Water Services Entities Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Water Services Entities Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, That the Water Services Entities Bill be now read a second time.

Ko te koru ko te wai, ko te wai ko te puāwai, te mātāpuna o te ora. Tēnā tātou katoa.

[From the spring comes water, from water the blossom, the source of all physical and spiritual sustenance. Greetings one and all.]

In June 2000, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, in a report titled Ageing pipes and murky waters, predicted the crisis we are now facing, when they said, “While our water systems have been evolving over the years, I believe industry and community evidence indicates that the ‘model’ has now reach the end of its design life. Further incremental tinkering with the current systems … will simply mean the necessary changes will be harder to achieve and more costly at some time in the future. It is also likely that they will be crisis driven”. That future has arrived, and we must not let this issue be kicked down the road when we can act and fix a broken water network system. There is a well-known expression that the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, and the next-best time is today. For too long, New Zealand has not addressed serious under-investment in infrastructure such as our water network.

We need to take this crisis seriously. We need to act with urgency. I do not use the word “crisis” lightly, but when an estimated 34,000 New Zealanders get sick from drinking water each year, that is a crisis. Too many communities experience boiled water notices, and too many of all our kids are growing up with no-swim notices at their local beaches. It’s unacceptable. When over half of suppliers included in the Ministry of Health’s 2020-21 annual report on drinking water quality failed to meet the drinking-water standards, that is a crisis. When 25 percent of waste-water plants across the country are running on expired consents and the country experienced 2,754 dry weather waste-water overflows in 2020-21, that is a crisis. When 5,000 people in the town of Havelock North became sick from drinking their tap water, that is a crisis. When New Zealanders face thousands of dollars’ worth of rates increases to solve this problem, that is a crisis.

Given the scale of the problem and the irrefutable case for change, it would be irresponsible for us as a Government to sit on our hands and do nothing. We will not take an irresponsible path. We are committed to act and fix the problem. We’re committed to ensuring that everyone’s drinking water is clean, boiled water notices are minimised, sewerage leaks get fixed, and pipes are put in the ground to build new homes, and in the most cost-effective and affordable way possible for our ratepayers. This reform is complex, and it is therefore unsurprising that it has generated significant debate, both in the local government sector and in the community, but let’s face it: it’s time for the “do-ey”.

I would like to take a moment to thank all of those who submitted on the bill: councils, mana whenua, interest groups, water suppliers, and individuals all took the time to express their views on this piece of legislation. I’d also like to thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee for their dedicated work over the past six months. In addition to considering the 88,000 written submissions, the committee heard 227 oral submissions, travelling to Auckland, Hamilton, Hawke’s Bay, Nelson, Christchurch, and Dunedin, as well as holding hearings in Wellington and via Zoom, to ensure as many people as possible who wanted to present had the opportunity to do so. The committee also invited experts to present their views on the bill. As the result of this work, more than 130 amendments have been recommended. The changes ensure that the new water entities are more accountable to communities and help keep a lid on rising rates. At a time when the cost of living challenges confronting households are real, these reforms help lessen the burden of vital water infrastructure investment on ratepayers.

We all agree: we need to fix water networks and keep costs down. We also want safe drinking water and better environmental outcomes. The amendments will improve local voice, strengthen representation, increase transparency, and ensure that we can continue to find a solution—again, more “do-ey”. They will also improve certainty for councils and those working in the water sector. Some submitters questioned the Government’s fundamentals, in particular the need for balance-sheet separation. Getting water services off council balance sheets enables us to create a sustainable and affordable water system while keeping a lid on rates increases, to help address cost of living pressures for all New Zealanders.

Let’s take a look at some of the proposed changes. One of the key areas of concerns we heard was that local voice would be lost. Rural councils in particular were concerned that their voices would be drowned out by larger metropolitan centres. At the request of councils, the bill now includes a provision which requires a mix of rural, provincial, and metropolitan councils to be present on the regional representative group. This will make each of the water services entities accountable to those interests, as it is represented on that group. Further to this, we’re requiring the entities to establish an annual shareholders’ meeting. This was a direct request from multiple submitters and will improve territorial oversight over the entities. We also heard concerns from submitters that the entities would not be as accountable as the current system. This included a submission from the Auditor-General outlining concerns about the accountability measures in the bill. Officials have worked with the Office of the Auditor-General to improve those measures. Proposed amendments include strengthened reporting lines and obligations and increased audit scrutiny, along with a raft of other changes resulting from the submission.

We’ve also increased transparency—for example, both the entity boards and any annual shareholders’ meetings will be subject to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act. This means all meetings will be required to be held in public. This is not currently a requirement for the boards of council-controlled organisations, although Watercare made the decision to hold all its board meetings in public. We are, therefore, confident that legislating this as a requirement is a positive thing for public accountability.

Another key concern for local government was what role the entities would play in the local planning system. They had a clear message: the entities should be plan-takers, not plan-makers. We’re therefore including a requirement for the entities to support and enable planning processes and growth. This gives councils and communities certainty that they will still be in the driving seat when it comes to planning and development.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge staff working in the water sector. I understand that this is a time of uncertainty. To limit this uncertainty, we’ve made several key changes to the staff transfer provisions. This includes giving staff the option of transferring to water services entities on their existing contracts, ensuring any benefits they currently have will go with them. We’ve also provided further detail to ensure that staff know they will not be required to move to a new location as a result of this reform. Staff and services will stay where they are. Officials have developed staff transition guidelines to give further certainty for staff, including those who are not covered by the legislation. For those water staff, I encourage you to engage with these guidelines. This reform is an opportunity for your sector, and I hope you see it as such.

At the time the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment released his 2000 report, it was estimated around $5 billion worth of investment was required over 20 years to upgrade drinking-water, waste-water, and stormwater infrastructure—around $8.5 billion in today’s currency. Compare that to $125 billion to $180 billion required over the next 30 years to upgrade those same services. We cannot afford to stop the reform. If we do, our children, our mokopuna, will be lumped with the cost, and we are burdening them for the future, because people on that side of the House want to do nothing.

It is for that reason I am proud to stand here today and read the Water Services Entities Bill for a second time. I am proud that this Government is taking on an issue that has been languishing in the too-hard basket because people on that side of the House want to kick it down the road—20 years of under-investment, if not longer. I am proud that, in 20 years’ time, when we look back on these significant changes, our children and mokopuna will be able to swim at their local beaches, have the assurance of safe drinking water, and be assured that we have a resilient waters infrastructure that underpins a quality of life second to none.

Today, we’re taking a significant step forward in improving service delivery to Aotearoa. Can I once again acknowledge the select committee, departmental officials, and select committee staff for their hard work. I commend the bill to this House. E tau ana.

[I end here.]

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Despite overwhelming opposition to its three waters reforms, this Government has failed to use the opportunity to listen and make real changes. We’ve been through a select committee process, with over 88,000 submissions, and the select committee only heard just over 200 in person—five days to listen to those submissions! This is from a Government that, right from the start, said, “We will listen to Kiwis about this reform.” Well, I can be clear: Labour is still not listening on three waters.

I want to take time to thank all of those individuals, councils, and organisations that took the time to submit on this bill. I wish I could say that your views and your feedback were truly considered but, sadly, this Government has made it very clear, right from the start: they are not listening. Many submitters put a huge amount of time and effort into their submissions, which were collected by an organisation, and had their submissions treated as form submissions. This denied them the opportunity for them to give oral presentations to the select committee. I placed a motion on the table to extend the process, to give them more time—more time for scrutiny, to listen to those submissions—but it is clear from those members on that side of the House that they have no interest in listening to Kiwis across this country who are strongly opposed to these reforms.

This Government has not made any significant improvement to its broken three waters model, and the only changes that they have made have made this bill worse. That is an indictment on a Government that is failing to listen and failing to deliver on reform that is so critically important for this country and this country’s future.

The changes that were included as part of this legislation—the PM said, and I quote, “When the alternative models were put on the table by three mayors from Auckland, Christchurch, and Waimakariri”. The Minister said “I’m really pleased that they have signalled an opportunity to commence a dialogue, and we’ll consider, certainly, matters that they have raised.” The Prime Minister said, “We’re at a juncture now [that] we’ve been receiving public feedback, and of course … we are open to making refinements and changes.” Another quote—“I don’t want to shut down what I think, in good faith, is an offer here for us to keep working together.”—Jacinda Ardern quote.

Seventy-two hours after those quotes were made by both the Minister and the Prime Minister in response to an alternative model that was placed on the table, I placed a motion in front of the Finance and Expenditure Committee seeking an extension, to request six more weeks to further consider the report-back date to allow us to consider the alternative model put on the table from those mayors. And what did they do? The Labour members and the Green members voted it down. That proves that all those words do not correlate to action. They are all talk; and you know what? Kiwis get that as well. They do not trust this Government, they do not trust the agenda—and they proved, through their actions of failing to listen, that they have absolutely no regard for hard-working Kiwis across this country to listen to their feedback, to make a piece of law that will outlast every single person on that side of the House better. They failed to take the opportunity; they failed to listen.

Hon Member: No plan.

SIMON WATTS: You can hear them baulking on the other side, can’t you? You can hear them going on, because today is the only time that they’ve ever listened in the last five months. It is the only time they’ve listened; and that is a great, great shame.

I want to talk about two other changes in the bill. They are put in there explicitly—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! We will allow the member to give his speech.

Hon Member: Five extra minutes.

SIMON WATTS: Thank you very much. Five extra minutes would be appreciated—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): No, I did not say five extra minutes—just to give your speech.

SIMON WATTS: Thank you, Madam Speaker; appreciate the offer. Explicitly, two changes in the bill. One is about including green infrastructure like parks and reserves. They are lining up local parks and reserves to be transferred to these mega entities, and the Minister pretty much categorically agreed with that yesterday in the House. They are also expanding the Te Mana o te Wai statement to include coastal and geothermal waters—under the radar, three waters has become five waters. This Government are intent on a control agenda which will be detrimental to this country’s future.

