Water Services Legislation Bill

Members, the House is in committee for the Water Services Legislation Bill. We come first to the debate on Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 3 to 25 and Schedules 1 and 2, “Amendments to Water Services Entities Act 2022”. Members should note that Part 1 inserts new parts into the Water Services Entities Act 2022, and these are included in the debate on Part 1. Clause 21C inserts new Part 5A, and clause 22 replaces Part 6 with new Part 6 and inserts new Parts 7 to 13. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Minister, thank you very much for coming down tonight to try and address the concerns that I have as a rural New Zealander and to try and contextualise what on earth it means to rural New Zealand in terms of stormwater management, especially.

I try and reconcile the concerns that are offered to me in terms of stormwater management in rural New Zealand. I heard the remarks from the former speaker Eugenie Sage in the previous debate, when she raised concerns about stormwater and what that actually looks like. How on earth will that be managed, Minister?

I’ll just try and contextualise it for you if I can, and I think this warrants a genuine answer—not a flippant one, but a genuine answer—on what this looks like. Where I live in Northland, it is a piece of land called the Ruawai Flats. It was reclaimed back at the turn of the last century, totally drained by part of a wider scheme called the Albertlander scheme. They reclaimed it all. Now, that stormwater reality—it’s dead flat. To give you some kind of context, it’s about 3 meters above sea level that was all drained into the Kaipara Harbour. That was done by local catchment groups.

Can you please tell me, this committee, and anyone weighing in, how on earth that local asset and the management and the infrastructure that has been managed by those people for, now, the last 120 years would fall into a new entity with shared governance arrangements—some appointed; some go through the democratic process—to give effect to Te Mana o te Wai statements. Gracious me; I still don’t know what that means when it comes to stormwater management, especially. When it comes to outcomes—because I stress this point, Minister—this is an example. We don’t have a problem. There absolutely isn’t a problem, and I think this committee deserves to know how rural stormwater, Minister, will be managed.

In previous exchanges with the former Minister of Local Government, we were talking about green overland flow, and I think that needs to be reconciled. How many tens of thousands of kilometres of local government infrastructure assets will this bill run roughshod over? And what will it mean in terms of asset management, having that asset taken off the likes of where I live and then adjudicated, financed, funded, and controlled from an entity based predominantly in Auckland?

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. It’s a pleasure to actually participate, because I have yet to speak on this particular piece of legislation. I grabbed the legislation and I started reading, and even right from the beginning, I’m slightly confused as to what this is all about, because it is rather convoluting. When I was listening to my colleague earlier, she gave a little bit of a history, which sort of seems like there’s a massive confusion.

Going to Part 1, in replacement section 161(1)(ia), inserted by clause 4(2)(h), it talks about how that section “provides that the annual reports of water services entities must contain information on actions they have taken to give effect to te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi with reference to each of the other matters listed in this section”. I’m trying to understand—if the Minister could explain to me or to this committee—how that helps or impacts on the services that this water entity will potentially have for customers in water quality and water services.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just want to follow up—it’s page 66; clauses 234 to 236, around the purpose. We’ve got the “Purpose of the rural supply plan”, then the “Contents of the rural supply plan”, and then “Engagement on rural supply plans”. I brought up in my speech in the second reading the multiple different ways that rural water is supplied: not just for animals but also for those people who work on farms and people who, maybe, live near to farms. When you start having to define the geographic area setting out how the water services entity will operate the supply with the users of the supply: all of the arrangements, the detail around the ongoing maintenance, committee and other arrangements for making decisions, roles and responsibilities—Minister, I know that you often say that you’ve been out engaging with all the rural communities. I wonder if you can help us by understanding the potential for lots of water supplies to be cut off in terms of those people who don’t want to engage with what seems to be a hugely bureaucratic process, and those houses will be left to councils to then supply water to, because it just becomes too complicated and too hard, and another piece of bureaucracy that’s imposed on rural people. Thank you.

