, "We will help fund your infrastructure." It's not true. There's been no announcement of funding. There's been many a question about funding and at no point has the Government said, "Yes, we will." So here we have councils, that are unlikely to have other councils join up with them, left on their own. Some cannot borrow more because they're at their borrowing cap. The Government, despite promising they would help fund it, have now refused to do so. What are they going to do? Their short answer, unfortunately, is nothing because they won't have the money. We'll either have councils going bankrupt or councils not meeting their regulatory requirements in terms of water standards. That's a disgrace. The National Party started this process under the Hon Anne Tolley. Anne Tolley recognised that there was a problem and started this work. Hon Nanaia Mahuta continued it on and then I took over and made some changes as a result of listening to the local government sector. It is telling that the National Party's rationale for this repeal focuses on mayors' comments at the start of the process, not after the changes were made. Once those changes were made and it moved from four entities to 10 in a more regionalised model, the majority of councils expressed support for it, including many members, many councils, that had signed up to Communities 4 Local Democracy, who vehemently opposed the proposals, who came out after the changes in support. This repeal is unnecessary, it is irresponsible, and it is lazy. It is lazy because, in politics, you need to show leadership even when things aren't popular and what they are trying to do is cynical. They are saying—whenever you ask them why they won't guarantee that ratepayers will save money, the answer is that's a matter for the councils. Because later on, when rate bills come in and people can't afford them, they'll come to the Government and they'll say, "What are you going to do about it?" and the answer will be "That's a matter for the local council". We hear it all the time; we're going to hear it in the future. They are setting them up; they are setting councils up, promising them something they know they cannot deliver. Balance sheet separation under their plan is a myth. Councils will be left high and dry, with no provisions for extra revenue, and the and the Government's response will simply be, "Well, you're on your own." Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. On behalf of the Green Party, access to healthy water is a fundamental right. It's our responsibility, as lawmakers and representatives of the people of this country, to ensure that everyone has access to healthy water, that it is treated as commons and a public good. We have learned, not just in Aotearoa New Zealand, but around the world, that when communities work together to manage access to water, it works better. It's something that—it's fundamentally part of the commons. Throughout the process of the water services repeal, the Green Party raised many, many concerns, and many facts that were coming from the communities most affected, and we sought changes. We won many of those changes; not all of them. Ultimately, we oppose the bill that is passing though under Urgency today, because it is going to create more uncertainty for councils and communities. While the reform wasn't exactly what the reform would have been in a Green Government, or even with a Labour-Green Government, because we didn't have one of those, the reform was—at least—setting a clear direction, and, as the previous speaker the Hon Kieran McAnulty said, they listened very carefully to what local communities and their representatives were asking for, and they did make many changes. I certainly saw—with people who were lobbying me as an infrastructure and energy spokesperson last term—that there were concerns about certain bills, but most of those concerns were addressed, if not through the select committee process, through the committee stages of the bill. In the final stages of the bill, many, many of those concerns were addressed. The reality is this Government believes its own hysterical rhetoric that it stirred up around these reforms. It has stirred up absolute hysteria and fear, and made it divisive, despite it being a relatively sensible proposal, because, when those parties were in Opposition, they were desperate to do anything to get people to vote for them and to attack the Government of the day. There was not a constructive Opposition; the constructive opposition was from the Green Party. We got some wins. There's still huge opportunities to do things better; we maintain that stormwater should rest with councils, not the independent entities. That's because stormwater is so fundamentally related to decisions around urban planning and transport infrastructure. There are huge opportunities to do things better—like low impact development, green infrastructure—which not only brings nature into our cities, but it works with nature to take the pressure off the pipes. It ends up being much more cost effective. We need to make sure that our institutions set up in a position where they can make the right decisions in the planning rules and in the transport infrastructure, and in the rules around development; that we can take full advantage of low impact development. That's something that I was hugely experienced with before I came to this House as an urban planner, and I'm sorry to see that it hasn't been more embraced in New Zealand. But it was picked up in the final legislation as something that entities should be looking at, and it's one of those areas where there's a win-win. There's a better environmental outcome and a lower fiscal cost, and when those two things go hand-in-hand—and a better urban amenity for those living in our towns and cities—of course we should be embracing them, and ensuring that organisations that are looking after the infrastructure aren't just totally focused on concrete and pipes, when, in fact, working with nature can get better outcomes, and take pressure off those reticulated systems, especially where they are combined. Of course, there is a need to repair and improve pipes. Let's go back to the origin of the crisis that we're now seeing unfold in Wellington, in my electorate of Rongotai, in my neighbouring Green electorate, Wellington Central, and I've seen, just today, in Auckland. There is a crisis of under-investment in the horizontal infrastructure. Let's be honest about what caused that. It is 30 years of a neo-liberal ideology that said we should try to keep taxes low and spend as little as possible. it was subsequent central governments pushing more and more responsibility on to local councils without ever offering the proper funding for them to carry out those responsibilities. Now, in Aotearoa New Zealand, one of the lowest share of national revenue gathered is actually gathered by and spent by local government. In the countries we like to compare ourselves to, they spend more on infrastructure. They tax in a fairer way. They have capital gains taxes, they have inheritance taxes. They don't let the wealth accumulate with a small number of people over multiple generations, because they know we all benefit and we're all better off when we collectively use our resources in a way that benefits us all. I've lived in other countries, so I can speak to this with particular lived experience; it's possible to do things much better. But in order to do that, we have to address the unfairness of our tax system, we have to ensure that local government is receiving enough of the national revenue to be able to invest in the infrastructure, and to undertake the responsibilities that we expect them to undertake. Unfortunately, out there, in the debate, we see a lot of misinformation, a lot of misinformation, where people conflate investment in complete streets, that will allow our kids to get around our neighbourhoods under their own steam, that would help reduce congestion—things like protected bike lanes and safer speeds around schools; somehow that's really high cost. That's absurd. That is an absurd statement, because it is the lowest cost, highest value transport investments we can make, and we know this from many, many economic evaluations. On top of it, people are saying, "Well, don't spend money on the bike lanes, we need to focus on the pipes". We're comparing maybe $10 million on bike lanes with $10 billion needed on pipes. Cutting the investment in our transport infrastructure for our neighbourhoods is not going to fund the pipes. It's not going to address the issue. On top of it, it's going to make transport worse. I say to those living in rural areas: nobody is asking people in rural areas to take public transport or ride bikes where it doesn't make sense. No one has said that. What we are saying is, spend the money and do the sensible investments in the cities to solve the urban transport problems in the cities, and then we have more money to spend on the roads in the rural areas. Because what you will find is that the National Party, the National-led Government, is spending the vast majority of the money on highways in the cities, in the very places where they are the most counter-productive. To say that speed bumps and speed management and red-light cameras and bike lanes are the cause of all our problems is just utter, absurd nonsense. It's coming from a Minister who is extremely inexperienced in life, and who frankly believes his own hysterical rhetoric. Because he is an extremist. The Minister of Local Government, the Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown is an absolute ideological extremist who would fit in with the Republicans in the United States, campaigning against access to reproductive health for women at university. He doesn't know. So he says he cares about cost effectiveness and fiscal responsibility, but it is not there in the priorities of the National Government. It is not there. Show me the numbers. Show us the numbers. If it is true that the Government cares about fiscal responsibility, let us see it in the priorities for transport investment. Let's see it in the priorities for investment in infrastructure. Because one thing I know to be true is you get what you pay for. If your focus is not spending money and—hold on, sorry—returning money to landlords so that they don't pay their fair share of tax, we are not going to be able to raise the revenue to invest in the infrastructure we need long term. And we can dress it up and talk about council-owned council-controlled organisations (CCOs) and public-private partnerships (PPPs) and all of that, all the different financing mechanisms. Fundamentally, if you don't raise enough revenue to invest in the infrastructure, we all pay for it. We're all paying for the short-sighted decisions of the last 30 years which was very much driven by an environment that said, "We should try to keep taxes on the wealthy low. We shouldn't have a capital gains tax, we shouldn't have an inheritance tax. We should let wealth accumulate in a small number of people who become absurdly wealthy and then they can use their enormous wealth and power to influence politicians". DEPUTY SPEAKER: Now we are straying from the bill. Back to the bill, please. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: We oppose this bill because, fundamentally, it is creating uncertainty for councils at a time when, potentially, there are tweaks and things that could be made better about the model that was put forward, and the Greens would support that. We don't need a wholesale repeal of the model. We'd like to see some actual constructive input, rather than hysterical rhetoric that's trying to stop councils from investing in things that communities genuinely need. The reality is that our local government needs much more sustainable and generous funding in order for communities to be able to make the sensible, long-term decisions, particularly to deal with the climate crisis, which is not going away. CAMERON LUXTON (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. So I guess I am not sure if I'm old enough to make this speech according to the last member, Julie Anne Genter . But, look, the repeal of three waters is not just a relief to many New Zealanders, but it's symbolic of the broader change in direction away from centralised instincts of Labour and back towards empowering local communities. The claim that the Labour Government was trying to sell to New Zealanders was that a larger water entity would be more efficient. There was no requirement for councils to reduce rates, reflecting the fact that they will no longer be supplying total water services. Not only did some local government take their eye off the ball when it comes to services and replacement of their pipes, now many ratepayers in towns and cities must contend with the cost that their core infrastructure is now going to impose upon them after falling behind, when supplying and servicing critical infrastructure should be the first job of council. I would like to acknowledge Minister Brown's statement that water infrastructure is the responsibility of local government, and this Government will create the environment to enable them to do just that. We all know the status quo isn't up to scratch, but Labour's bureaucratic co-governed regime was never the answer. Three waters would have been great for middle-managers but a disaster for water-users, with layers and layers of bureaucracy separating decision makers from the people. The ACT - National coalition agreement delivered stopwork notices to the three waters work stream. We've also committed the Government to instituting long-term city and regional - infrastructure deals, empowering local authorities to use public-private partnerships and tolling and other such mechanisms to fund infrastructure and to look at their pipes. I would also say, you know, to the previous member's comment, New Zealand actually has one of the OECD's most-centralised tax systems. But this Government will introduce fiscal incentives for councils to enable more housing, including looking at sharing a proportion of GST collected on new residential builds with councils to help fund infrastructure like pipes and encourage councils to get more houses built. Now, I also reflect on the Minister's answers in question time today. There was an interesting one from the Hon McAnulty which, in the end, exposed the $2—1.2 billion already spent on three waters. Hon Tama Potaka: How much? CAMERON LUXTON: I believe it was $1.2, was it? Hon Members: Yep. CAMERON LUXTON: Outrageous, right? Hon Tama Potaka: It was $1.2 billion. CAMERON LUXTON: It was $1.2 billion—sorry, $1.2 billion, Minister Potaka, thank you for that. But I've got to say I was heartened when it was followed by a question from Katie Nimon which then allowed the Minister to talk about how we will be restoring local government - ownership and we will be removing this divisive and overly bureaucratic mega - co-governed bureaucracy. The Minister also spoke about two further bills coming, and I'm looking forward to working with the Minister and the associate—was he under-secretary, or? I'm still new learning all these roles, but Mr Simon Court, who's doing great work in this area. Katie Nimon: Getting the job done. CAMERON LUXTON: Now—yeah, get the job done, that's right—I'd also like to just relate the story from my experience with water infrastructure. So I live in Tauranga—we have metered water-supply. Now, we've heard a bit about what metered water-supply can do when identifying leaks and making sure the people that are actually using water are paying for it. A few months ago, I had a leak at the front of my property, and when going and inspecting it I realised that the leak was coming from the other side of the toby. So this is not me paying for the water because it's not going through the meter and spinning, so I'm not paying. I call the council and I say, "There's a water leak." They go, "Which side of the toby is it?" I go, "Oh, it's on your side." They go, "All right, we'll get there and fix it straight away."—because they know that these costs are going to load up on the collective ratepayer base who will have to pay for it. Whereas once it's on the other side of the toby, the incentive would be on the property owner to fix it. This is the sort of thing that means that a place like Tauranga doesn't have leaks running down the street, and it's somewhere that is working well with its water infrastructure. I'd also like to talk about people who don't rely on a reticulated water scheme. We heard again, a "right to water". Now, I agree that every human should have a right to water, but that doesn't give you a right to infrastructure. If you were living somewhere where it is too unaffordable for a local government to get pipes to, you might have to rely on rainwater. Now I do not think that we should be stopping anybody being able to gather water how they choose, get it out of the ground with a consent, and also tap into town supply if that's what's needed. But this centralising of Government provisions of water cannot stand, and I'm glad that we're repealing this bill. I commend this bill to the House. ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Thanks. We've heard from the Green Party member who spoke just a moment ago, Hon Julie Anne Genter, that access to water is a fundamental human right, and I think we would all agree with that. And she also said that when people work together, fundamentally that's a really good thing and fundamentally that water is part of the commons. Yet, the piece of legislation that we're removing at the moment—or the pieces of legislation that we're removing—actually weren't seeing water as part of the commons. They took it away from the people, took it away from the localities, and said, "We're going to put it in these very large entities and we're going to take it away from any local control or influence"—any meaningful local control or influence. I mean, it was a massively complicated process that they set up—"and we're also going to divide New Zealanders into some people who have more influence and some people who have less influence." That doesn't sound to me like something that is looking at water as a fundamental human right and something which is part of the commons. As I said when I spoke earlier, what we actually saw—and the High Court agreed—is that the last Government was going through a process which the courts said was expropriation. Normally, we would say that is theft. It was taking somebody's asset away without compensating them for it. Look, what we're doing today is we are doing exactly what we—the collective coalition here—said we would do. Goodness me! That's terrible, isn't it! We're actually keeping our election promises. In fact, we're keeping lots of our election promises and we are repealing the legislation which these parties on this side of the House campaigned against. Now, we've been told, "Why do it now?" Well, it's a very obvious reason: councils are going through long-term planning processes. Actually, I think they deserve certainty. Because if they are doing it on the basis at the moment—and I do know that some of them are doing exactly this; they are planning their LTPs on the basis of the legislation as it stands at the moment; that is the legislation which we are about to repeal—but if it doesn't get repealed, they've got to keep on marching ahead on the basis that it hasn't been repealed. So they've got to deal with the law as it is. And it makes much more sense to say, "Look, we're going to get rid of that so you know where you are at the moment—you know that there's reform coming." So that gives them some certainty to be able to plan and to budget. The other point is—it was about the commons and about taking people with you. Well, we've heard that the leader of the Labour Party has acknowledged that people weren't taken with them. You wouldn't get 88,000 submissions—the vast majority of them against it. You wouldn't start off with something where you said, "Councils, it's your choice. You can opt into this if you want to.", and then go, "Oh, we're actually not so sure that the councils are going to do that, so what we'll do is we'll change our mind and we'll say that you can opt out of it. So you're in unless you opt out." And then they go, "Oh no, we still haven't got them on board. So what we'll do is we'll force you to come in." That's not good faith, but the process of the legislation that we are getting rid of today and over this week did exactly that. We've also heard a lot from the Opposition benches here about rates rises. Now, how was water going to be paid for under Labour's legislation? It was going to be paid for by the magic money tree somewhere, wasn't it. Well, no, it wasn't going to come from the magic money tree. We've had this supposition—in fact, again, the Green Party spokesperson said that it's all about things like capital gains taxes and we could have more money from somewhere to put into the water system. Actually, under what we're appealing, it wasn't the Government that was going to pay for it either. Who was going to pay for it? That hadn't actually already been worked out. When you started off, it was still, in all probability, going to go through the council's bill. A lot of it would have been rates funded, others of it would have been user charge through meters where those meters already exist. But you can't just magically magic up a whole lot of meters. So for a period of time it would still have gone through the council's rates bill, so people would still have seen it that way. But even once it was fully implemented, it was going to come from who? The water consumer. And who do you think the water consumer is if they're not very, very similar people to the ratepayer—many of them are exactly the same people. We heard Ingrid Leary on the other side talk about how this is an imposition on renters. Well, I can tell you one thing: who pays the power bill? Is it the landlord? I don't think so. I think, by and large, the power bill is paid for by the tenant. So who do you think was going to pay the water bill when it's separated out and it's charged on a meter? I don't think it was going to be the landlord. I think it was going to be the renter. So we're hearing some rather fragile arguments from the other side on this. So not only was the transfer not going to be immediate and water service entities would have taken some time to get their billing systems up, and certainly even longer to get water meters in place, because that would have been an inevitability. It's going to take some years to get water meters in place in some places—it's a very big and expensive task. There's no magic money tree there. Then we've also heard about the poor councils—the ones who are not in a good state. Three waters, as it was originally proposed, basically, split the country into four areas. Why did it split into four areas? Because it said, "We've got big Auckland, they can look after the northern bit. Actually, we've got big Hamilton sitting up there in the middle bit. They can look after some of that area. Wellington can look after this area here, and Christchurch can look after the bit at the bottom." It was based on cross-subsidies. So, basically, what we're hearing from the Opposition benches there is that some of the councils which are in better condition wouldn't do it of their own volition, so we'll force them to do it. So, basically, what we'll say is, "Your rates, your water charges in an area which had done a good job, are going to end up paying for those who are in not quite such a good position." That seems to be the logic which we've heard from the other side. So why would those councils want to get together? Well, at least the legislation which we're looking at is to allow them to make that choice. But in none of this was there any Government money—Government money was never promised. There was a little bit in the transition process, but nothing after that. So all the issues around tax reform, etc. were absolutely irrelevant. We've also heard that you get what you pay for. I think the reality is you started to see some councils—some of maybe the less responsible ones—where the kind of rhetoric is very much along the lines of, "Well, if we don't have to pay for water, we're going to look very much better. It's still going to hurt the ratepayer, the consumer, in the back pocket, but we're going to look much better and maybe we can go and spend some more money on something else we otherwise couldn't have done." So it actually takes some discipline off some of those councils. So I'm delighted to support this. If you're looking ahead at where we go, I think we need to keep on working to drive efficiencies. We need to set sensible standards, and that's clearly what the