They have not made any changes to the four entity model, which was categorically opposed by all—if not most—of the submissions coming in. They have not made any changes in regards to the co-governance model that the majority of Kiwis in this country have absolutely rejected because it will bring more complexity, more bureaucracy, and more costs to a system, and it is undemocratic for this country. Those are the concerns raised by submitters as part of the select committee process. Those are the concerns that that side of the House has failed to listen to.

Now, let’s talk about the alternatives, because you heard it from the Minister on the other side that there are no other alternatives. What a load of rubbish! That is absolutely and categorically wrong. I want to acknowledge the mayors in the gallery today. Too often you have been blamed for the issues of water infrastructure that have been laid at your feet, and that is not fair. You’re the ones that have been leading the efforts for change across this country, presenting models and solutions and alternatives that would get us moving in the right direction. I’m sorry the Government is not willing to listen.

I predict that members opposite will get up next and will stand up and bark the same old lies. And I’ll put money on it, Madam Speaker. They’ll say “There’s no alternatives”. This is a deliberate piece of political theatre, a mirage to hide the failure of their reforms. We saw a fully costed model by Communities 4 Local Democracy: 30 councils that could match the capital expenditure of Labour’s plans without raising water prices and keeping assets in community hands. We saw the model from the Auckland, Christchurch, and Waimakariri mayors—that I said before that we moved a motion at the select committee. Labour aren’t only not listening to the alternatives; they are actively blocking consideration of them. Any talk of no alternatives should be taken as the lie that it is—

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order, Madam Speaker. Everyone here is up for robust debate. But the member knows, particularly when he is referencing a comment made by the Minister which is inaccurate, he cannot use that word under any circumstances.

SIMON WATTS: Speaking to the point of order. As I quoted, I said “any talk of no alternatives”. That is a very broad reference statement, so my context of the word was in that context, and that doesn’t go to the point that was raised around a personal inference to the member.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Speaking to the point of order, there’s no context available to any members in this. It is very clear in Speakers’ Rulings that you cannot accuse any members of that word. I’m not going to repeat it. Because in doing so I would be breaching the very clear rules of this House. He must be asked to withdraw and apologise.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Speaking to the point of order, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I would like to make a ruling, if you don’t mind, Hon Gerry Brownlee, because there are two things—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: But hang on a minute, I’ve asked for a point of order. I was speaking to the point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): OK, you’ll speak to the point of order and then I’ll make a ruling.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I do so because your ruling may not consider the points that I’m about to make, and that’s why I’ve made that point. So the first thing is, debate is allowed in the House—it’s the whole point of having the House and the House process. So to say that something “gives a lie to” or that “it would be a lie to say” or “it could be considered a lie” or to infer anything like that is within reasonable debate. To call someone “a liar” is unacceptable. That’s a direct accusation against someone. But if you’re talking about a policy position and you’re saying—oh, OK, I’ll wait.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I would like to make my ruling now if you don’t mind, unless you were going to go further.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: No, I haven’t finished, and it’s not very pleasing to be interrupted, as I can’t be by other members of the House, for the House staff to do that. I don’t think that’s right. So my point is that Mr Watts has not made that inference, about anything other than what is claimed about a policy—that’s perfectly reasonable. If it’s not, then we have extremely constrained rules around debate in this House—rules that would suit the Government of the day, whoever it might be, because it would mean that they can’t be criticised if there is a question about the validity of the policy that’s being put in place. That’s why we have a democracy that has a House that allows debate.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Point of order. We get very good advice in this Parliament from the staff, and I ask that Mr Brownlee be asked to apologise and withdraw his remark, which reflected on the Clerk and its office.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I actually tend to agree with that, Hon Gerry Brownlee, because I do actually ask for advice from the staff all the time. The staff was actually giving me the ruling on which my ruling was going to be based on. I can actually still hear you as you are making a point of order, but as you know, I was about to make my ruling anyway, so can I please ask Hon Gerry Brownlee to withdraw and apologise in terms of the comments made as the staff was giving me some guidance in order to make my ruling.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: You can ask, by all means.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Seriously, Hon Gerry Brownlee.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Madam Speaker, you called me. You gave me the floor and then turned away while I was speaking. That’s not acceptable. I’ve never seen that before in this House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I was turning because the Clerk was coming to give me the Speakers’ Rulings.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Exactly the point I’m making.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Which is really disrespectful—not only to the staff member but also to me. I will now move to make my ruling in terms of the original speaker. So Speaker’s ruling 44/4: “A member may say he or she believes a statement is incorrect, but must not accuse another member of making a statement that member knew to be incorrect.” This debate was really robust and you were making an inference that the statement that you were referring to was actually incorrect, and in so doing you were making an inference that the Minister was actually incorrect in her policies. But the ruling I’m making though, Simon, I was going to make right at the end of your speech, before—maybe about two minutes prior—you in your statement were saying something about other members of the House on the opposite side “barking”, which to me is really disrespectful to all members, including members of your side of the House. So I would like you to withdraw and apologise for those comments please, before we move on and you’ve got a minute and two seconds left.

SIMON WATTS: I withdraw and apologise.

Hon Nanaia Mahuta: Point of order, Madam Chair. In light of your ruling on the original point, I seek leave to ask the member a question.

Hon Member: Oh, come on.

Hon Nanaia Mahuta: It’s a point of order. I’m seeking leave. I seek leave to ask the member a question to verify his statement.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Are there any objections? There is an objection to it.

SIMON WATTS: Let’s stop this farce, and I challenge—

Tangi Utikere: Point of order. Thank you, I’m just seeking your guidance. You’d made a determination in relation to a comment that the Hon Gerry Brownlee had made. I interpret, I think, that you had asked the member to withdraw and apologise for an earlier comment that he had made in relation to conduct that was going on between yourself and the Clerk. The member, as I understand it, has not done that. Is it still an ask or is it a requirement on the part of the Speaker for the member to withdraw and apologise?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I did actually ask the member to withdraw and apologise. He did not. Would he like to reconsider and withdraw and apologise, otherwise I—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Are you calling me, Madam Speaker?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I am.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, firstly, this is not a matter that can be dealt with by way of point of order. If you look at the Standing Orders, and have a look at Speakers’ Rulings, this is a procedural thing that cannot be dealt with by way of point of order. So the member is out of order asking for that apology.

Tangi Utikere: Speaking to that point of order, I may not have been as long in this House as Mr Brownlee, but my understanding is that points of order are frequently taken in this House in order to achieve clarity from a decision that the presiding officer has made. And that was the exact purpose of me raising that point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I’ll ask one last time for the Hon Gerry Brownlee to consider withdrawing and apologising, otherwise I don’t have another option other than to ask the member, for the first time ever as an Assistant Speaker, to leave the House.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, Madam Speaker, I am terribly worried about a lot of people in this House losing sleep over something like this. So I withdraw and apologise.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Thank you, Hon Gerry Brownlee. You have 57 seconds, Simon Watts.

SIMON WATTS: What a way to stop the music, with only one minute to go. What an absolute show. But let’s stop this farce. I challenge every member to stop talking about no alternatives—because there are alternatives—and actually defend their model against the alternatives that have been put up today. National will repeal and replace this legislation if elected in 2023. National oppose this bill, and despite overwhelming opposition from thousands and thousands of people that made submissions as part of this select committee process, from councils across this country to authorities everywhere and in every corner, Labour is still not listening.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise as the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee to report back to the House on the Water Services Entities Bill.

Before I go into the main part of the summary of changes, I just want to reflect on the debate that we’ve just had. Two things are very clear: (1) National has no plan, and (2) when they are up against the ropes, what do they do? Get louder, bark, and go personal.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): If I could just—

BARBARA EDMONDS: I withdraw and apologise.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Yes, thank you, because that was a term that I asked the other member, previous speaker, to withdraw and apologise for.

BARBARA EDMONDS: Again, going back to volume—going back to volume and no plan.

So, first of all, some acknowledgments, because we obviously need some parliamentary 101 process for the House—or, at least, for the other side of the House. The committee received and considered 88,383 written submissions. We thank all the submitters for their time in putting together their submissions. Although we received over 88,000 written submissions on this bill, approximately 82,000 used four different templates or were considered form submissions by the Taxpayers’ Union or the National Party themselves. Now, these 82,000 submissions are identical or substantially identical—

Hon Member: There’s still 6,000 others.

BARBARA EDMONDS: —with some minor personalisation, so the committee aggregated them together and only published one example of each. Now, this was a mammoth task by the Office of the Clerk to facilitate these form submissions, and I thank them for their support throughout this whole select committee stage.

Again, as members on this side of the House will know, written evidence is not discounted or treated with any less esteem than oral evidence. Written submissions are analysed in depth and form an integral part of the committee’s considerations.

Hon Member: How many of them did she read?

BARBARA EDMONDS: So the question across the other side is “How many did we hear from?” Again, we opened it up. We agreed on some criteria for the submitters if they wish to be invited to the public hearings that were held in Auckland, Hamilton, Havelock North, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, and Dunedin.

The criteria of who were heard from were broad and contained a catch-all. Submitters within these criteria presented a range of opinions and viewpoints on the bill. They were territorial authorities, they were mana whenua, they were rural water entities, water sector stakeholders, employment representative groups, environmental representative groups, financial representative groups, a representative sample of those form submissions, and, finally, submitters who have made specific recommendations for improving the bill.

Now, as much as the other side of the House wants to say, “Well what about the other 6,000?”, you must understand that the Office of the Clerk made every attempt at contacting those that wanted to be heard. It is up to the individual or the organisation as to whether they want to come to the hearing or not. We had over a third of an attrition for whoever the Office of the Clerk had approached. Those are really, really key procedural issues that committee considered; we wanted to hear from a broad range, and we did. We particularly acknowledge the expertise of local authorities and their commitment to delivering water services in New Zealand.

The main themes of the submissions were about strengthening local voice, transparency, governance, and accountability in water services arrangements. We also invited the world leaders in water reform, the Water Industry Commission for Scotland (WICS), who said that New Zealanders pay too much for the services we receive. We also heard from Farrierswier who peer reviewed the modelling that WICS used, and they agreed with the modelling, which was because of requests of information from councils. Then we also heard from Beca Group—so this is the second peer review of that first modelling—who peer reviewed it again and said the numbers were too conservative, as it did not take into account climate change.