I thank Barbara Kuriger for her question, and Mark Cameron. I’ll go through those as best I can. In regards to rural water supplies: if the existing supply already has a relationship with the council—so it could be that they have a committee that is made up of the water users and it is also made up of the council—then that relationship can continue. But, with the entity, those users will be able to continue to have the opportunity to have a joint operational committee. They’ll also have a choice: they can withdraw themselves from coverage of this bill and the reforms if they wish; however, of course, they wouldn’t get the benefit of the scale of being included in those. We’ve worked really constructively with water users. There’s been a really targeted, constructive approach down in the Clutha area, led by the council down there. We’ve taken on board their concerns, and a lot of that is being reflected.

In regards to rural drainage, that’s not in scope of these reforms—councils will continue to be accountable for rural flood- and stormwater arrangements. Water services entities will be required to collaborate and support councils as agreed. In regards to the specific example, I’m unfamiliar with that. If they have an existing relationship with the local council, then that opportunity will continue with the water services entity. If they are completely removed from council provision and they are solely rural supply, then they won’t be covered by these reforms.

Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s a pleasure to speak on this Water Services Legislation Bill, which is not one we support. I want to ask the Minister about clause 5, around definitions in particular—clause 5(2)—“In section 6, definition of stormwater network, after paragraph (b), insert: (c) does not include a transport stormwater system”.

Now, does that mean that stormwater coming off the road is a stormwater transport system? Is that the meaning of that particular clause? I would have thought that’s the major carrier of the stormwater in our transport networks, actually—the roads and carparks. We’ve heard that it’s not in the rural area, so that kind of makes sense. But, in an urban area, how do you define what’s a transport water system—drainage system, stormwater system—and what’s stormwater? The water that comes off the roof of a house or off buildings would, I would assume, be the only other stormwater. So I would be quite interested in that definition.

I know that, turning back to rural water—in fact, I’ll come back to that later. I’m interested in that stormwater one. I think there’s a massive issue with that in New Zealand, because we actually haven’t designed our roads from scratch in New Zealand; we haven’t had a clean sheet of paper and started putting our roads out and said we’re going to build them in such a way as to manage our stormwater in the most effective manner. They’ve, essentially, evolved over time, and so we’ve ended up with an imperfect system. I think that would be a really good question. If we could have that answer, we would really appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Staying with stormwater, in the bill, water services entities must have a comprehensive stormwater strategy. They’ve got to have a relationship with the relevant local authorities. And the bill also—because of the changes the committee made—has ensured that the water services entities have “primary responsibility for managing and maintaining watercourses that have a stormwater … function”, including on private land.

In a city like Ōtautahi Christchurch, the city council has done a lot of work on the Ōtākaro and Ōpāwaho—Avon and Heathcote—rivers, in terms of riparian planting, improving the naturalness of the rivers, putting in place rock to create riffles so that there’s better habitat for fish. All of that work has been done to enhance the amenity of the river, its natural functioning, but the rivers also carry quite significant volumes of stormwater. In the bill, it also provides that the entities can only charge properties for stormwater services where they are serviced by or within 100 metres of a stormwater network or in a particular geographic zone that receives benefits from that network.

When a territorial authority is doing work to improve the functioning of a river or stream, where it’s doing riparian management and planting to safeguard water quality, to provide for urban amenity, how is the water services entity going to interact with the council? How is it going to charge for that work, because the council can charge for it under a number of its functions. But, if it’s not primarily concerned with the conveyance of stormwater, how is the entity going to recoup any costs involved, and how are we going to ensure that there is a prospect of water-sensitive urban design and spongy cities being implemented by these entities when they are not associated with the land-use planning that is required to ensure that we move more towards those nature-based solutions?

In regards to Melissa Lee’s questions relating to the Treaty of Waitangi clause, the section sets out what the Crown will do to give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi obligations. These sections are quite common in legislation, and we believe it is consistent with previous approaches.

In regards to Stuart Smith’s question, the bill provides that stormwater networks and transport corridors are managed separately. Roads, while they are designed to channel water away, are managed separately to the underlying stormwater network.

And to the Hon Eugenie Sage’s question, I’ve sought advice on that, given its technical nature, but I’ll get back to you when I receive it.

Mr Chair, thank you. Thank you, Minister McAnulty, for making yourself available to come to the committee tonight to answer questions about another three waters bill, this Water Services Legislation Bill, which is the third of four bills, I think, Minister, which I guess gives people watching at home or listening at home to this debate tonight some inkling of the complexity of the reform agenda that this Government embarked on, with conditional support from the ACT Party for the initial proposal.