intention of the legislation is. And one of those areas where you can be more efficient is the previous legislation—the legislation which is being repealed—went all the way down to two houses constituted a local water scheme; two houses. That makes absolutely no sense—that level of intrusion into peoples' lives. And it certainly included a lot of those local water schemes where you might have a couple of dozen houses. Those people, they wanted to do their own job. They were doing their own job perfectly well, thank you very much, without the Government intruding on it. So I am delighted to support this legislation going through, and I look forward to further conversation. DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. So first I call Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke. HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE (Te Pāti Māori—Hauraki-Waikato): Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka, otirā, tēnā rā tātou e te Whare. [Thank you, Madam Speaker, indeed, greetings to all of us.] Ka mātakitaki iho au ki te riu o Waikato anō nei hei kapo kau ake māku ki te kapu o taku ringa. Ka whakamiri noa i tōna ara tau e tia nei he tupu pua hou. [I look down on the valley of Waikato As though to hold it in the hollow of my hand And caress its beauty Like some tender verdant thing.] Ka tīmata ake au ki te tangi apakura nā Kīngi Tāwhiao i te rironga o tana whenua me te raupatu o tana iwi. Ka tohe au, ka tohe au. Ka tohe au ki tēnei pire e tāmi ana i tōku whakapapa me ngōku tūpuna. [I begin with the song of lament of King Tāwhiao upon the loss of his land and the confiscation of his people. I disagree, I object. I oppose this bill that suppresses my genealogy and my ancestors.] I stand here today to debate and strongly oppose this bill as a mokopuna Māori nō tōku awa koiora o Waikato [Māori grandchild from my living river of Waikato]. This debate doesn't just start at three waters for me. I know I've only been in the House for five minutes, however, this starts 50 generations ago and it starts with our pepeha. Now, some members may be thinking, what does this have to do with this bill? My answer is that this has everything to do with this bill. As a mokopuna of our pepeha, we have a complete conscious awareness of our surroundings and of our taiao. In the event in 2016 in Havelock North, four people died and up to 5,000 people became ill from drinking contaminated water. This resulted in an inquiry which found the contamination was a result of the systemic failure across services, provision, regulation, and source protection. Simply put, the infrastructure of our water is not sustainable and it is a human failing, not an environment failing. The original intent of this three waters bill was to simply provide drinking water for everyone, every day, and the infrastructure of waste water, drinking water, and stormwater. However, this became a right-wing rhetoric feast for the public. Let's be real: the issue is not about the water or the infrastructure; it was the fact that an amazing, well-educated indigenous woman with a moko kauae was leading this mahi. Every 500 metres we would see a stop three waters sign, and the disgusting race division that was not perpetrated by Māori but was from white right-wing fragility. If we look at the wider context of why from the perspective of a 21-year-old wahine from Rāhui Pōkeka, I will reply with this: I rongo a Kāwana Kerei kua tata te tū mai te whakatū o te kīngitanga Māori. Ka mea mai a Kāwana Kerei, "E Pō, tukuna tō kīngitanga ki raro". Ko te whakahoki a Te Wherowhero, "Ehake i ahau tēnei taonga, nā ngā iwi katoa o te motu." Ko te whakahoki a Kāwana Kerei, "Ki te kore e turaki i tō kīngitanga ki raro, ka whawhai au mō te whitu tau, mō te iwa tau." Ka mea a Pōtatau, "Ka whawhai mō te waru tau, iwa tau, e kore au e mate." Kātahi ka mea a Kāwana Kerei, "E Pō, he kau tāku. Ka horomi i ngō whenua, ā pau noa. Ka whakapau te kau nei o ō puna wai katoa." Ka mea a Kīngi Pōtatau, "Ka hoki au ki te wai a Arona, he mana whenua e kore e mimiti." Ka mea mai a Kāwana Kerei, "Ka pau i a koe ngā huawhenua katoa te kai, ka kai koe i te aha?" Ka mea a Kīngi Pōtatau, "Ka kai au i a koe." [Governor Grey heard of the impending establishment of the Māori kingdom. Governor Grey then said, "Pō, let your kingdom come down". Te Wherowhero's response was, "This taonga is not mine, it belongs to all the iwi of the nation." Governor Grey's response was, "If you do not disestablish your kingdom, I will fight you for seven years, for nine years." Pōtatau said, "We could fight for eight years, nine years, I will not die." Then Governor Grey said, "Pō, I have a cow. It will swallow your land until there is none left. These cows will drink all of your water sources until they are gone." King Pōtatau said, "I will return to the water of Aaron, a terrestrial authority that will never dissipate." Governor Grey said, "Once you've consumed all of the vegetables, what will you eat?" King Pōtatau said, "I will eat you."] In my vision of an Aotearoa hou for fresh water, we as mokopuna of Waikato will not have to wait another generation to swim in our tupuna awa or watch our river be used as a literal toilet dump. We have been hearing all sorts of views on who owns the water. Some say, "We own the water.", "No, we own the water.", "The Government owns the water."—all sorts. But I am here today to say the water owns you. We as Māori believe we are the teina to our pepeha. Hei whakakapi i ngā kōrero [To conclude these statements], we have heard this Government being called the three-headed taniwha, but for us in Waikato, our taniwha are kaitiaki. So we will not be following these taniwha; we will continue to follow Tarakōkōmako, Paneiraira, and Tūheitia. Tēnā rā tātou katoa. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Tamatha Paul. LAN PHAM (Green): Close—Lan Pham. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Oh, sorry—I'm so sorry. LAN PHAM: That's totally sweet. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The photos are really, really small! LAN PHAM: Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Firstly, I want to thank the member who's just spoken, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, for putting this bill into the perspective and context that it actually needs: seeing the challenge of this massive underinvestment and our road ahead in the context of our mokopuna. It's been well traversed already how significant the legacy of our underinvestment in water infrastructure is, not just for us as people but for our environment, and so I'm really pleased to speak again in opposition to the repeal of these Acts. I had the privilege of serving on Canterbury Regional Council for two terms, and it was rather disconcerting over that time to see the misinformation and deliberate drumming up of race-based rhetoric not only from our current Government now but from local government elected members too. And I believe the public deserves better. But I really want to use councils as an example here, because councils are typically made up of people from very diverse backgrounds, with different views, and despite these differences in opinion councils ultimately figure out how to work together. And it prompts me to beg the question: why is it so hard for this Government to work constructively? The Government's approach of scrapping the reforms—scrapping the Natural and Built Environment Act, scrapping the Spatial Planning Act, and now scrapping the water services Acts—is a huge missed opportunity to build on the work that has been done so far and is now leaving councils and communities facing years of uncertainty. There was scope for this Government to amend rather than repeal. Starting from scratch on the reform process due to knee-jerk governance means time lost and uncertainty for how the system will operate moving forward. And it's a huge missed opportunity and one I cannot stress enough. We could have built on the good things that were in the reform that we need and we know are so important to making the system effective: aspects like recognising the importance of iwi and hapū at the decision-making table, aspects like mandating for nature-based solutions for infrastructure investment that have multitudes of other benefits—biodiversity benefits, recreational benefits, amenity benefits, and the list goes on. Kiwis deserve better, because effective governance of water services has to be integrated with good land-use planning and spatial planning in alignment with our actual natural catchments and the actual movement of water through our entire ecosystem, ki uta ki tai, from the mountains to sea, and the repeal of these Acts now takes us further away from that. Whatever comes next, the wider and longstanding call from local government for better funding models must be taken into account. These reforms must now ensure that shifting the assets and liabilities back to councils does not leave them under more financial pressure, because we know that ultimately councils under pressure means flow-on impacts with cuts to other services and well-being functions that are so important to communities, and we know that they suffer. Councils need sustainable funding mechanisms, and central government should be listening not only to local government but to the wider recommendations of the Future for Local Government review that has many improvements that would have aided us in our water services challenges ahead. Good governance over water services and our water resources is inseparable from better land-use planning and genuine Te Tiriti partnership and governance, and the repeal of these Acts simply gets it wrong. STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, I'm going to be brief on this—I made most of my points in the first reading—but I would like to say that it is quite ironic that we're debating this bill in the city which is the worst example of good management of water infrastructure. However, the Act that was put in place to deal with it had no impact on that. What we really need is Local Water Done Well, and we will deliver that. So with that, I commend the bill to the House. Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Thank you, Madam Speaker. There's a quote that's often attributed to President Lyndon Johnson, and it's this: "Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.", and that I think is particularly relevant to the legislative record of this Government over the last few weeks. They're really good at destroying things and kicking things down and not great at coming up with solutions to the big challenges this country faces, and, my goodness, New Zealand has a massive water infrastructure problem. The country hasn't invested—well, for decades, and the result is that too many Kiwis don't have access to clean, safe drinking water. In our cities, the waterways are chronically polluted because we pump waste water into our streams and creeks and harbours, and I hope that the other side of the House agrees with this third point, as well, which is that the entrenched failure to build infrastructure—that is, pipes to carry water—is a major inhibitor of the ability of our towns and cities to grow. It stops houses being built. It stops our communities growing and developing, and that drives up the price of housing for New Zealanders. The bill to get New Zealand's water infrastructure up to scratch is estimated to be $185 billion, and at least—at least—this Government is leaving Taumata Arowai in place, which is the regulator that our Government set up to set environmental standards and standards for clean, safe drinking water for our people. But the effect of taking away the affordable water reforms and leaving the regulator in place with no other significant intervention proposed to allow the infrastructure to be funded and financed—the infrastructure that this country desperately needs—can only mean one thing, and that is that the ratepayers are going to pay through the nose. There is no other way for it to happen. This Government is setting up a massive liability for ratepayers. It will come at a cost—a huge cost—and the ratepayers of New Zealand should be afraid. They should be very afraid. Far from being a genuine effort to fix the problem for the benefit of future generations, this bit of legislation from the National-led coalition is pure partisan politics. It is theatre. It is simply there to say to the