So, therefore, many of our proposed amendments relate to all these matters—through submissions, through the experts—that we called. In fact, there are over 130 changes that our select committee made to this bill, which I wholeheartedly believe have strengthened this bill. In brief, those changes are—and for those members on the other side of the House who like to be able to provide an interjection on what it is, I suggest you look through the tens of thousands of documents, the regulatory impact statement, the disclosure statement, or the Cabinet papers that are there for everybody to see on the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) website, plus this bill.

So the key changes: the cap on the number of regional representatives on the regional representative group has been removed. This was to mitigate the risks of having a larger governing body. The committee included a requirement for the constitution to include procedures to enable and support effective governance. It has also limited the number of representatives in the first constitution to 14. Another key change: the committee increased audit scrutiny over key strategic documents in direct response to the Office of the Auditor-General, and that’s around the statement of intent, infrastructure strategy, and consumer stocktake. We then invited the Auditor-General to provide us on a view around the changes that were being proposed. They could not provide a policy view. However, they confirmed that they were comfortable with the changes that the select committee has proposed.

The regional report groups are now required to have rural, provincial, and metropolitan council representatives, which was a request from the councils. The constitutions must also provide for territorial authorities to hold an annual shareholders’ meeting. Both these steps will give more certainty to councils that their interests will be represented. The committee also amended the operating principles to include a requirement for the entities to have regard to the areas where services are delivered in their procurement processes. So that means if the process is going to be in a particular area, then whoever the water services entities procures to must have good local knowledge of that area.

The definition of water supply has been expanded to include water supply for agricultural or horticultural purposes to address concerns from the rural community that drinking water would be given priority over water supply for other purposes, such as stock water.

The committee has added to the collected competencies of the board to include public health, the environment, perspectives of consumers and communities, and the perspectives of local government. Contracts and joint arrangements relating to water services have been limited to 15 years rather than the current 35 years. It used to be 15 years, but the National Party changed it to 35. So we are tightening that back up.

One comment I want to make is around co-governance. The misinformation that has been whipped up around co-governance has caused a barrage of insults to members of the committee and to our Minister. And I want to put it on record: every local authority that I heard throughout this process said it is a distraction, because co-governance is already happening. One key take-up from that that I had from one council was their concern that co-governance might water down the strong relationship they already had with iwi. So to be able to whip up co-governance is a distraction, and I agree with those local authorities.

Therefore, in conclusion, this bill is not just rushed through in five months; this is five years of hard work. It would be easy to let it go and to kick it down the can. So I acknowledge the Minister, her DIA advisers who were our advisers, and the Parliamentary Counsel Office, who drafted a very clear bill, which is no mean feat for a new regime. The bill was actually the easiest document to read out of the tens of thousands of documents that are available for this bill. We’ve also listened, we recommended the changes, and, again, in the absence of a real viable alternative, this side of the House is making the hard decisions to ensure that we have water services that will account for growth and for climate change, and to ensure we have safe, sound, fit for purpose water infrastructure for our future generations.

Again, I call those members on the other side of the House: do your homework, read the policies, read the documents, and come back to me—after you’ve done a lot of work on it—with your plan, because in the meantime, there is no plan. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the National Party to oppose wholeheartedly this bill, and also as the member of Parliament for Waimakariri on behalf of my constituents, who also oppose this bill as well.

I want to pick up on a couple of comments from that last speaker, Barbara Edmonds, who I think elucidated a lot of where the position of the Labour Party is today. In her comments, she said that it’s been five long years, and, well, isn’t that true? It’s exactly what New Zealanders are feeling now—five long years. The only one addition I’d make to that is that it feels, actually, like eight long years, not necessarily five. But it actually elucidates the policy position they find themselves in today of five long years. They feel as though they have no alternative but to pursue this policy direction, even though they’ve been told by stakeholder after stakeholder, Kiwi after Kiwi, that they do not want this reform.

What we also heard—which I thought was fascinating, because I once read that there was a Conservative Prime Minister in Britain by the name of Maggie Thatcher, and I’m sure many people will know that. They asked her once, and they said to her, “What’s your biggest legacy?”, and she said it was the Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Well, I think Maggie Thatcher’s got another legacy today, because that’s exactly what Maggie Thatcher used to say: “tina”—there is no alternative. As we said with Maggie Thatcher, this lady isn’t for turning, and—exactly—this Labour Government is not for turning. Come hell or high water, they are going to rush this bill through Parliament under urgency. Mark my words, next week we will be under urgency and they’re going to ram it through, because they know this has gone down like a cup of cold sick in their electorates.

I tell you what, for those watching this debate this afternoon, a picture is worth a thousand words. This Chamber is a lot smaller than it looks on TV and here, on the Opposition benches, we can look across and see the whites of their eyes, and, boy, their faces—wow! They paint a thousand words: stony, with their heads down, because many of these MPs—and Kieran McAnulty is laughing because he knows. In fairness, Kieran went out and he spoke to all the local governments and to all the councils, and he got feedback after feedback. “Hell of a nice guy, but in the wrong party.”—that’s exactly what they said to you. Every meeting you went down and spoke about three waters—and he’s nodding his head, as well.

But you just can just tell by the looks on their faces that they are defeated by this. They must be looking to their party leadership and saying, “How have we ended up in this position?” They are going to ram through a bill that is so unpopular, it’s going to tank them, more than they’re already tanking in the polls. You can tell why they’re driven by the polls, because all of a sudden—it used to be about green sludge coming out of the pipes, but it’s not about that any more. Cost of living—oh, they’ve finally woken up. We’re in a cost of living crisis, and in Labour’s world—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! If the member would like to speak about this bill.

MATT DOOCEY: Sure, Madam Speaker. Just to finish that off, in today’s world, in Labour world, the answer to the cost of living crisis is this bill.

So, as you say, Madam Speaker, we’re here in a second reading. The second reading is to talk about the select committee process, and, boy, wasn’t it fascinating what that last speaker said about the select committee process? I’d like to apologise to the 88,000 New Zealanders who made a submission, because if you listened to that last speaker, the Labour MPs decided upon themselves to go through every submission and decide the validity of it, because they are now the king judge, the dictators of the one-party State we live in—oh, not all submissions are equal, apparently, according to that last speaker. The Labour MPs went through and they decided, “Ooh, I’m not sure about the text. I’m not sure about the font. Oh, it probably came from Canterbury, and we don’t want to listen to them.”

We look up and see all the Canterbury mayors here today, and I tell you what, why are the Canterbury mayors up here? Because they are fighting for their constituents. That’s why they’re up here today, because they know that Cantabrians do not want this. Where have the Canterbury Labour MPs been? Where has Tracey McLellan been? Where has Duncan Webb been? Where has Sarah Pallett been? Where have they been?

Barbara Edmonds: Point of order, Madam Speaker. A long-time convention in the House—the member is asking where those members are. They’re not in the House, which is clear, and he’s asking where they are.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I would just like to ask the member to come back to the bill, and you do know that there is a convention that we do not refer to members who are not currently in the House. Please just talk about the bill. Thank you.

MATT DOOCEY: Can I speak to that point, Madam—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): No, no. Please just continue with your speech, but bring it back to the bill.

MATT DOOCEY: Point of order, Madam Speaker. I seek leave to make a personal explanation.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): No, I’d rather you just continue with your speech, and let’s continue with the convention that we do not refer to members when they’re not in the House.

MATT DOOCEY: Well, that’s what I’m trying to talk about, Madam Speaker, but you won’t let me explain.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): That is actually our convention in this House. You’ve already called them out, and many of them are not actually here.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Point of order, Madam Speaker. You might like to take some advice on this. The convention is that you do not refer to someone being absent from the House, but to ask in a debate about a topic where they have been on the topic is quite a different matter. Now, I appreciate the sensitivity that is being felt on the other side of the House, but this is a debate and it’s quite reasonable to ask where someone has been on a topic, and that was the tenor and, in fact, the direct interpretation of what Mr Doocey was saying.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): And he has called out many of those members by name. Please do now make your point, and then move on in your speech.

MATT DOOCEY: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. The point I was making was where were those members of Parliament during the course of these reforms.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): So now continue on with your speech, because we only have a few minutes before we break.

MATT DOOCEY: Thank you very much. I hope we did stop the clock during that. All good—OK. So let’s get back to the debate we’ve got today, and in my view, I don’t want to offend anyone, because today we’re sort of stepping on some toes. They’re all a bit sensitive. It says a lot when you’re hitting nerves, doesn’t it? It says a lot. The heads are down—hitting nerves.

But in my view, Labour has misled New Zealand on this bill, and you can see it because it comes back into the House with minor changes—seven minor changes. Why I think they have misled New Zealanders is because they promised New Zealanders that they could opt out of this reform. They said they could opt out. The Mayor of Waimakariri, Dan Gordon, and Neville Atkinson, the deputy mayor, are here today. They went to their ratepayers and asked them, and 95 percent of Waimakariri ratepayers said no—opt out—and what do we find from Labour? It’s a legislative all-in. There was no choice.

So this bill that apparently Labour says is brought into the House on good faith—there’s no good faith. It’s bad blood because you misled the public right from the start, and the truth is that when you look at the changes proposed during the select committee process that we are debating today in the House, in fact, during that process of the select committee, the major Fairfax newspapers were advertising for chief executives of the mega-entities that this bill is establishing. How arrogant is that? They were already advertising for the chief executives and this bill hasn’t passed yet.

That’s why Kiwis have been misled. They were told that they could opt out of this bill.

Here we have a Government that encouraged submissions—88,000 Kiwis made a submission, but in Labour minds, they weren’t all as equal as others, were they? They talk a lot about equity, this Government. Not equity in the submissions—it depends who puts it in. Then they had the audacity to tell Kiwis—88,000 of them—that “We’re only going to listen to 227 of you.”, and they took the select committee round the country for five days—

Hon Member: Oh, big deal!

MATT DOOCEY: —five days, big deal; exactly—because they knew that they had to close the debate down. They knew they were doing this irrespective of what Kiwis thought.