But, Minister, it’s quite clear that, at some point along the way, between defining the problem, there are too many disaggregated water supplies around New Zealand that don’t have the economies of scale, the ratings base, or the income base to fund and finance the maintenance of existing networks or to provide for growth—which, if you’re in an existing town or city, often requires replacing large parts of network infrastructure to upgrade it to allow for additional housing connections or business connections. Or, if you’re developing in greenfield areas near existing towns and cities, it requires building new network infrastructure, at what can be quite a high cost, for that cost, then, to be either attributed back to the first movers—the people who come along to do a subdivision. And then the council says, “Well, we’ve had to build new network infrastructure.”—drinking water, waste water, stormwater, for example. In the case of Auckland Council, they’ve laid down a wero—a challenge—to developers at Drury South: if you wish to build, it’s $85,000 in development contributions before you build. Minister, all of these problems are yet to be solved by this legislation, although they were extensively canvassed during the Finance and Expenditure Committee hearing on this bill.

But there is a problem, Minister, that’s been introduced in this legislation that didn’t exist before the reform process started, and that is a concept of iwi Māori having rights and interests in three waters infrastructure. It was a very surprising introduction—particularly for people involved in asset management and engineering and maintenance and clearing drains and doing CCTV and having to repair pipes—that in this reform package, Minister, in amended section 5(2), inserted by clause 4, service providers will have to demonstrate how they’ve taken action to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi - the Treaty of Waitangi. When you’re designing an urban stormwater or waste-water network, or you’re designing a new subdivision and you’re working out how much water you’re going to need for all the people who might live there, it would be outside the normal scope of work for a designer or an asset owner or an asset manager to be thinking, “How do I give effect to a treaty between the Crown and 500 or so iwi and hapū representatives, a treaty signed in 1840?” That’s not what land developers and asset managers usually concern themselves with, because it is not their business to be concerned about.

Minister, I just want to ask: why is it that this bill requires asset owners, the water services entities, to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi - the Treaty of Waitangi? In particular, I asked the Minister of Local Government, the former Minister—the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, who’s joined us here in the committee this evening; good evening, Minister—“Does the Minister Believe that Māori have rights and interests in Three Waters assets built after 1840, and if so, why?” That is in written question No. 7396 (2022), and the Minister responded to the written question: “To my knowledge Māori have not expressed rights and interests in three waters assets over and above those [of] ratepayers within their respective communities of interest.”—that is, assets built after 1840, after the Treaty between the Crown and 500 or so iwi and hapū representatives was signed and before any three waters infrastructure was built in New Zealand. So, Minister, could you please explain why on earth these three waters entities have to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi?

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just a quick question to the Minister, appreciating that this bill’s reason for being, really, is to establish and empower the water services entities by setting out their functions and powers and obligations. I just was wondering if the Minister could talk us through clause 9, inserting new section 18(3)(a), where it says that a water services entity “may establish, own (in whole or in part), or operate a subsidiary only if the subsidiary complies with the requirements specified in Schedule 5;”—and so on and so forth. But, Minister, could you please outline to the committee—and, indeed, councils around Canterbury—how that relates to or applies to the current council controlled organisations (CCOs) that many of these councils own. For example, in Ashburton, Ashburton Contracting Limited; or in Selwyn, it’s called CORDE. Most councils are of the belief that the water assets within their CCOs will also be claimed by these entities. So, just with regard to amended section 18, could the Minister please outline how they do actually relate to that?

Just in response to that, it’s been made very clear for quite some time, and it’s very clear in the bill, that the only council-controlled organisations (CCOs) that would be brought into the water reforms are Wellington Water and in Auckland; all others will not be consumed by this reform. We made that change as a result of listening to councils some months ago.

In regard to Eugenie Sage’s question, I thank you for it, but if you forgive me, I’m going to read, because it goes into some detail and I want to address your question. There are some cities such as Christchurch—which the member has pointed out—that does have a large and complex river system running through it, and there the entities and the councils will have to work together incredibly closely. As we know, cities like Christchurch aren’t immune from severe weather events and climate change, and the entities will bring significant benefit to addressing that with the cheaper cost and cheaper ability to borrow than it would have if it were on its own, and also greater technical expertise, recognising, though, that Christchurch does have its own CCO and they do have a high level of expertise down there. We heard the council’s concerns and removed that from the original proposals.