people who voted for the National Party and its coalition partners, "We campaigned against these terrible affordable water reforms, and now we're going to get rid of them." It's theatre—that's all it is—and I think that this country deserves better. The bill repeals all of the work that was done to set up a new financially and environmentally sustainable water system for New Zealand, and it puts nothing in place except the bland assurance that councils will have the ability to set up council-controlled organisations. Well, newsflash: councils already have the ability to set up council-controlled organisations. I want to focus the time that I have on two particular aspects of this issue. The first is the financing problem, and I think it's widely accepted in this House that the way that New Zealand has been financing water infrastructure is a big part of the problem that we've got. Many, many councils are up against their debt limits—debt limits that are, effectively, set by the rating agencies that assess the balance sheets of these councils and their entities—and that says, "This is what is going to be the cost of financing that you have to bear, with the cost of borrowing money to invest in infrastructure." One of the great benefits of the affordable water reforms was this thing that we just called balance sheet separation. It was based on the idea that the rating agencies regard revenue from water consumers as a much better, more bankable bet than revenue from general council rates. They apply, effectively, a much lower debt limit on councils and a higher debt limit and lower borrowing costs on water entities, and they do this internationally. So by separating out the balance sheets of the water entities from those of the councils and reassuring the rating agencies that the councils will not bail out a water entity, were it to get into financial trouble, the water entities would have higher debt limits. They would be able to borrow more to invest in the pipes at a lower cost to their organisation, and that would, effectively, in the case of Auckland and the new water entity that would have been in place there, have allowed Watercare to borrow two to three times more to invest in the water infrastructure that the city needs than it currently can, because its balance sheet is, effectively, integrated or consolidated into Auckland Council's balance sheet. That's what balance sheet separation means. It was one of the major ways that would have allowed the country to invest for future generations in the pipes that we need, and this Government has taken away that opportunity. It is offering nothing but the blandest reassurance that, actually, the council-controlled organisations will be able to achieve balance sheet separation and will then be able to borrow more, and that is, in my view, a real shame. The second issue I wanted to touch on is the kind of investment that we need in our water infrastructure. My city—Auckland—is a case study of a city that simply hasn't invested in the water infrastructure that it has needed for several decades as it has grown, and we saw that in the floods a year ago, when an extreme weather event saw whole communities, whole suburbs, experiencing catastrophic flooding because Auckland Council has not invested in stormwater ever. It has been utterly negligent. Our waterways—our streams, our creeks, our harbours—are polluted with waste water, with sewage, and this summer, every time there has been a significant rain event, dozens of Auckland beaches have been off limits because they are polluted by raw sewage running into our waters, as well as run-off with heavy metals and contaminants from our streets. This is not rocket science; it is simply because we have failed to invest in the infrastructure. The affordable water reforms that our Government put in place and that are being swept away now put in place a very real and sustainable solution to this problem. For the first time, we would have had a legal framework that would have told the water entities, "Your job is to manage stormwater in this city. It's your job and the law says it's your job, and this is what you have to do. These are the kinds of plans you have to put in place, and if you don't, there is a powerfully tooled-up regulator looking over your shoulder." We have never had that before, and, on top of those two things, we were giving those entities the power and the freedom to borrow up to three times as much money as they currently can to invest in the pipes in order to spread the cost of that infrastructure over future generations. I look at Te Wai o Pareira, the creek that runs right through the middle of my electorate. It is so polluted that when kids go swimming in it, they have to go to hospital afterwards, frequently, because they get so sick. Every time it rains, raw sewage flows into that waterway, and manholes pop up on the streets and in the parks and in people's front yards, and sewage cascades over people's lawns. We had a solution to this. We had the institution, we had the legal framework, and we had the financing system in place to fix this problem—a generational problem that our country faces—and this bill sweeps that away and puts nothing in its place. NANCY LU (National): I stand to commend the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill because I strongly believe that local water done well will enable local governments to have the tools to find funding to make their long-term plans, and to have the flexibility, and to really deliver the water infrastructure that local constituents and users really need. If the member's opposite have emphasised so much on what they see locally, I wonder why nothing was delivered in the six years that they had the power and the time and the funding and, apparently, the solution to do anything. But the National-led coalition Government is very determined to the delivery of real changes to restore the council ownership and control of water assets. Our Government, with our plan—the local done well plan—will give local decisions and the ability to fix where things are really broken, where things really need to be built, where water infrastructure is really required. So I commend this Bill to the House. RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'm just going to pick up from the previous speaker's comments around nothing being delivered, because there are examples in my own electorate of Nelson of exactly that—things being delivered. The repeal of this bill will make it so much harder for our council to deliver improvements in water infrastructure. An example in Nelson is the Saxton Creek upgrade which is about to be completed—a $30 million project that was needed because the stormwater was so deplorable. It was such a small culvert in a significant industrial area that when it flooded a few years ago it caused millions of dollars' worth of damage, and the Labour Government invested $7.5 million dollars to bring that project forward and it's about to be completed. It will mean the road where that culvert exists does not have to close when we have heavy rain in Nelson, and it will mean that the businesses in that area, like our meatworks, won't suffer economic loss if we have a heavy rain event. Now, the reason I raise that example is because one of the challenges that this legislation that's being repealed was addressing was the fact that it wasn't about councils not wanting to pay, it was about councils not being able to pay. I think that was a particular issue that got lost in some of the debate. I think there were some councils who felt that they were being targeted for not having invested. The point I want to put on record is it wasn't about council members not wanting to do that; it was that the system was not designed to enable them to do that, because we all know that councils that put up rates to pay for infrastructure, they do get turfed out. And so unfortunately, as politicians—politicians do act, and we all have to acknowledge it, at times, in self-interest. At election time in those years you would see— Hon Simeon Brown: Is that what you did for the last six years? RACHEL BOYACK: At least I acknowledge it, Mr Brown—you would see councils choosing not to invest because they knew that the public wouldn't support it. And so one of the massive challenges we now face is that the repeal of this legislation means we're going back to the status quo. We're going to have, supposedly, another year's worth of policy development. And one of the mayors I'm talking to doesn't know how this is going to work for the area of Tasman, which is an area in my electorate which has got massive challenges coming its way, particularly the need for a sewerage upgrade out in the Tasman part of the region. That's going to be expensive. How's it going to be paid for? What I see that is so frustrating is this new Government, rather than saying, "Right, we had some concerns around this legislation, we need to actually sit down and look at it."—just like with Resource Management Act reform, it's: "We're just going to toss the whole thing out." All those years of policy work from independent mutual public servants actually giving us the best tool possible to be able to invest, it's just thrown away. I predict that in three years' time, when we come back to an election again, we won't have updated legislation that's working. We won't have any new council-controlled organisations. We won't have the investment that we needed, but we would have seen ratepayers having a significant increase in the cost of their rates. Because as my colleague Phil Twyford so accurately pointed out, the balance sheet separation that would have allowed councils to group together to borrow at a lower rate to invest earlier, therefore saving money—there's tools out there that you study if you do accounting at university, you can learn about net present value. If you invest now, you save money rather than investing later. These were all the things that the reform was designed to do. But there was a smokescreen put up by the new Government when they were in opposition because they just wanted to go after votes. They just wanted to go after votes rather than have an adult conversation about what was best for New Zealand. Now, I sat on the Finance and Expenditure Committee that looked at the third piece of legislation where we made some changes, where we elected to turn four entities into 10. Now, it wasn't going to deliver the best outcomes, but it was certainly going to deliver better outcomes than the status quo. In my area we would have had Nelson, Tasman, and Marlborough banded together in order to still deliver a benefit. Now, my electorate has suffered significantly from flooding and a huge amount of that was due to poor stormwater infrastructure. In the Tāhunanui Hills there is none—like, zero, no stormwater infrastructure. So my question to the Minister when we get into the committee of the whole House stage is: is he going to front up and actually support the money that's needed for the Tāhunanui Hills? Because it was an election promise from National to help fund this infrastructure, yet now they're saying they're not going to do it. So I do not commend this bill to the House. CAMERON BREWER (National—Upper Harbour): The unbelievable defence of Three Waters reminds me of the belligerent, grumpy old man driving up the wrong side of the motorway blaming everyone else: 26 percent of people supported, at its peak, Three Waters, just as 26 percent supported the Labour Party. They tried to rebrand their Three Waters from four entities to 10 entities, but the confiscation continued. The Communities 4 Local Democracy—and if you have a look on their website, you'll see a lot of council logos; keep scrolling, most of the logos are there—commented "the proposed confiscation of assets funded by generations of ratepayers is not the right solution". So it gives me huge pride to be able to rise in support of this repeal bill. It was a lightning rod during the election, Three Waters—the hoardings were up all around the country for two years. They rebranded, the hoardings stayed up. People could see; people did not want to give up those locally funded, locally owned assets. That was the driving point. This coalition Government will restore council ownership and control of council assets and of water assets, and so I commend this bill to the House. Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Some say the definition of "insanity" or "stupidity" is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. This incoming coalition Government is going to hand back to councils and expect them to solve an issue they've not been able to solve for decades. When we came into Government, we thought "We have to do something different here", because in 2016 many, many people had been harmed in Havelock North. And there were many other communities around the country that were having water challenges. I have some sympathy for local government leaders. There's lots of leaders, but there's not much leadership. It's very hard to show leadership if you're proposing to have rates increases. But that is what is necessary—billions and billions of dollars—to deal with the under-investment in crucial infrastructure. Water, the source of life, arguably the single-biggest advantage that our country has over many of our competitors—we turn it into valuable food products to go around the world, because we have a reliable supply of water, good clean water. And so, when this challenge was before us, we said, "Well, should it be one water?"—drinking water, clearly, where people in Havelock North had been harmed, for their lives, because of incompetence, and many more risky situations. We said, "Should it be just one or should it be three?" Well, I'm glad to follow the previous speaker Cameron Brewer, who sat on a council that has incompetently overseen the water assets of Auckland, where we've had billions of dollars of destruction to private assets—the assets that he would say he protects; those homeowners who, through stormwater non-management, have seen their assets destroyed, and beaches that can't be swum at after a rain event. And do you know what? We said, "We need to address all three: drinking water, stormwater, and waste water." Many local-body leaders around the country have had their heads in the sand, and those same people were the ones who opposed the proposal from us to do it differently, to solve this for future generations. Shame on local government leaders that campaigned against us. You go back to your communities and try to sell a 50 percent rates increase. You go back to your communities and sell a 30 percent rates increase. Good luck to you! I'd suggest you won't be voted in next time. I understand the challenges a local government leader has. We do have to invest. We as Government were prepared to come in, to sit down and work through this. Yes, it was three waters, not one, because we thought it was important—in Auckland in particular, where we see the interaction and the interface between them all. Let's roll forward a little way. Tourism was our biggest industry till COVID came along. The iconic destinations of Queenstown, Fox Glacier in the Speaker's electorate, and Punakaiki—they have boil-water notices. People spend tens of thousands of dollars to come to our country to see this beautiful, pristine landscape, and they go to these destinations and are told they have to boil the water. What does that do to our reputation? That's why we need to invest in the future. That's why the mayors from places like, let's see—let's call a few of them out. The Far North District Council: 33 percent rates increase required; Hamilton, 25 percent; Buller district, looking at 30 percent; Porirua, up to 50 percent. Well, good luck when you impose those costs on communities, where there are many, many people who can't afford the rates at the moment. We had a proposal to do something different, and that naive Minister sits in his seat now with all these wonderful empty promises and says that it won't cost more. Well, he's either going to sell the assets or allow the councils to increase their rates. And in the House today we saw criticism of the Labour Government that we had increased debt to 24 percent of GDP. Well, it's a bit uncomfortable—still at the lowest level of the OECD countries—24 percent. So then we'll go and say, "Well, what are we expecting councils to do?" Well in New Zealand's fastest-growing area, Selwyn, they'll have to dramatically increase their debt to 220 percent of their revenue. Good luck! Good luck, if that's what is required to invest in the future that we need to protect the lives and the health of future generations. Lots of leaders, no leadership, and so too for this coalition Government. Shame on you for this. And for those people who will be coming to our iconic destinations in the future, maybe there will be new, alternative, or creative ways of paying. Maybe they will have to pay for the meter as they get the water from the tap, to pay for a mini chlorination plant, or whatever. What we were proposing to do in Government was to share the risks and to share the rewards. The rewards were the reduced costs of building this infrastructure into the future. Yes, it is a colossal cost, and there might be some debate around efficiency. There are claims that we spent $1.2 billion and none of it went to council. Well, it did, and if we had some honest council leaders, they'd get up and say, like my predecessor Rachel Boyack, $30 million was spent on a water plant. There is hundreds of millions of dollars spent across this country on urgent water infrastructure work, and thank you to the councils that went on and did that, but shame on them for not putting up their hands and saying that money was necessary and we need more and we need to change the structure of how we do this into the future. So I'm not quite sure how the Government is going to do it, other than, in my cynical view, setting up structures and encouraging councils to sell off their assets. We've seen this before from the National Government. Oh, the Minister will pooh-pooh that. Well, wait and see, Minister. We'll be judging you on the results of this, because what we have—you know, of course, people ask me, "What's this Government doing?" Well, it's not what they're doing; it's what they're not doing—not what they're doing; it's what they're not doing. They're not doing anything. All they're doing so far is pulling apart the proposals and the progress that we had put in place. Oh, we won't say they're perfect, but they were progressive. And all we've seen since the coalition Government came together is stepping back. And, in this area, future generations are going to pay a huge price for this. Small communities around the country that cannot afford to put in place safe drinking water, safe stormwater systems, safe waste-water systems, are going to have to go somewhere. So I say to local government leaders and those who are looking to stand on local government: good luck to you. Please work with the coalition Government and see what progress you can make. But it's urgent, and the communities like Queenstown, where they had Cryptosporidium; places like Fox, which had E. coli; places like Punakaiki, which had an unreliable water supply—those council staff and those councillors will be obliged to provide safe drinking water to people who have come to our country to try to have a great experience. They won't want to get sick, and if they pick up the paper or go on Google, they will very quickly identify the fact that the councils have not invested to ensure their safety while they're here, the Government didn't do anything different to ensure they would support the councils to provide that safety, and so we're back to the level of stupidity in this country that thinks we can just hand it back to councils, make them become economically sustainable. It dribbles out of the Minister's mouth—"The councils will have to come to us with financial reports that ensure sustainability". It's really tough out there at the moment. Don't blame the local governments. The fact is that we have not invested in the past, we need to in the future, and this is a huge lost opportunity, because putting our best foot forward, working with councils and trying to come up with something that would protect future generations, is what we did in Government, and this coalition Government is just reversing that to the detriment of everyone in the future. DAVID MacLEOD (National—New Plymouth): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to start by saying there are some elements of what's just been spoken I actually do agree with, but a lot I don't. First of all, I just want to say that communities across New Zealand—there are some councils that are actually doing a particularly good job in this space, so it's not every council that we're trying to find a solution for. But we have to ask the question: why are we in this position? Literally hundreds of billions of dollars is needed to bring everything back up to speed, and it's significant because as a result of it we can't use the normal rating system. We need to look at new financing tools, etc., etc. But what are we trying to achieve? Ultimately, it's the supply of quality water for our communities. Ultimately, it's the management of waste water so that we don't destroy our environment and affect different communities; and also dealing with stormwater in a way that protects people, property, assets, and our environment. But we're also trying to do this in a way that maintains local ownership, local control, and local delivery, and for that reason, I commend this bill to the House. A party vote was called for on the question, That the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill be now read a second time. Ayes 68 New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8. Noes 55 New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 6. Motion agreed to. Bill read a second time. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): This bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill. In Committee Part 1 Preliminary provisions CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members, the House is in committee on the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill. We come first to Part 1. Part 1 is the debate on clauses 3 to, "Preliminary provisions", and Schedule 1. The question is that Part 1 stand part. Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Thank you, Madam Chair. This Part, as you outlined, is the preliminary provisions of this bill. Clause 3 sets out the purposes of this bill, which are "(a) to repeal the Water Services Entities Act 2022, the Water Services Legislation Act 2023, … the Water Services Economic Efficiency and Consumer Protection Act 2023; [to] (b) to disestablish the Northland and Auckland Water Services Entity … (c) make transitional arrangements for local authorities' long-term plans"; defines terms used in the bill; provides transitional and savings provisions; provides that the bill, when enacted, is repealed one year after it comes into force; and provides that the enacted bill binds the Crown. SCOTT WILLIS (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to hear from the Minister about his plans for engaging with Ngāi Tahu meaningfully on the significant repeal of Te Mana o te Wai. He may recall that I mentioned a river that I could swim in when I was a child before intensive dairy drained that river and did much worse to it. In the Manuherikia, old mining offtakes have now been used for intensive dairy—constant irrigation of what was dry land resulting in a trickle that's hardly called a river—and it has seriously degraded biodiversity. So Te Mana o te Wai gave a hierarchy ensuring the health of the water came first. Water is life. I understand that there was a letter sent on 31 January to stakeholders advising them that there would be repeal and change and that stakeholders had until today to respond. My understanding of Ngāi Tahu expectations for Crown engagement, in accordance with the recognition of the rangatiratanga and the principle of good faith engagement, are that: firstly, that there will be direct engagement with Ngāi Tahu as a Te Tiriti partner. The Ngāi Tahu takiwā extends right across most of Te Wai Pounamu—that's half of the country. Ngāi Tahu interests across this extensive takiwā shouldn't be represented through engagement with pan-Māori, or other advisory groups. Secondly, my understanding is that engagement with Ngāi Tahu must begin early and continue through all stages with significant notice and good information so that Ngāi Tahu can meaningfully engage. And thirdly, that significant engagement must be resourced. So what is the Minister's plan for correcting this oversight and ensuring