I think, actually, when you look at this, I firmly believe this bill has no mandate. This bill has no mandate in New Zealand, and I want to say well done to Simon Watts for clearly articulating National’s position in this debate and making it very clear for those chief executives of those mega-entities who think they’ve got a cushy job to make the most of it, because you’ll be out of a job in a year’s time. National will repeal this bill because, in fact, it has no mandate from New Zealanders.

I would challenge any Labour caller to get up when they’re ready to take their call and explain why they think they have a mandate to push this through. What is the mandate when Kiwis don’t want this bill?

You know there are alternatives, but now we’re told it’s a response to a cost of living crisis. That’s only because they got told they couldn’t run their misleading sludge ads anymore. Remember when they claimed to be the most open and transparent Government? Now they are the Government of spin. They’re the Government of fake news. They’re the Government of misinformation. This will be their tombstone, for ever known as the Government of three waters. That’s why I stand up on behalf of Kiwis, and especially Cantabrians, who oppose your bill.

Order! The member’s time is up. This debate is interrupted. I will resume the seat at 7 p.m. after dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6.03 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Fixing our water infrastructure is the right thing to do. It’s not an easy thing to do, but it is the right thing and it is the necessary thing. Even Simon Watts, the chap who was strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage before the dinner break—even he conceded this week that there is a need for change and a need for Government involvement in that.

What you have heard tonight—all the shouting, all the smoke and fury—is an Opposition that is overcompensating because they have no plan. Simon Watts admitted on TVNZ’s Q+A this week that they would make a plan when and if they got into Government. That is not a plan; it is literally tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. It is a way to dusty death. Meanwhile, pipes in the ground remain broken, water services remain patchy, and drinking water, for thousands of New Zealanders, is unsafe.

As a country, we are good at making do. Well, we have sweated and sweated and sweated our assets, and now we have a tale of burst pipes, sinkholes, geysers going off in the middle of the street. This is what Radio New Zealand described in one of its stories as “daily disasters in Wellington”. Without significant investment, it will get worse. The investment needed is at, at least, $120 billion, and that’s without factoring climate change.

Of course, any plan will be controversial, because it is infrastructure, it is complex, it has not been regionally coordinated, and regions feel threatened by how they will fare compared to other regions. That is understandable—this is new territory. That anxiety is understandable. But the fear has been fuelled, in many cases, by those who have not done a good job at managing water services. It has been exacerbated by a local body election system that rewards those who keep rates down rather than invest.

What is not forgivable is those who have fuelled the debate with race-baiting and misinformation. They are the ones who are dividing our country and pitting New Zealander against New Zealander. Let’s remember that this is about pipes in the ground. It’s not about water itself, despite what the haters have been saying.

So let’s separate fact from fiction, and there’s been a lot of fiction. There’s been a deliberate campaign of misinformation and scaremongering. David Seymour’s propaganda that water reform is akin to South African apartheid is wrong, it’s mischievous, it’s divisive, and it completely mischaracterises mana whenua involvement and kaitiakitanga of water infrastructure.

As Jonathan Milne, who is the managing editor of Newsroom, said in a piece this week, “There is widespread misunderstanding of a perception that the new structures discriminate on racial grounds.” He goes on to say—and I quote—“Te Mana o Te Wai is a Government framework to manage New Zealand’s fresh water, ensuring the health and wellbeing of the water is protected and human health needs are put ahead of the other uses like irrigation.” So what he is talking about is whānau communities, whose rights are already protected under Te Tiriti, getting to put their position on how that water should be protected. That is what kaitiakitanga is.

What he says is—again, I quote—“To portray it as anything more sinister is to stir up a storm in a teacup.” That stirring up, in my view, accounts for some of the very racist submissions from people who clearly didn’t understand the reforms. I would implore them to become better informed, to go to correct sources of information and not to the incorrect and racist propaganda.

Maureen Pugh: The single source of truth, right there!

INGRID LEARY: Those are tales told by idiots full of sound and fury—we’re hearing some of it now—signifying nothing, especially when there is no plan.

Aotearoa, as a select committee, we have listened to you. There were 88,000 submissions—the vast majority of them were form submissions.

I took the select committee process very seriously. I made it my business to read every submission, including one representative submission from each of the form submissions. I did that for two reasons: one is that I wanted to understand people’s concerns and ideas, and, secondly, I promised my 85-year-old father that I would do so, because he was worried about privatisation. I had many, many late nights reading submissions and I asked many, many questions at the oral submissions as we toured the country.

We heard that the vast majority of submitters agreed that reform is needed because of safety and to keep costs manageable. We heard and we saw that people cared deeply about water infrastructure, that there’s an emotional connection as well as an intellectual concern for what happens to their assets. We heard that nobody, including my father, wants privatisation. We heard many passionate, articulate New Zealanders, and we thank them for taking the time and energy to submit—we truly appreciate it.

There were submissions from councils like Dunedin City Council and the Clutha District Council, where there were detailed legal submissions on how the bill could be improved. There was a lot of work put into those, and that is appreciated.

We also did hear alternatives and we considered them, but they did not stack up. They may stack up today, but not for tomorrow.

The mayors’ plan that was referred to earlier simply doesn’t achieve balance-sheet separation. It does not stack up for tomorrow. Government committee members pored over the documents and it was clear to us that the reform as proposed would only achieve their aim if the four fundamentals remain, and those are: public ownership, Treaty partnership, balanced separation, and good governance. What we did also hear concern about was local voice, transparency, and accountability, and that’s the good governance part. We heard that loud and clear. We heard that too from the Auditor-General, and I want to thank him for his proactive involvement, because that is an institution of democracy that has shown how effective it can be in a process like this.

We have recommended significant changes to address those concerns—there are 130 of them. We’ve heard both from the Minister and from my colleague the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, Barbara Edmonds, what they, essentially, capture, which is improved local voice, strengthened representation, and increased transparency. They will also provide certainty to councils regarding planning and transition. Moreover, they will meet councils’ unanimous—and I stress unanimous—desire to continue to work, or strengthen involvement, with mana whenua.

Rural councils have been listened to. The bill now includes a provision which requires a mix of rural, provincial, and metropolitan councils to be present on the regional representative group. So rural voices will be heard.

There will be publicly held meetings, strengthened reporting lines, and increased audit scrutiny. They are significant changes and they address the vast majority of the concerns that we heard.

I want to thank the Minister for listening to us and wanting to get this right. The four entities will be plan takers, not plan makers. This works from the bottom up, not from the top down, despite what you might hear. These are needed to fix the water infrastructure now and into the future.

The reforms that we need would not be possible if it was not without fundamental change. There would otherwise be massive rate hikes. Now, we’re not saying that there won’t be rate rises, but the rate hikes that would be needed would be exorbitant to meet the billions of dollars that are needed for these reforms.

This has been an issue that has crept in a petty pace from day to day, from year to year, and from decade to decade. It won’t wait. I say to New Zealand: do not listen to the poor players who strut and fret their hour upon the stage and then are heard no more. Do not listen to the loudest people in the room who have no plan. Think about the solutions that are not about local empires and empire building and power plays, but think about what will take us from today into a tomorrow where every New Zealander has safe, clean, affordable drinking water. I say listen to the facts. That is what we as a select committee have done, and that is why I can proudly, confidently, and honestly say that I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I’m pleased to take a call on the Water Services Entities Bill. I won’t be Shakespearian in my quotes, and nor will I, I hope, be full of sound and fury like some other speakers.

The establishment of these four water services entities and the way they will deliver three waters services is a major change, so the high level of public interest in that is to be expected. And, yes, as others have acknowledged, we had more than 88,000 submissions. But the Taxpayers’ Union and the National Party—as they’re perfectly entitled to do—had organised a lot of those submissions as form submissions. It was interesting, through the select committee process, to hear individuals who were representative of those form submissions and hear their concerns.

Like others, I would like to comment on the misrepresentation and the fear and hysteria that has been whipped up, particularly around co-governance. Co-governance is an opportunity to broaden the information, to broaden the perspectives that contribute to decisions. Water is a taonga, and iwi and hapū have long sought greater involvement in decisions about how water is managed. So we in the Greens support an approach that embraces Te Ao Māori, that leads to the entities ensuring that iwi and hapū are represented at the table to contribute their perspectives, which, in our view, will lead to much better submissions.

But there’s been a lot of talk about infrastructure. The key infrastructure is that which nature provides: the lakes, the rivers, the aquifers, which are the sources of our drinking water. The Greens have long advocated for changes in the way we manage land to ensure that we protect those drinking-water sources. We are really pleased that one of the changes in the bill, which National has criticised, is to ensure that the concept of Te Mana o te Wai also applies to geothermal water and to estuaries, because of course rivers move into estuaries and out to sea. So if we’re going to do integrated management, Te Mana o te Wai, which is a key part of the new Resource Management Act reform, must be in this bill as well in an integrated way.

But the Greens do have significant concerns. The fact is that balance sheet separation and the need to take these assets—the water treatment plants, the sewage discharge plants, the pipe network—off council books and enable the entities to borrow against those, separate from council and separate from Government, has been a key driver of the changes. It has led to a much more corporatised approach and our preference would be to see much more of a structure that resembled council-controlled organisations because of the really direct stake that that gives councils in the ownership and management.

Labour has a majority. This bill will pass. Government has made it very clear. So what the Greens have sought to do throughout the select committee process is to make constructive recommendations, to seek change, and to respond to the concerns that have been raised by submitters. National’s approach of simply saying it is going to chuck out the five years or more of work that the Department of Internal Affairs, Treasury, councils, and others have put into this bill and this reform is not going to get us anywhere.

I would really like to acknowledge Minister Mahuta for the good faith and integrity with which she has led these changes, has engaged with local government and councils, has ensured that the recommendations from the local government working party have been included in the bill, and has now taken on board the changes that have been recommended by the select committee. I also acknowledge all of the work that has been done by councils across the motu in mobilising, collecting the concerns of their communities, representing those in an eloquent and constructive way to the select committee, and seeking some changes, some of which have been made to the bill.