The stormwater management plans require an entity to specify a geographic zone that benefits from stormwater services. These geographic zones provide the basis for charging for stormwater services, and, of course, the relationship agreement provides a structure in which to do this. If I haven’t covered everything, feel free to jump up again and I’ll look into it further.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Minister, I just have to point out that, no, you haven’t covered everything, because my question was very specific: why is it that water services entities need to take actions to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi when the councils that built wastewater treatment plants, dams for drinking water, water supply networks for new subdivisions and for business, which built stormwater detention ponds alongside new subdivisions or in urban areas to help mitigate the effect of pollutants entering the receiving environment—how come, Minister, the water services entities, which will take all of those assets off councils, suddenly have to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi? None of the assets were built before the Treaty was signed and none of the assets, as far as I’m aware—and he may wish to correct me—are subject to Treaty settlement claims, or have been claimed, or have been settled, have been transacted to an iwi. How is it, Minister, that this Government can justify including new section 5(h), inserted by clause 4(2)?

And, Minister, while you’re considering that, would you also please tell the committee, for those watching or listening at home, what are the implications of requiring water services entities to give effect to Te Mana o te Wai? For those watching or listening to this debate, they might ask: what is Te Mana o te Wai? Well, there is a definition referred to in replacement section 6, inserted by clause 5(2A) in Supplementary Order Paper 418, under “Interpretation”, which says that “Te Mana o te Wai—(a) has the meaning set out in the national planning framework made by Order in Council … of the Natural and Built Environment Act 2022;”.

Now, just to summarise for those listening or watching, Te Mana o te Wai sets out that water has a spiritual dimension, that water comes from the heavens and embodies the mauri or life force of a deity, and then when it lands on planet Earth, it returns to another deity: the earth. And what Te Mana o te Wai means, in terms of the Resource Management Act or the Natural and Built Environment Act or the national policy statement for fresh water, all of which have a relationship to the definition in this bill—what it requires is for decision makers to take account of how to give effect to Te Mana o te Wai. That means to take account of the cultural and spiritual values of one group in New Zealand’s community who have the right to express their cultural values and to believe whatever they want to about the origins of water, its life force, and so on.

But how on earth is a decision maker, trying to decide how to build infrastructure, how to design the discharge from a wastewater treatment plant to meet ecological values, freshwater values, swimming values, wading values, whatever they are—how are they supposed to take account of one culture’s understanding of the life force of water when making decisions about what kind of filter to use, whether we need to use a filter that treats it, essentially, to achieve some kind of life force standard or whether a filtration system simply to protect the ecology, the creatures that live in the water, and people who might want to swim in it is adequate? Because, if you look at the challenges facing New Zealand infrastructure operators, it’s quite clear that the life force standard probably comes in at 100 percent premium, Minister.

So, Minister, would you please provide some justification for why water infrastructure operators need to give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi and how on earth they’re supposed to give effect to Te Mana o te Wai, the statements provided by iwi and hapū, if they’re asking for a standard of water treatment which meets their cultural needs but which far exceeds the actual biophysical needs of communities or receiving waters. Because it it’s not clear how decision makers are supposed to do that.

While the obligations to fulfil Treaty settlements are in scope of this bill, giving effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi or giving effect to Te Mana o te Wai are not in scope of this bill. The references in this bill are referring to the Water Services Entities Bill and the Water Services Act, which was passed last year and the year before.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to start off by saying thank you to the Minister for Local Government, who attempted to answer my question—I think, perhaps, he got my question confused with Simon Court’s question because it relates to the same clause, 4(2)(h). The question I was actually asking was that it says, “in section 161(1)(ia), that provides that the annual reports of water services entities must contain information on actions they have taken to give effect to te Tiriti o Waitangi”—so I’m not questioning the reason why they actually engage with that. What I’m actually asking is: what does the annual report, in terms of the way that they’ve engaged re the Treaty, relate back to the services of the water entity? And does that actually improve it, or do we actually get better or cleaner water, or whatever?