meaningful engagement with Ngāi Tahu? I want to hear what the Minister's plans are for engaging with Ngāi Tahu on this significant repeal of Te Mana o te Wai. INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): I'd like to ask the Minister whether the purpose of the bill as described in clause 3 is to make small communities that belong to a body corporate pay for their own water infrastructure. I can contextualise that for the Minister in terms of Waipori Falls, which is in the Taieri electorate. This was a small community that was formed when the Dunedin electricity company changed its legal status in the 1990s—sections were available, it formed a body corporate. They've had a lot of water woes, and I would point out to the Minister that only last week in the Otago Daily Times, one of the residents was complaining about vomiting blood, being taken to hospital, because of the bad water infrastructure. Now, in my role as MP, I had got Mayor Bryan Cadogan from the Clutha District Council to come to a number of meetings with the residents of Waipori Falls to look at what could be done under the previous regime from the Labour side, which was affordable water, where perhaps the Clutha Council, even though they weren't required to look after those residents, would have been able to kind of sweep them in—it's only 35 households—in order to be able to give them safe drinking water and water for cleaning and so on. Now, since the affordable water reforms have been swept out, that is no longer the case from the Clutha Council: they've made it quite clear publicly that they will not be in a position to support Waipori Falls because of the projected rate increases. They just would not be able to sell that to their ratepayers. Meanwhile, the residents of the 35 households have had 130 days of straight boil-water notices. On most days, they've had a maximum of around seven hours of water a day. There are people who are really fearing for their health and safety in terms of the contamination of the water that is available to them. In fact, during the previous term of Parliament, I was able to get a ministerial intervention to allow residents to go on to a dock bridge and access water from the river, which they could then boil because that was another issue. If that hadn't been available to them, they would have had absolutely no water— CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Come back to the bill. INGRID LEARY: Yes, but just for context, Madam Chair, and for the Minister, this community is some distance; it lies between both Dunedin Council, Clutha Council. It is a body corporate. They don't have a ratepayer base and I'd just really like to hear from the Minister what his plans are for small communities like that, where now councils are saying publicly they will not step in to support them and yet we have people from those communities vomiting blood on the way to hospital after having accessed the water. HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to ask the Minister something from really the opposite perspective, one of a big city, because this proposal in Part 1 is to disestablish the Auckland and Northland water entity. I want to know—in a place like Mt Albert, we've had real issues with flooding and we've had real issues with the kind of infrastructure just being antiquated. It's stopping us being able to build up instead of out, but it's also stopping us building out. So even if that's the preference, it's making it really difficult. Now, the last Government put a lot of money into infrastructure which wasn't being done because the councils just couldn't afford to do it. So when we were building thousands of houses, we were producing money out of the bank balance of the whole country to make sure that we could build there. It wasn't being done within the current status quo because Auckland just simply couldn't afford it. I've got a memory of the flooding: where I live there's a park, and in the park the whole area flooded, and it flooded right down and through what was there in the sewage system and into the park so there was a lot of sewage flooding into the park. People were swimming in that water. I was really worried about typhoid. That water then goes on right down into the zoo area and it goes underground and then it was actually flooding the zoo, so it was a real issue for the zoo. Then it goes through Meola Reef. So all those areas were particularly affected. We have a real issue when we combine this with climate change. One of the concerns I have here—and I'd like an answer to this question—is the proposal that we had and the law we had was supposed to create balance sheet separation. So it was supposed to put the entity at arm's length enough that it could finance infrastructure builds for the long term. It was going to be cheaper in terms of financing it, but it was also going to be done by an entity that was really solely focused on the Auckland and Northland region. Have you had an assurance that any proposal that you have to go back to the old structure is going to give you balance sheet separation? Because it certainly hasn't been the case until now. It hasn't had that magic effect. Have you had that assurance from your officials that we absolutely—and I'd love your guarantee on this, that under whatever you plan to do here you will have the kind of balance sheet separation that means that this infrastructure can actually be provided at lower cost by the entity? Because I can't see for the life of me how you could, but I'd like to know whether you have because my understanding of the test in these situations is, really, is the council backing the entity so if it fell over the council would come in and have to support it, because it's actually not at arm's length, it's really part of it. My own understanding of that situation is that can't be assured in this case. So can I know from you, in a place like Auckland—that desperately needs to grow up and needs more housing and we desperately have old infrastructure that needs to be replaced—am I getting your guarantee so that when I come back here in a year you're going to say things are better; that actually there is going to be balance sheet separation; there will be a way that the old entity can actually finance this? Or, in fact, is it going to be a situation where the only option that the council have with the regulator breathing down their neck is to actually put up the rates? Because I know that Mayor Brown said he doesn't want to, but it just seems to me, for the life of me, that's the only thing you could do; you could only put up the rates and you'd have to put them up a lot. It wouldn't be a little bit. So are the voters and the constituents of Mt Albert looking at rate increases that are exponential as a result of what you're doing today? And can you give me an assurance that's not going to happen, because you've already taken away the petrol tax, you've taken away all sorts of other props that the council has— CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The member's time has expired. Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much indeed. The Minister is quite right; we are talking about clause 3 which outlines, amongst other clauses, the purpose of the bill so I will contain my questions to the purpose of the bill. The purpose is to, obviously, repeal the three Acts that are outlined. The question I therefore have is what advice did he seek, and what advice did he receive that repealing was the best way to achieve this Government's objectives? Did he explore the possibility of amending the existing legislation to achieve those objectives? The reason I ask that question is the Minister himself, since making this announcement yesterday, has made a number of assurances and one of those is that balance sheet separation could be maintained. Now, we all know—those of us that have looked into this in some detail and have followed it throughout its progression—that maintaining balance sheet separation is utterly essential in order to be able to obtain the economies of scale but, more importantly, the separation from council's books. The reason that is important is because we know that many councils, potentially most councils, are under financial strain at the moment. Some councils are at their debt cap so can't borrow more; other councils represent communities that simply cannot afford higher rates. Those communities might include city councils like Porirua that have a large proportion of people on low incomes; lower socio-economic areas. It could also include other councils that are completely different like the Tararua district which have a relatively small number of ratepayers, a massive area, a large number of towns, each with their own treatment systems, and the fourth-largest rating network in the country. So the reason I raise this is because all the advice that I have seen from the department and from those agencies, including credit agencies but also agencies that have reviewed the Government's proposals, the Government's preliminary work, the alternative model that was put forward by Communities 4 Local Democracy, which is remarkably similar to what this Government has signalled they are going to do—all the advice says that unless balance sheet separation is maintained that none of the things that the Government is claiming they will prioritize will be able to be achieved. Now it could be that the advice that the Minister received in order to outline the purpose of this bill is that the only way to do that is to repeal but I am interested to hear if he received advice that he could have obtained the Government's objectives by amending what is currently in place. On that note, I would also be interested to hear the advice that he has received from the department that says that balance sheet separation can be maintained without an entity model, given that council-controlled organisations currently exist and haven't worked. Rt Hon ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour): Thank you. Tēnā rā tatou katoa. [Authorised te reo Maōri text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.] [Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.] That's a whakataukī from Whanganui, and I thought it was appropriate for me to start there because, in 2017, this House passed a piece of legislation—the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act. I want to address some of the things in the bill from that perspective, and as an uri of Whanganui. The question that I have is: what discussions has the Minister had with the people of Whanganui about the impact of this bill on that settlement? I know that through reading it there is a change to—because it was considered under the legislation that is being repealed and I know that they were consulted on that. It seems to me only fair that one would consult them if you were now removing that. My second question is: what advice has he had regarding the impact on the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act that this legislation has? My third question to the Minister is: will he undertake to have the same level of discussion with the people of Whanganui on behalf of Te Awa Tupua? And as stated within that settlement legislation, will he uphold Tupua Te Kawa as part of his responsibilities within this bill? HŪHANA LYNDON (Green): Kia ora, auntie. Ngā mihi. Questions to the Minister and reflecting and building on what Matua Adrian has already shared in terms of the experience, or the lack of experience, that Ngā Iwi o Te Awa Tupua have felt or not felt in the repeal process. I want to go to the question or the statements around Te Tiriti o Waitangi in the repeal bill. The repeal bill will repeal the water services entity and restore the provision of water services to local government and their obligations to iwi and hapū under the Local Government Act 2002 (LGA), which are consistent with the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. May I draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that the way with which the Local Government Act is applied in terms of the relationship with hapū and iwi is inconsistent. In fact, if we're going back to the future, many hapū and iwi—and I'm glad to see the MP for Northland in the House; we don't have Whangārei here—don't even have input in terms of asset management planning. We don't know where the infrastructure sits and we make requests as hapū