So the concerns that remain for us, the significant ones—the number of entities, it’s still going to be four. We don’t think that adequately connects to local communities and to the regional boundaries that exist for resource management. Those entity boundaries are not the same as apply for any other administration unit in Government. We think the entities are too big, so we would prefer that the four entities became seven, with three to four in the North Island and at least three in the South Island. That would be a better connection to communities and it would allow councils to opt in more if they wanted to amalgamate, and it would achieve that scale issue that’s so sought.

We also seek that Watercare be able to continue because there’s no evidence that shows that Watercare is not performing. In fact, there’s evidence that shows that it is delivering. That shows what a council-controlled entity, which deals with two waters, can deliver. Because the proposal to include stormwater from the get-go, from 1 July 2024, when the entities will start, we think is not appropriate, largely because stormwater is so connected to the urban planning and land management responsibilities of territorial authorities. It’s a key part of creating place, and councils like Christchurch—which have worked to ensure that stormwater management is integrated with recreation management, with the new restoration of wetlands, creation of new recreational facilities—are much more going to prioritise stormwater management which meets other needs and creates nature spaces.

And we think it is overambitious. The work that is required to separate out stormwater assets, in terms of overland flow paths, areas where stormwater drains, is complex. The entities will have a lot to do with drinking water and waste water. Why not focus just on that, review how that has gone in a couple of years’ time, and then decide whether to include stormwater? So it’s not something we support, and the Greens’ support for this bill in the committee stage and third reading will be dependent on getting some of the changes that we’ve set out in our alternative view.

I guess the other final point on stormwater is that the technical reference group noted the complexity of stormwater systems and the fact that there wasn’t a dedicated pipes network and the difficulties of untangling that. We haven’t seen the evidence that would justify stormwater going through.

One of the other key changes that was included as a result of the select committee deliberations is the response to the concern about privatisation. So there is a new provision in new clause 164A around “Major transactions” and a 50 percent threshold. If the entities are going to acquire assets that are more than 50 percent of the value of their current assets, that is a major transaction. That triggers a requirement for a 75 percent majority of the regional representative group. Similarly, if obligations are going to be incurred that affect more than 50 percent of the assets, or more than 50 percent of the assets will be disposed of.

We think, in the Greens, that it would be a strong protection against privatisation if that threshold was reduced quite significantly to at least 10 to 25 percent. So that’s something we’d really encourage the Government to consider further because of that concern about privatisation, because of the advice that the committee received that the entrenchment proposals, which the Greens still support, that we have at least a 60 percent majority requirement for any change to provisions which required the entities to continue to deliver the water services. If that entrenchment provision can’t go through because it is not constitutional, which is what officials advise and what the Attorney-General advises, then at the very least there needs to be a much lower threshold to trigger that 75 percent majority of the regional representative group.

Many of the other changes that happened in select committee again go, as others—particularly the chair, Barbara Edmonds—have noted, go to increasing transparency and increasing accountability. The changes in response to the submission of the Office of the Auditor-General requiring a review of the asset management plans and the like are steps forward; so is the requirement that not only will the regional representative group and the regional advisory panels be subject to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) and the official information requirements, but so too will the boards of these entities. The governance provisions are complex but at least having LGOIMA apply to the board deliberations will ensure a much greater level of transparency in addition to requirements such as the annual shareholders meetings.

So the Greens still have concerns, but we need change and National proposing, along with Act, that we just ditch this bill is not taking us anywhere. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. ACT is the party that exists to promote better public policy. That is why we engaged constructively with the Government and their officials when they first proposed this reform in 2020, because there are real problems with three waters infrastructure. They need to be solved. This bill doesn’t solve them.

If we think about—how do we level up ageing and failing infrastructure between towns, cities, and regions across New Zealand? How do we incentivise councils to deliver three waters infrastructure to surface sections so that people who want to build a new house on a surface section can get a section at a reasonable price? How do we keep sewage off beaches and out of our rivers? And how do we pay for these necessary investments? Those are the problems to solve, but this bill doesn’t solve them. That’s because this bill is a Treaty settlement dressed up as an infrastructure reform. [Interruption] That’s right—a Treaty settlement dressed up as an infrastructure reform.

Now, this reform loads up the four new water entities with $2.5 billion worth of debt before they even open their doors on their glossy new offices—$2.5 billion worth of debt, that’s what this Government’s going to rack up and dump on these water service entities before they even lift a manhole lid. The Labour Government’s pushing this bill through the House even though New Zealanders have rejected it—88,000 submissions against the bill. They’ve united townies like me and my country cousins in opposition against this bill. At the Fielding A and P show, Anna Lorck. At Hawke’s Bay, Anna Lorck. At the Christchurch show, for those of you in the South Island. Even in Auckland, Helen White, people are asking me, “Why does the Government need to take Watercare off us, and these other assets?” Why do they need a flash new office for 250 people in Auckland when it turns out that Watercare already has an office just down the road and run our assets just fine, thank you very much.” With a bit more money, they could be excellent.

That’s why ACT will repeal this legislation when we’re part of a future Government. We actually have an alternative three waters infrastructure plan that we’ve put to councils, to professionals, to farmers, and to irrigators, and they’ve said, “Actually, the ACT plan’s pretty good, we could support most of that.” That’s a huge difference, what ACT proposed to what this Government’s proposed.

So let’s just cover off some of the main issues with the bill. Firstly, I want to talk about centralisation. Centralisation was cited by the Minister for Local Government as a requirement to level up water quality between regions and towns and cities, but ACT believes that shifting local assets from one Government entity to another is a recipe simply for more red tape and inefficiency. It’s not an enduring solution to upgrade our infrastructure around the country. But ACT does agree with submitters who proposed a practical approach based around regional models, based around catchments and geographies, based around water networks that are actually connected to each other, and communities of interest. Groups like Communities 4 Local Democracy, the Auckland mayor Phil Goff and the new mayor Wayne Brown, and, of course, Phil Mauger, Mayor of Christchurch, and Waimakariri mayor—retaining local democratic control over how assets are used, funded, and financed is another important feature that ACT would insist on.

Then we think about funding and finance. Well, the Minister’s proposed a deficit of $180 billion. There’s many ways to fund infrastructure, the committee’s heard from submitters, which are already allowed under legislation, like the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act and under the Local Government Funding Authority. And, in fact, Labour’s housing Minister, Megan Woods, recently announced, on 13 October, a $192 million grant—quoting from Minister Woods—to help “councils, iwi and developers make sure critical infrastructure like pipes, roads and wastewater connections, is in place, so thousands more homes can be built and communities can thrive.” That’s without three waters reform. Another Minister, who sits two along from where Minister Mahuta’s sitting tonight—she announced that. That’s how you can fund and deliver three waters infrastructure: with grants and other means like raising revenue bonds. Now, most places that have a revenue stream like a water metre or a water charge could raise a bond, and that money could then be applied to fund and finance new water infrastructure like waste-water treatment plants, water treatment plants, and network upgrades that allow for housing intensification. Any funding and financing system needs to have the maximum amount of flexibility, but that’s not what this bill allows for.

Then I want to come to balance sheet separation, which the Minister has said is a critical aspect of reform. That means the debt raised by these water entities proposed in the bill won’t be held against council balance sheets or Government balance sheets. However, the Government’s own official advice provided by Standard & Poor’s blew this concept out of the water. The committee heard that these proposed water entities won’t be able to achieve balance sheet separation, but if they are, they’ll be highly leveraged and they’ll have a very high risk rating—just like Kāinga Ora, who recently had to come cap in hand to the Government begging for $2.75 billion in assistance. These water entities will not be separate. They can’t be. But if they are, they won’t have the A+ rating that the Local Government Funding Agency currently does. They’ll have a B rating, according to Standard & Poor’s, which is on the way to junk bond rating, Minister. This destroys the balance sheet separation argument. Minister, either you’ve not read the reports or you haven’t understood them.

Now, the worst aspect of this reform, Minister—the worst aspect of this reform is the Minister’s divisive co-governance agenda and the Te Mana o te Wai patch-over of local communities and councils. It’s completely unnecessary, and this agenda makes it harder, not easier, to achieve your reform objectives, which you say are about infrastructure, Minister. So there’s no rationale for having these co-governance concepts at the centre of water reforms.

Minister Nanaia Mahuta herself replied to a written question I put to her: what rights and interests do iwi Māori have in three waters assets? And the Minister responded—a written question: “… Māori have not expressed rights and interests in three waters assets”—Minister—over those of taxpayers in any community, in reply to a written question. Then there is the Te Mana o te Wai statements, which only iwi and hapū can provide—and at any time—and must be given effect to. Now, this could cover any aspect of water, water use, allocation, discharges, overland flows, storage, recreation on lakes and rivers. The list of things that a Te Mana o te Wai statement exclusively provided by iwi and hapū that the water entities will have to give effect to—it’s an unlimited capacity to direct how water is used.

Now, ACT has an alternative three waters plan. We can improve the current system, but we don’t need to do so through State-mandated centralisation and allowing some people to have more influence over how water is used and allocated based on who their grandparents were, Minister. Communities 4 Local Democracy and, more recently, Auckland and Christchurch councils have expressed widespread support from their communities for ACT’s proposed alternative three waters infrastructure plan. We would provide for councils to enter into shared services agreements, like Auckland’s Watercare does with Waikato councils. You get the benefits of scale, you retain local ownership and control. We’d incentivise councils to upgrade and build new three waters infrastructure by sharing 50 percent of the GST, Minister, that Government takes from people who build homes—takes and pockets for itself. ACT would return 50 percent of the GST on all new builds to councils to fund three waters infrastructure. We’d establish long-term 30-year agreements between central and local Government to make sure that the infrastructure that was needed that councils signed up to was actually delivered by local government.

And, of course, we would allow private sector investment. We would allow the Super Fund, the Accident Compensation Corporation, your Kiwibank that you love so much to invest in three waters assets and infrastructure through public-private partnerships—in fact, any possible way to get money to build stuff, ACT would say, “Bring your money and build stuff so we can solve the three waters riddle.” ACT’s plan will better balance community needs, deliver infrastructure. When ACT is a part of a future Government we’ll repeal this bill, Minister, we’ll chuck it on the trash heap, and we will put our three waters plan in place. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member’s time has expired.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I seek leave for that member to have another five minutes.

Leave is sought for that purpose, is there any objection? There is none. I call the honourable Simon Court.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you for offering me an honorific so early in my parliamentary career where, although I’m not a Minister, I feel confident that I’ve brought more practical experience from nearly 25 years as a civil engineer to this House to talk about how we could reform three waters infrastructure, funding and finance, the delivery mechanisms, the procurement mechanisms, and how we could incentivise local government to actually deliver more infrastructure.

Now, ACT’s been thinking about this for a long time. ACT’s housing spokesperson, Brooke van Velden, advocates for a GST rebate, sharing 50 percent of the GST that this Government takes from new house building construction—we don’t know what they do with it, takes for itself—and to give half the money the central government collects in GST from house building, give it back to local councils so that they can actually cash flow more three waters infrastructure, more roading infrastructure, and get more homes built.

When we think about what the principles are of localism, of devolving decision making down to communities—why is it that this Government is so obsessed with centralisation? Whether it’s the three waters reform or whether it’s the health reforms just about everything this Government wants to do involves centralising control in a Minister’s office. The Resource Management Act reform and the Natural and Built Environments Act will centralise final decision-making on plans and places in the Minister’s office. Centralisation is the opposite of what our communities are asking for. What they’re asking for is the ability to tell central government what their communities need to grow, to get support from central government for the funding and financing, the delivery architecture. The structures would allow new homes and new subdivisions to be developed, new mixed-use developments with higher intensity.

It costs a lot of money to renovate old pipe networks and waste-water treatment plants in central cities. Infrastructure is expensive, Minister. That’s why what ACT would do is open up the market to fund finance and procure more infrastructure to organisations like the Super Fund—to organisations like Crown Infrastructure Partners, like ACC, iwi investors. There are all kinds of organisations that would like to invest in infrastructure because it’s a long-term investment. What this Government—[Interruption]—that’s right. What this Government has committed to is to take taxpayer funds, $2.5 billion of debt into these new water entities without delivering a single new pipe or a single upgrade to a waste-water treatment plant.

Now, the other thing that this legislation complicates—and I have to give credit to the Green MP, Eugenie Sage; she pointed this out—is that the provisions around stormwater, around bringing in parks and reserves, around geothermal waters, and around coastal waters make this not just a three waters bill, but maybe even a five waters bill, Minister—a five waters bill. So how on earth is it going to be possible for people who want to develop geothermal resources, who want to deliver renewable energy for communities, help us transition—who are they going to have to negotiate with, Minister, to get their developments up and running? Or will this just be an opportunity through these Te Mana o te Wai statements for continuing rent seeking from some of the most privileged and wealthy organisations in New Zealand—these post - Treaty settlement organisations which are more than capable of looking after their own interests, Minister. But the Minister’s empowered them through this legislation—empowered them through this legislation—to have an undue influence, an influence which is totally unbalanced compared to the farmers, the foresters, the manufacturers, all of those people involved in primary production, and places like Anna Lorck’s electorate where they can tomatoes, they can fruits and vegetables. Can you imagine how they’re going to struggle to get water in the future when they have to go up against some of the most powerful tribal corporations in New Zealand? That’s why we oppose this bill. Thank you, Minister, I’ll take another five—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is a very robust debate in the Chamber tonight: a debate from those who are taking us forward, and a debate about those who are taking us backwards; those that have a plan, and those that don’t have plan; those that want to protect our public assets, and those that want to privatise our public assets.

Every organisation, every person, every iwi and hapū in their submission acknowledged the need for water reform. Government and councils agreed alike that something needs to be done to keep our water costs low. And, to me, New Zealand is a place where our infrastructure stacks up, where partnership with Māori is valued; where our beaches on the North Shore have remained free from contamination; where families from Kaikohe in the North to the East Coast have clean drinking water; where Governments of this House are planning and delivering better environmental outcomes. At a time when cost of living pressures are real, these changes are in front of us, and will provide affordable solutions to ratepayers to fund infrastructure now and into our future.

Auckland households cannot sustain increasing costs on top of the 7 percent increase that Auckland ratepayers experienced this year, and that is why this bill is so important. It will ensure ratepayers aren’t out of pocket. It will upgrade failing pipes and water infrastructure, and it will ensure safe drinking water for everyone. This bill establishes four publicly owned water entities to deliver more cost-effective, safe, reliable, and efficient water services from 1 July 2024, through improved investment and management.

Our Finance and Expenditure Committee, which I’m proud to be a part of, went across the country, despite National doing their best to not go out to the regions to hear the voices of our communities. They held off five days—five days before the Opposition agreed to go and see the communities out in the regions. Eighty-eight thousand submissions; that’s a lot of submissions. If I just speak to a point that came up before, that this side of the House didn’t want to hear those submissions. It is common and I refer back, as the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, that it was Simeon Brown, last week, that asked not to hear submissions. It is a common practice that sometimes the committee can agree on.

Our people and communities have clearly demanded a local voice, transparency, accountability, and good localised services, and we must deliver that. But they do not accept—they do not accept—status quo and poor water infrastructure in this country. The select committee has done the hard yards. The select committee has gone through hearing as many submissions as possible. The voice of New Zealand Aotearoa has been heard, and this has equated to 130 changes in this bill—130 changes. That is significant—130 changes as a result of community voice to this bill—and we’re only halfway through processing this piece of legislation in the House.

I want to go through it. We heard this public feedback. We heard it on public ownership. We’ve heard it on the balance sheet. We’ve heard it on good governance. We’ve heard it on Treaty partnership. It is now time to get on with the job and deliver for New Zealanders. Some of these changes I’ll go through. The cap on the number of regional representatives on the regional representative group has been removed. The committee increased audit scrutiny over key strategic documents like reports from the Office of the Auditor-General. The regional representative groups are now required to have rural, provincial, and metropolitan council representatives, which was a request from councils.

The committee updated the definition of “Te Mana o te Wai” to include coastal and geothermal water, as was originally recommended by the Working Group on Representation, Governance and Accountability of new Water Services Entities. The committee also clarified mana whenua whose interest within the entity boundary is recognised in settlement legislation, and can issue a Te Mana o te Wai statement, in addition to mana whenua whose rohe or takiwā is in an entity’s service area. That was a significant change that we heard directly from mana whenua at the table, and mana whenua that presented alongside their councils.

The entity objectives have been updated to clarify the role of the entities in the planning process, and their relationship to council planning functions by noting their role is to support and enable planning and growth. The committee amended the operating principles to include a requirement for the entities to have regard to the areas where services are delivered in their procurement processes, and ensure there is an understanding of the local, cultural, and environmental factors where the services themselves are delivered. The committee has added to the collective competencies of the board. This includes public health, the environment, perspectives of consumers and communities, and the perspectives of our local government councils. Contracts and joint arrangements relating to water services have been limited to a 15-year term rather than a 35-year term, which is the maximum term specified in the Local Government Act.

So, just to close off there, change isn’t easy. Sometimes change is necessary. This bill is about delivering for our future generations, delivering for our families, to ensure that they have the best quality drinking water available to them. But what we need to do, as a responsible Government, as a responsible Parliament, is to ensure that we enable investment in the best infrastructure to make that happen. That is about all of us; that is about this House; that is about our councils; that is about our communities; and that is about mana whenua. So, without further ado, I want to speak to the opposite side of the House. I’ve got two minutes 30 seconds to go and you will hear it.

Simon Watts: Give him another five!

SHANAN HALBERT: It’s important. Those of you—I can ask for another five. The important thing here is we all agree on the problem. Our water infrastructure isn’t up to scratch. So, for you here, for you at home, if you don’t like what’s on the table, come up with an alternative. You didn’t. You don’t have a plan.

Hon Member: Let me go! Let me go!

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Order! That’s just about enough of the shouting going on in here, so I think we might just calm things a tad and I’ll ask the member not to bring the Speaker into the debate.

SHANAN HALBERT: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Just to close off, investment in our water infrastructure is important for our future generations. Collectively, investment in water infrastructure is important for our future generations. This robust debate in the House isn’t about ownership. It isn’t about assets. It’s about water and ensuring that we make the best decisions for future generations. I’m proud of the plan that this Government has come up with, in the absence of a plan across the room. I challenge everyone to scrutinise the Opposition and their lack of a plan. Come up with something better, but you can’t sit there and moan and groan and not deliver for New Zealanders. This side of the House is, and we’re getting on with doing that.

Nicola Grigg—five minutes.

When I had the pleasure of speaking on the Water Services Entities Bill in the first reading, I made a prediction that this piece of legislation will be the beginning of the end of the Ardern Government, and I stand by that prediction. In fact, I’m going to start taking wagers on it, because this Government has dug itself so deep and it is too arrogant to start accepting that it has got it so wrong, and we are seeing it reflected in the polls every single day.

The only number that that side of the House needs to listen to is 88,383—88,383 New Zealanders. Five days—227 submissions. These numbers are stupefying. They are stupefying in the sense that they illustrate just how determined the Labour Government is to blatantly ignore the will of New Zealanders, how determined this Labour Government is to blatantly ignore the democratic decision-making process that every New Zealander has a right to expect: 88,383 New Zealanders took the time, made the effort, sat down, thought about and wrote about their views on the impacts that this Water Services Entities Bill will have on them and their communities. And despite the heroic attempts of my colleagues on the Finance and Expenditure Committee, they were overridden by the Labour majority, as happens time and time and time again. Hence just five days—a pitiful five days was allocated to hear a very, very small, insignificant portion of those 88,383 submissions. And, in fact, it gets worse; they were so dictatorial about who could be heard, what could be read—this Government has anointed itself as the judge, jury, and executioner of the provision of water services in New Zealand.

This Government and the Minister should hang their heads in shame. This is not how we do things in New Zealand. This is arrogance. This is a refusal to engage with communities across the country. It is deliberately ignoring a very wide variety of views—

Anna Lorck: Have you read the bill?