and iwi for information share. We are constantly chasing councils as they exist today in terms of three waters, asset management, even the flood responses and Cyclone Gabrielle. So—and considering the fact that we're going back to the Local Government Act 2002—I do want to understand on behalf of te Iwi Māori: what does the plan look like for us? And what security do we have that local government will give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi in their application of the LGA in this space moving forward? Building again on what was shared from Matua Adrian, I'd like to ask about hapū and iwi engagement in the development of this legislation as there have already been questions made. Have the people of Te Awa Tupua o Whanganui been consulted? I would like to know, beyond councils and the engagement that the coalition Government is having with local government right now, what is the hapū and iwi relationship that the Government has with this proposal; and how are hapū and iwi responding to you as you engage with them? You know, maybe I've missed the memo, maybe there've been hui. Who are you talking to in te Iwi Māori, and how are they responding to the proposed repeals? In closing, question to the Minister in terms of: thank you, you say that you are honouring existing Treaty settlements. OK, choice. But for those of us in hapū and iwi land who don't have Treaty settlements to protect our waterways, what guarantee or protections are there for hapū and iwi that our Te Tiriti rights will not be undermined and that, in fact, our waterways will be protected so wai tūtae doesn't flow out into Whangārei Harbour any more? Or, you know, that we will have the opportunity for safe drinking water in rural communities? We have been put on notice; it's the week of remembering Cyclone Gabrielle. Auckland, Wellington, the big cities—we saw the breakages. These are not new things. But also for rural New Zealand, like those of us from Tai Tokerau, we saw the devastation of what Cyclone Gabrielle did to us and our kainga. As a young woman from the Pipiwai Valley—Te Orewai hapū Ngāti Hine Te Iwi—our families have had 10 months of no fresh drinking water from Te Awa o Hikurangi. Councils have been grappling as to how they can provide fresh drinking water to families apart from trucking in water tankers to the community for 10 months. So I am worried for our people at home in rural communities that councils will be geared up and powered up to be able to provide local drinking water solutions for those communities in the back blocks of Tai Tokerau, Tairāwhiti, wherever we might be. So, in closing, Madam Chair, I'd like to share a waiata to remember the waterways that are sometimes forgotten in planning. [Authorised te reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.] [Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.] CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The member's time has expired. Can I please ask the member to take her seat. Hūhana Lyndon: I will sit. Thank you very much. CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Also, I understand that the member is new to the House. It is not appropriate to mention the absence of a member in the House—someone who is not here. Can I just make a general comment, too, that this part is quite narrow; it is the purpose of the legislation or of the bill. So we have strayed a little bit away from the tight preliminary provisions in Part 1. So I'll just remind the members to come back to Part 1. Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Point of order, Madam Chair. Thank you for that, Madam Chair. I'm concerned that there has been a warning about relevancy before the Minister has even responded to a single question. It's very difficult for members to continue to provide relevant contributions when our subsequent contributions rely on the response from the Minister. Now, if the Minister had answered our questions and members stood up and provided irrelevant contributions, you would be absolutely right. But I think, in that instance, it was premature. CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Thank you. Regardless, the speeches need to be relevant to the part that we're debating at the moment. Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Well, thank you, Madam Chair; I was just about to take a call. I just want to thank members for their questions that they have been raising. There's been a question in regards to te mana o te wai. This bill doesn't repeal te mana o te wai. I think the letter that was being referred to may have been in regards to a different issue. In terms of Auckland and the issue with Watercare, we're working closely with Auckland Council around the options they have in front of them to achieve financial sustainability for Watercare, and that work is happening at pace. The question from Rachel Boyack, I think, in regards to private and mixed-ownership schemes—they are out of scope of this bill. The schemes charge the users as they see fit, and repeal doesn't impact this. A question from the Hon Kieran McAnulty: does repealing this bill achieve the Government's objectives? Well, the Government's objective is to repeal this bill and replace it with local water done well. We campaigned on that, we were elected to do that, and we are now delivering that, as we promised. There were questions in regards to the amendments in regards to Treaty settlements. I believe those are best dealt with in Part 2, but just to recognise that this legislation doesn't actually change those; it just simply changes the references in those things, but we can get to those conversations shortly. Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Madam Chair, thank you. I'd just like to ask the Minister some further questions about the purpose of the bill in relation to balance sheet separation. We have had some questions about balance sheet separation, but it's my argument that they haven't been directly or adequately addressed by the Minister in his response. So given that much of the design of the legislation that this bill will repeal was put in place with the intent of achieving balance sheet separation in order to unshackle the water entities from the constraints that the rating agencies place on them in terms of the cost of borrowing and their debt limits, I really invite the Minister to directly address the purpose of this bill in relation to balance sheet separation. Is it the purpose of the bill to eliminate balance sheet separation? Or is it the purpose of this bill to facilitate balance sheet separation continuing? There's plenty of public commentary from members of this Government acknowledging the importance of balance sheet separation. I was curious that the Minister, in what seemed like a response to the questions about balance sheet separation, talked about discussions with Auckland Council around financial sustainability. Well, they're two different things. You could argue that balance sheet separation is a means to financial sustainability, but there's plenty of evidence and plenty of literature out there to show that, actually, balance sheet separation is a very powerful tool in significantly increasing the amount of borrowing against existing revenue or assets. I'd like the Minister to tell the committee whether he's had advice from Standard & Poor's or any of the other rating agencies on the question of, post - repeal of this legislation, whether or not the entities will be able to achieve balance sheet separation. And I'd like also to know whether the Minister's had advice about whether or not council controlled organisations, under the existing legislation, can achieve that separation, given that they're, in fact, subsidiaries that are controlled by the parent entity. I would have thought that's in contradiction of the necessity of entities that have balance sheet separation and will not be bailed out by the parent entity in the event of some kind of financial crisis. So I'll leave it there. Thank you. ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to take what will be a very brief call in this debate because I'm hoping that the Minister will engage with me in a back and forth over five questions that I have relating to his previous answer about Auckland. But I'd also like to first say that I have seven amendments to this part which I seek to debate, because I'm sure that the Minister will be interested in some of those which improve the purpose of the legislation. Can I just draw your attention, Madam Chair, to Speakers ruling 124/5. This helps the House to understand our responsibility in this committee stage. "Consideration by the committee of the whole House is the nuts and bolts stage in which a bill is considered as drafted, to decide in effect whether the detailed clauses do properly incorporate the principle of the bill already agreed to by the House." So when we are debating this purpose, what I'm seeking to do here is to set the House up for a proper debate in Part 2 about whether my proposed amendments to Part 2—which there are four of—are incorporated into the principles here. So that is why I think we need a substantive debate on the principles, and that's why I'm going to ask five questions to the Minister now about whether those principles quite capture his intent. So my first question of five to the Minister is: under clause 3, purpose, subclause (b), if the purpose of the bill is "to disestablish the Northland and Auckland Water Services Entity and make related transitional arrangements;", is it implied in that purpose that Aucklanders will be better off because of the disestablishment of that entity, Minister? Thank you. My second question related to that—unfortunately, I would be happy to change this approach, but I can't. So my second question is: if we take it that the Minister's intention is to improve the conditions for Aucklanders in the service delivery and in the amount that they pay for their water services, my particular question then is is it also the purpose of the bill to improve the situation for South Aucklanders, and particularly those in Papakura whose water is delivered by Veolia? The Minister will be familiar with this particular local quirk where a private provider provides the water services in some areas in South Auckland. It is something that the local councillors who represent this area have spoken a lot about—that the local member for Papakura, Hon Judith Collins, has also spoken about—and it has a particular effect on South Aucklanders. I'd like to understand how that relates to the purpose described in subclause (b). CELIA WADE-BROWN (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a number of questions for the Minister. Many people have spoken about people's health and the water, and I would like to know if in any of this process of repeal he has considered any care for the other species that depend on clean water of our awa or the shellfish that depend on the lack of sedimentation from dealing with stormwater improperly, including that famous road of national significance, Transmission Gully, and the subsequent degradation of the Porirua Harbour? Secondly, given the plans to repeal the urban development legislation and move that to the Resource Management Act, does the Minister consider that mandating some kind of water sensitive urban design and helping nature clean up our water would be a cheaper and more effective way than always putting in more expensive infrastructure? I would also like you to look at whether your colleagues smearing local mayors—whether it's councillor Foster, myself, previous Mayor Prendergast, previous Mayor Wilde, when there were huge millions; whether it was moving from $11 million in 2009 just on the capital expenditure of the water network, through to more than $30 million in the current forecast—whether that attitude that we were not aware of underground damage for earthquakes. We were working on cross-contamination, we were working on a number of things—whether that attitude from some of the members of this House is helpful to a future partnership that will last longer than the next three years. Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Thank you, Madam Chair, for the questions that were received. In regards to the issues in terms of Auckland Council, I note that the member's put a number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOP) on the Table in regards to the Northland and Auckland entity. The Government has stated that we will be repealing Labour's 10 entity model, which was a co-governed, 10 entity, mandated model. And the Northland and Auckland Water Services Entity, which was the only entity which was actually under way—we are repealing the model, and therefore we are repealing that entity as well. So we don't support it continuing. So we don't support the SOPs that the member has put in place in relation to that. But what I would say is that officials are working very closely with Auckland Council and the Mayor to ensure that we have a financially sustainable model for Watercare. The Mayor has—including putting out a Tweet yesterday, saying that it's great to see the Government repealing this legislation. So I just want to put that on the table. In regards to the issue—sorry, it wasn't a Tweet, it was an X. I should clarify that for the House. The issue in regards to the Veolia contract is an issue for Watercare. In regards to the questions around the roads of national significance and the stormwater, I understand those issues aren't relevant to this part. And smearing local mayors, again, I don't think is relevant to this part either. Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. As a list MP based in Wellington and given the Wellington issues portfolio, I'm aware of the significance of these reforms for our city. For those who haven't had the summer that Wellingtonians have, to update you on the situation that Wellington is in with respect to water; we have extensive damage to drinking-water pipes that has meant that perhaps 45 percent of our water supply leaks onto the roads and gutters around the city. As a jogger, around all parts of Wellington city I see, in some places every hundred metres, I might encounter a lake on some of my runs around the town. It is extremely important to Wellingtonians that we have the ability to address this in the long term. We are already under water restrictions and threatened with increasing restrictions in one of New Zealand's biggest cities. In addition, the future impact of further diminished water supply is not only that the restrictions become more harsh but that the diminished amount of water moves so slowly through the pipes that it increases the likelihood of bacterial contamination and us being unable to drink the water at all. That has terrible consequences for a town. I know, because in the last Government we had the experience of having to support Queenstown through the cryptosporidium contamination of their water supply, which was a terrible incident for such an important city for New Zealand; not only the number of people who were desperately ill with diarrhoea and abdominal cramps and unable to go to work and prepare food in a tourist town but also the fact that visitors to this important city saw that rather than being able to put out a picture of a modern city to our international visitors, they found we were in the Victorian era with respect to the water infrastructure we had. So my question, with respect to the purpose of this bill is: will this bill enable continued use of balance sheet separation for the water entities that are proposed in the future? Of course, the issue there for Wellington is that our city council is near to its debt limit. Additional debt will need to be taken on in order for the level of widespread repairs that need to be made in Wellington. It is absolutely essential that we get past some of the petty politics that were raised by other members in this House earlier, and actually get on to the issue of how these reforms will support balance sheet separation and the ability for us to be able to get on and pay for the work that needs to be done. Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Thank you, Madam Chair, for the member's comments and the explanation of the issues in relation to Wellington and Queenstown. We're not repealing the Taumata Arowai legislation, which, of course—the important role Taumata Arowai plays in terms of regulating safe drinking water in New Zealand. That's not part of the purpose, that's not what this legislation does. Our local water done well policy will ensure that councils are able to have financially sustainable models for water infrastructure in New Zealand, accessing long-term funding and financing so they can make the investments that they need in this important infrastructure. ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question to the Minister—of five—is: did the Minister consider transitional and savings arrangements while the new entity is created? That is directly in relation to clause 3(b) about the Northland and Auckland Water Services Entity. I asked that, and I hope for an answer from the Minister, because I've also proposed an amendment to clause 5 which is a deletion of the words there—because the answer from the Minister will determine whether that's needed. Because, as you'll see, if you go to clause 5 and track through to Schedule 1, there are no savings, provisions or transitional arrangements proposed under Schedule 1. So either this should be deleted because there are no provisions, or there might be something the Minister can share with us about his intentions around savings provisions. And I ask it in relation to the purposes, Madam Chair, because it's helpful for the House if the Minister could explain why he then hasn't considered transitional arrangements around the Northland and Auckland Water Services Entity, particularly when there is work underway here that could be saved. There are, say, contractual arrangements, governance arrangements—there are people involved here who are undertaking work who will be affected by this, and this is the kind of thing that we would use the savings provision to protect. So it would be useful if the Minister could help me before I propose that amendment to clause 5. The next question I will ask the Minister now is: are there no transitional and savings arrangements because the Minister's intention is to disestablish the Northland and Auckland Water Services Entity and then simply replace it with something quite similar soon? My question there also relates to the next question, which is: under the status quo, which the Minister is returning to now, is it true that Auckland could not partner with Northland in the way that it would have been partnered with Auckland because of provisions in the Local Government Act which would prevent it from doing so? So what I'd like with this series of questions is for the Minister to explain to the House what his intentions are around the role of the Northland and Auckland Water Services Entity in the future. Is there an intention there that something similar will be created legislatively, or is the intention for another partnership model to be introduced? Or is it simply that the status quo will return and there will be no support for Northland, in which case it's very useful for the House to be clear on that point? And also, if he could give me an intention of whether then, if there are no transitional provisions, if he's quite happy for the House to make that deletion to clause 5? Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you Madam Chair. It is concerning that there have been three questions asked specifically about balance sheet separation relevant to the purpose of the bill and the proposal to repeal. I asked that question, the Hon Phil Twyford asked that question, and the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall asked that question—and the Minister has not said the words "balance sheet separation" once. Given how crucial this is to the rationale and the purpose of the bill, I think it is important that the Minister addresses that. So having said that, another thing that I think is important for the House to understand in considering the purpose of the bill: when presenting this repeal yesterday, the Minister said that he had been working with councils to develop this bill. I think it's important for the House to understand what councils he's not only been working with but consulting. But let's just focus on "working with", given those were his words. I would like to know from the Minister what councils he has been working with in the development of this bill. Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you, Madam Chair, for allowing me to take the call, possibly the last call before dinner. What I needed to ask the Minister of Local Government about was actually a bit more of a technical drafting question. It is very much predicated on what the member for Manurewa, Arena Williams, spoke about around transitional, savings, and related provisions. For those who are not aware, transitional, savings, and related provisions basically allow for the smoothness between the repealing or changing of one law into a new law. What we see in this bill is Part 1 provides the transitional, savings, and related provisions, and if you look into Schedule 1 it says that there is none. I would agree with the member that, well, if there is none, then you don't need it. But my second question then turns to, actually, there are some particular rights which are covered under Part 2 of this particular bill, and I question whether they're actually in the right spot—whether, really, they should be in Part 1 given that the purpose of this particular bill is to remove those water service entities for Northland and for Auckland. But there are particular rights that pertain to employees of those entities, and that's covered under Part 2 of this bill—I think it's clause 17. So my question, really, for the Minister is around just—it's a technical drafting provision. We have no transitional, savings, and related provisions in Part 1, even though Part 1 has the purposes to disestablish those water entities. Why is it that the rights of those employees who will now be made redundant are under clause 17, not within the Part 1 transitional, savings, and related provisions? It is a genuine question around—they will be having their rights removed, their employment rights removed, because they have contract law, they've signed into an employment arrangement. Obviously, this is an event for them and therefore that's why they have to be—they will be disestablished, their roles will be disestablished, therefore subject to normal employment rules. But it is a genuinely technical question as to why that particular rule for those people, because their rights are really important, which are enshrined in employment law—why they are not in the transitional, savings, and related provisions. Part of the reason why I do ask this, as to why I'm confused as to why they're in Schedule 2 of Part 2, is that if you're going to, in the preliminary clauses, disestablish the water entity—so you're basically saying the purpose of this bill is to disestablish them, get rid of them; OK, that's the Government's discretion. However, then they say in clause 5 there are no transitional, savings, or related provision clauses—there's none. So it goes back to the first point, which is what the member for Manurewa raised very prudently, which is basically: what's the point of having that transitional savings? Does this mean, by not having transitional, savings, and related provisions, that those which are in later, in Schedule 2 of Part 2, are no longer valid for their rights? I mean, I understand it could be a drafting technique as to why the Parliamentary Counsel Office may have thought—perhaps the instructions from the Department of Internal Affairs were that they should be in Schedule 2 because Part 2 and Schedule 2 go through the actual different parts of how they disestablish it, and then the consequential amendments. But my question is: why would you not have them in the transitional, savings, and related provisions, given they are important rights? They are rights and employment rights of these workers, who will now lose their roles because of the disestablishment, which is covered within the preliminary clauses in Part 1. So I would genuinely like to just understand a bit of that drafting mechanism as to why it's not in Part 1 under the transitional, savings, and related provisions in clause 5 and instead in clause 17 as part of Schedule 2 of Part 2. CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members, the time has come for us to suspend for the dinner break. We will resume again at 7.30. Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.