NICOLA GRIGG: —many, many regions have to offer. Anna Lorck, I have read the bill. Have you read the submissions—88,383 of them? I am certain you have not. This Government has been expressing vociferously that there is no alternate plan. Well, I give you exhibit A: there is a mayor sitting in the gallery tonight who has been a part of an amalgamation—

Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Yep, thank you. I believe I know what the member is going to say. The member will not refer to people in the gallery. The member will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

NICOLA GRIGG: I withdraw and apologise.

Three mayors offered an alternate proposal to this Government, and it was roundly ignored. An alternate plan when the Government says there isn’t one—the audacity of a Minister to say that there is not an alternative is an outrage. And this is the difference between the National Party and the Labour Government: we listen to the grassroots. Everything that is in this reported bill that has come back from select committee has remained unchanged. They have not listened to those 88,383 New Zealanders. They have not listened to the fact that New Zealand does not want a co-governance of our public water assets—of our public water services. This is a bottom line for the National Party: we will not support the co-governance of public assets. They have been paid for and they are owned by the communities that built them, just like the community of Selwyn that spent $750 million over multiple decades to build up a world-class water services infrastructure.

A lot has been talked about the apparent $185 billion deficit in infrastructure. Well, to coin a phrase from John Key: show me the money. Where has that number come from, because the Government has not substantiated that number? They are throwing around money; $3 billion in so-called “no worse off” funding—it is bribe money. Can that Government honestly, in a cost of living crisis—can they honestly sit there with a straight face and say that is not going to increase the rates that ratepayers around communities in New Zealand are going to have to contend with? It is patently clear this bill is an abomination. It is ideological, it is anti-democratic, it is recklessly expensive, and New Zealanders do not want it. The National Party will not support it.

Madam Speaker, the Māori Party isn’t taking a call, so I am going to. I stand today as both a member of Parliament for Tukituki, the electorate of the Havelock North water crisis, and as a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, who is speaking on this bill.

The ratepayers and residents of Hastings have paid severely from a lack of ongoing investment into our water infrastructure. The council of the time ignored warning after warning to invest in infrastructure, and instead chose to keep rates low—as low as possible—and we paid dearly. The real numbers of those that were sick from the Havelock North water crisis were between 6,000 and 8,000 people, including over 2,000 not directly within the reticulated area, nearly 1,000 cases reported to their doctor, and another 42 people hospitalised. And the campylobacter infection contributed to the death of at least four people.

Along with the health impact, the economic impact of this crisis on the Havelock North and Hastings community was $21 million—$21 million. This included $4.1 million from the Hastings District Council and the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council. It also included $2.5 million for the cost to our district health board and another $1.3 million to the local businesses of Havelock North. But, now, through the Havelock North water crisis, Hastings is six years on, and we have been rebuilding our drinking-water infrastructure to world-class standards, but both ratepayers and the Government have had to invest millions to get there.

Hastings and Havelock North have been the catalyst for this bill, but we are also an example of the future, because when we turn on our drinking-water system next year—seven years on—it will be world class. But it also highlights the major work ahead for so many councils across New Zealand. It is appropriate for me to acknowledge the work, experience, and lessons learnt, and the contribution that Hastings has made through the submission process, which has led to many of the changes that we are hearing in the water services bill today.

The Hastings District Council agrees on many parts of the water services bill: reform is necessary, and co-governance is necessary, and they believe scale and regulatory requirements of the regulator are necessary. Hastings also led in bringing councils together, working on Hawke’s Bay’s submission too. And, again, I want to acknowledge Hawke’s Bay in the House. At least they put up a plan. At least they gave it a good shot. We listened to much of what the submission said. Our regional model was taken seriously, and as the local MP of this region, I supported Hawke’s Bay’s advocacy. And during the submission process, I asked other councils: would they join forces? But the response I heard back was mixed. For me, this highlighted the differences of opinion amongst councils across the country.

Our Government is charged with delivering a New Zealand - wide approach in the interests of all communities to deliver safe, effective water infrastructure that leaves nobody—nobody—behind. It is fair to say that the parochialism of Hawke’s Bay remains staunch, but I also know that, as a region, we will move forward, we will look outwardly, and we will continue to be leaders as we take forward this Water Services Entity Bill right across the country. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

First of all, I’d like to congratulate my friend Anna Lorck for that speech, and I think it was an extremely good speech because it was coming from a place of learning. Hawke’s Bay went through a terrible trauma as a result of terrible water quality, and people suffered and people died.

When we went to the Hawke’s Bay—and we went to a lot of places in New Zealand to listen to these submissions—I was particularly struck by one woman called Shelley. She had had a small child and they have been in hospital. She had gone home and when she turned on the tap, the water was brown. I would not like to have been in that position. She also worked in the council and she used to bring a little jar of water in and it was never dealt with.

We also heard from a mayor who had left the job—he was an ex-mayor—and he said that during that time as a mayor, he asked about water quality and he was reassured that everything was fine, that the infrastructure was fine. When he left, then the same person, the very same person who had been working for him, explained that, in fact, the water quality wasn’t fine. That, for me, is an interesting story because I have a lot of respect for local bodies doing things. I think it is where a lot of things need to happen, and you’ll see in the Resource Management Act reforms that a lot of that is reinforced.

This Government has great respect for the role of local government, but this—this—part of it was impossible. They were in an impossible position because what they had to deal with was trying to get their rates down, but they were dealing with a problem that was actually really expensive. So what we had was an artificial keeping the rates down while the maintenance didn’t happen, while the pipes didn’t get upgraded. And, obviously, in a place like Hawke’s Bay, we were able to see new infrastructure being put in because they’d had a hell of a shock. But I’d rather that the families in New Zealand never had to deal with that situation.

What we need is we absolutely need to be able to rely on our drinking water throughout this country, and to be able to rely on our waste water throughout this country, because it’s right—we can’t swim at some of the beaches in Auckland. I think that the members that have places in the North Shore will know this: we can’t swim at those beaches. We look online and we check out, in the summer, whether we’re allowed to swim at Devonport or Takapuna, and that’s ridiculous in a country this beautiful. So these things have to happen.

Now, I can tell you the next person I want to thank is the Minister, Hon Nanaia Mahuta, because, during this process, we were quite a tough committee. We were very much a committee that listened and learnt, and we have engaged as a committee, and that Minister has been brave and has listened. As a result, we have a lot of changes. One of the changes that I am proudest of is the one that is a movement from being able to contract out services for 35 years to only 15, and for things like local procurement to be part of the formula. Those are important changes. I come from this background of doing this work with workers, and one of my unions was the Amalgamated Workers Union. That union came along and made a submission in support of this because it knew this was the way to go. It’s worked with Watercare. It knows these kinds of scales are a good idea and that it’s a better future for a worker. If you are a worker in this industry and you are worried, don’t be. There are good provisions around workers, here.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! The member will not bring the Speaker into the debate.

HELEN WHITE: Sorry, Madam. If a worker is worried about this, I would like to reassure those workers in those areas. This is actually a really good system where we’ve thought through that we need a good workforce that’s skilled up. And they will skill up, and they will be able to apply that skill in their local area because those services will need to apply there. So this is really a real upgrade in the role, and that’s what the union told us.

So did the technical workers, and I’d like to just talk about the mayors and the workers in this situation because, yes, we had mayors who had misgivings, but, interestingly, what I noticed in the submissions was we had a lot of workers in the area saying this was a good idea. We had a lot of the people who actually do this work who were coming to us and making submissions saying that this was a good idea. For me, that’s a little bit of a litmus test—when you get the workers on the ground and you treat them well and they know they’re going to have a future, and they know that this is a good thing, because, actually, what’s happened out there is not good enough.

So I am absolutely pleased with where we’ve landed here. There has been a lot of engagement. There has been engagement over accountability, over making sure that contracting out was just a useful tool and not actually something that might get in the way. And there has been so much good listening go on—to local voices. There has been so much shoring up of that, and I am proud of the way that our Finance and Expenditure Committee was able to go through this and hear people and change so that we have got a better piece of legislation in an area that New Zealand really needs change in. Mostly, I’d like to thank our Minister for being extremely brave. She has actually made a change in our society that will benefit my children and my grandchildren, and no one will have to turn on the tap and have brown water come out when they’ve got a sick child.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Well, I have to say that this is the most despicable, the most dishonest, and the most dishonourable piece of legislation I have had the misfortune to speak to in this House. This is a deplorable way of stealing assets off communities—assets that have been bought and paid for over generations.

I’d like to start my contribution by saying that the National Party actually did support the first part of these reforms, which established the water regulator. So that was back in March 2021, and the reason we did that was because we recognised that there needed to be some authority to ensure that councils acted on their management plans.

So just for a bit of context around that: councils have their 10-year plans, their project plans, for the next 10 years. They report in those plans on the condition of their three-water assets. So they’re planning ahead 10 years at least for repairs, replacements, and renewals of those assets, and the Audit Office will come along and it will assess those reports, but it has no authority to make those councils commit to that work. In some cases, there were councils, over many years, who used the excuse of keeping rates down not to invest in that infrastructure. That’s why we supported the first part of these reforms, because it’s recognised that there did need to be some authority to ensure that communities were not short cut in terms of the investment that was happening.

But to say that the Government has been working on these reforms for five years is not what is understood by the sector. If the Government had been working on these reforms for five years, they had an obligation to go out to the communities in the 2020 election and get the mandate from the voters to proceed with their plan—this grand plan that we’ve been hearing about all day.

But they did not. They did not ask the voters then, so we’ve gone through this farce of a consultation process in the creation of this piece of legislation—as we’ve heard, 88,000 submissions. They may have disregarded some of those form submissions, but 227 oral submissions were heard when 1,600 of those submitters requested to be heard. Now, we’ve done that with other legislation—we have given the voice to those people who wanted to be heard. But for some reason, this Government uses its absolute majority to run roughshod over the democratic process and be selective about the people that it will hear, and I find that absolutely despicable.

But then we go on to the cost of this thing. If I talk to my colleague and friend Simon Watts, he can’t tell us what this is going to cost, because the Government hasn’t zoned in on the exact cost. But they can’t even tell us what the value of the assets across all of the local councils in New Zealand are actually worth. So they come along with $2.5 billion, which is a “no worse off fund”—which is code for “Here’s a bribe to come on board in exchange for mega-billions of dollars’ worth of assets that we haven’t got a figure for yet.”—and everybody is meant to be happy and go home and sing “la-di-da”.

Well, I’m telling you that actually the communities in this country aren’t stupid. They are taking that money and they’re doing things like paying down debt and building recreational facilities. It is not going into core infrastructure like three-water assets, so it’s an absolute waste of money—$2.5 billion. How far would that have gone to fixing the problem that the Government thinks it needs to set out to fix?

So we’ve got the “no worse off” funding, but the biggest waste of money—and if you think about the position this country is in today with the cost of living crisis, the health crisis, the education crisis, and then they go out and spend $3.5 million on a media campaign to convince the country that we need these reforms. If you remember the cartoons with the slime coming out of the tap? Crikey dick! Nobody could relate to that. It quickly disappeared, but not before $3.5 million had been wasted on an advertising campaign trying to convince people who didn’t need to be convinced that their water was in terrible shape.

So I think the Government has lost its way in all of this. We’ve heard some comments today that—in fact, Helen White brought it up in her contribution—we don’t want to have councils that have “no swimming” notices up at their beaches, as they do in Auckland. Well, I think the Government has missed a trick here, because Auckland Council actually recognised that themselves, and they set up Watercare. So Watercare has gone and spent ratepayers’ money to fix the problem the Government says it needs to fix, but it’s already under way. So what is the point?

I still don’t understand why this Government thinks it’s the only entity in this country that knows how to do things, because—

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Socialism.

MAUREEN PUGH: It is socialism, Michael Woodhouse—absolutely. Absolutely. But the cost of this whole exercise to date has been about $34 million. This is a complete insult to the hard-working taxpayers of this country—an absolute sham.

But I want to turn the rest of my contribution to why I think this is dishonest, because this legislation contains two things that I want to raise tonight. One is about the exclusive ability for the iwi representatives to propose statements. Now, these statements are binding on those entities and we’ve heard about some of the caution that we have around that, because it is extending out into fresh water, it’s extending out into the ocean.

I just want to read a part out of the Cabinet paper that Nanaia Mahuta had in June 2021. This wasn’t made available to the public, by the way. “I see the [Te Mana o te Wai] statements as being holistic, enabling Māori to express a broad wellbeing approach consistent with a Te Ao Māori approach to such measures, including economic, cultural, social, and environmental expectations.” She goes on to say, “Such statements could contain economic aspirations with respect to Māori enterprise and job creation, particularly—but not exclusively—in areas related to mātauranga Māori expertise.” So, basically, what they are saying is that whatever the 1,200 iwi and hapū consider in their best interests and are deemed to be consistent with the view of mātauranga Māori, they will be locked into those entities and those statements are binding, and those four water services entities have to obey them.

But there’s another little hidden part of this piece of legislation that needs a bit of airtime, and that is that not only are they going to seize the councils’ bought and paid for infrastructure—three-waters infrastructure—but they’re now also going after parks and reserves.

Anna Lorck: No, we’re not—no we’re not. You’ve got that wrong.

MAUREEN PUGH: So the parks and reserves—if they’re in this, Anna Lorck, they will be seized.

So New Zealand has been duped into thinking that this has been all about clean water, when, in fact, we were between second and ninth in the world for top-quality water in this country, and, again, this is this typical Labour Government saying they’ve got a solution and they’re now looking for a problem. But this is dishonest, and they have not had the gumption to be open with the people of New Zealand.

All those backbenchers over there have been reading the bill notes. They haven’t been involved in these Cabinet papers and these discussions going on behind closed doors. If they had have been—if they had have been—they had an obligation to outline it to the communities when they went out to consult.

This is despicable, and I want to say that the people of this country deserve better. They will get better when National repeals this legislation next year, and then we will see some action in terms of investment in infrastructure.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, thank you very much, indeed.

I think the National Party might be regretting giving Maureen Pugh a call on this—for her to claim that “this is a solution looking for a problem” sums the National Party’s position altogether. They have had their heads in the sand throughout this debate, refusing to accept that there is a problem and refusing to accept that there is something that needs to be done. Everyone except the National Party accepts that there is something that needs to be done. There’s a $185 billion problem facing this country, and then they laugh—without even realising it, proving my point.

Simon Watts: Independent experts say that is overstated.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: They say it is overstated. Well, I would point them to the Water Industry Commission for Scotland report, I would point them to the peer-reviewed Farrierswier report, and I would point them to the peer-reviewed Beca Group report that have indicated that New Zealand communities need to fund $180 billion worth of infrastructure over the next 30 years.

Every single council that I have visited have said that they cannot do it by themselves. So for Maureen Pugh to stand up tonight and for her mates to continue bickering while I make a factual statement shows that they are completely out of touch when it comes to this.

Now, I have sat here and listened to every single contribution to this debate. Throughout the National Party’s contributions, I listened very carefully and I listened in hope, and I listened waiting for a solution to this issue. Well, I stand here very disappointed. What this bill does is it presents a solution to this massive financial burden facing our communities.

I heard Simon Watts take umbrage with something that the Minister said. He misquoted her and tried to spin it around in—I must admit—a rather clever way. What the Minister said was, pointing to the National Party, that that side has no alternative; fact. What Simon Watts said is that there are alternatives; that’s also a fact. He went on to list said alternatives; not once did he say that the National Party had a policy and not once did he commit his party to those alternatives he listed. So here we are, back at the status quo.

As Associate Minister of Local Government, by visiting 54 rural and provincial councils, I asked them a very simple question. “Can you do this by yourselves?”, is what I asked. None of them said they could. Simon Watts projects himself as the saviour of local government; he clearly hasn’t engaged with them. I’ll give the House an example. He says that their policy is to “repeal and replace” three waters—with what? “Repeal and replace”, they say their policy is. Well, I would say to the National Party, they better ring their volunteers in Waikato and Coromandel and Wairarapa and much of the South Island, who are still showing billboards that say, “Repeal and reverse”—even their own members don’t know that their policy’s changed. But the fact that they have changed their position on this bill says quite a bit.

Originally, when this bill was first proposed, the National Party pulled out the old tripe that said, “This is stealing assets.” I see Maureen Pugh dived into that pool earlier. They said, “We will repeal and reverse.” Then they realised that, actually, everyone except them recognises there’s a problem, so they quietly changed their policy to “repeal and replace”. But what they are neglecting to tell the New Zealand public is what with. This bill—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member is an experienced member. I have asked him informally to return more closely to the bill, and I will now ask him to do that.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Thank you, Madam Speaker. What this bill does is it actually provides a solution—a solution that is the only one, outside that of the ACT Party, of this Parliament.

Now, I don’t have much in common with the ACT Party—I’ve said this quite a bit—but I do respect them because they actually come with alternative solutions. The issue that I have with the solution that the ACT Party proposed in response to this bill was that they are proposing to share the GST on new developments with councils. Good on them for coming up with something alternative; a valid contribution to this debate. But through their own costings, that will provide $1 billion per year. They will solve a 30-year problem 150 years too late. That is unfortunate.

The reason that this bill proposes what it does is it recognises that councils cannot do this by themselves. It recognises that, even at a regional level, whilst that may work in some parts of the country, and I recognise those councils that have put effort into putting forward an alternative proposal, there are many councils that still miss out—the majority of whom are rural councils; the areas that this party purports to support, yet won’t come up with a solution to help them out. They are happy to leave them with $100 million which their small rate paying base cannot fund.

The key to this issue is that in order to find the economies of scale and an affordable way to do this, you need balance sheet separation. We could do what Matt Doocey proposed in an earlier debate, but I noticed stayed away from today—Matt Doocey proposed an alternative, and good on him. But I note that he didn’t say it today and probably because he was told he shouldn’t—it’s a broader proposal as well: that the Government should kick in with 50 percent; similar to the Waka Kotahi proposal similar to funding assistance rate. The problem with that is Matt Doocey was, at the time, committing the National Party to $92.5 billion bill when they are proposing $11 billion a year of tax cuts. It didn’t add up, and that’s why he didn’t mention it again tonight.

We were asked by Nicola Grigg to show us the figures that we were referring to—this cost. It has been provided by experts and peer-reviewed by two reports. I don’t think Nicola Grigg realised that by doing so she revealed to the House that she hasn’t actually read the proposals.

We also heard a few things that I thought were quite telling. We saw tonight that the National Party are opposing this on the basis of co-governance. I am proud to stand on in support of this bill on co-governance, and I’ll give one simple example. In my tour of 54 councils, one councillor stood up and opposed co-governance—one. That was council No. 41. When I said to that councillor, “I’ve visited 40 councils before this. This is the first time that someone has raised an opposition to co-governance. I want you to be aware of it.” He wasn’t aware, he sat down, and I haven’t heard about co-governance since.

This should have been a lesson for Simon Watts, who appeared to the Local Government New Zealand conference in Palmerston North and rallied against co-governance—didn’t get a clap because he didn’t read the room. The local government sector is in favour of proposals in this bill.

We are on the side of local government in the respect that we have come forward with a solution. The one thing that local government told me is that they can’t do it by themselves, which is exactly what the Opposition is proposing. The National Party are proposing the status quo, ignoring the problem, kicking the can down the road, proposing the exact thing that councils do not want.

I am proud of the way that this Government, my colleagues, especially the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, who has listened to the concerns, set up a working group made up of local government representatives, took on those proposals, and took on the proposals and the recommendations made by select committee. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few amendments and adjustments that come through the committee of the whole House stage because this is a sincere attempt to improve this bill and make it work.

The alternative is clear, and the New Zealand people must realise. For all their articulate speeches and for all Simon Watts’ yelling, they have no policy in this area. Their policy is the status quo; the very thing that councils say that they simply cannot afford to do, and by cannot afford they mean rates will go up and ratepayers will suffer. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That the amendments recommended by the Finance and Expenditure Committee by majority be agreed to.