And the other—you know, the committee stage is supposed to be short questions, so I’ll try and be very, very short. I found my colleague Stuart Smith’s question in relation to clause 5(2)(c), where it talks about the “stormwater network” and says it “does not include a transport stormwater system”—I’m really curious to find out why that is. I know that the Minister actually addressed Stuart’s question, saying that it is actually a different system; it’s dealt with in a different way. I’m not a geologist, but in Auckland we’ve actually had some sinkholes on the roads, where we’ve had massive gaps and there was water running everywhere. Does that mean that it addresses the concerns of the citizens when they actually look at roads—which has impacts, because the waterways actually run underneath the roads? Are we actually putting our citizens at risk of more sinkholes appearing under our road networks? I think these are things that maybe, perhaps, the Minister has actually had the officials explain that we need to look at—or does he actually think that it’s nobody’s business and it’s actually safe and, you know, we don’t need to do anything about it?

Thank you to Melissa Lee for the clarification. I apologise for getting the wrong end of the stick. The annual report summarises the operations of the entity, and given that the entities are required, as has been mentioned, to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, it’s an appropriate requirement for them to outline how they are doing that. It doesn’t need to be too technical. Just as an example, they could simply outline how they are engaging with Māori. Given that the regional representative groups will be made up of mana whenua, I think that will be quite a straightforward requirement for them.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you, Minister, for those answers. But I go back to the point that my colleague Melissa Lee just raised, again, about the transport systems.

Now, I heard the Minister’s answer that there would be a separate entity for transport corridors and to manage the stormwater from those rather than the other stormwater—the normal stormwater. But I would wager that there wouldn’t be many road corridors where the stormwater system is not linked to the transport corridor’s stormwater. So how is that interface handled? I know we have an engineer in the room—perhaps Simon Court might like to comment on this later on—but you would have to think that one of those entities will carry the water of the other, and therefore they will have to have a larger pipe than they would have needed otherwise. So who pays for the larger pipe?

Because I know—from buying pipe in the past—the bigger the pipe, the more expensive it is. I know, when I chaired a community irrigation company, we had to carefully assess how many hectares were going to be irrigated and how much volume of water we wanted, because nobody wanted to pay for a bigger pipe than was necessary. We’re not necessarily talking about the pipe at the gate of a person’s property; we’re talking about the pipe delivering the water to the gateway all the way back to the source.

But, in the case of stormwater, it’s the other way. You’ve got to make sure that you’re able to carry all the water. The pipe will get bigger as it gets towards the source—but I’m sure we’ll hear from our resident engineer if I’ve got that right. I think I can just see how the two entities are going to interact about who pays for what, where the ownership ceases and starts for that network, who’s going to cover the maintenance costs. I would assume bigger pipes actually may be cheaper to deal with, because you might be able to get into them more easily than the smaller pipes. So all those things come into play.

Then, of course, the town stormwater is likely to want to cross a road corridor. What happens when that occurs? It just seems like this has probably not been thought out, I would imagine—given the way the bill looks, it clearly hasn’t, and given the time that has been allowed for the legislation to go under the scrutiny of select committees and Parliament rushing it through under urgency. Surely there will be mistakes, but perhaps the Minister can give the committee, and those that are listening and watching, comfort that this bill isn’t going to be a rod for New Zealand’s collective back in all of these boundary issues that will come from the roading stormwater entity and the conventional stormwater entity.

What role will local councils and local communities have in the road transport corridor stormwater entities? Will that have a separate chief executive on a six-figure salary?

Simon Court: Six-figure? That sounds like it’s discounted.

STUART SMITH: Well, it goes all the way up till it ticks over to a seventh figure, but how close it gets to the seventh figure I’m not sure. Maybe it is seven figures. Or perhaps the Minister could let us know what the salary ranges are, and do the transport corridor CEOs have a higher salary than the normal conventional stormwater entities? I’d really like to hear those answers. Thank you, Minister.

There won’t be separate stormwater entities. What I was pointing out earlier was that the transport corridor managers will continue to manage the roading stormwater systems—say, as an example, Waka Kotahi—and the interface between those will be addressed by the relationship agreement which is required by this bill. That relationship agreement could well be with NZTA, or indeed the council if it was a local road that fell into the scope of this bill. That would address the concerns that he raised in his example. But we’re not proposing that there be a separate entity to deal with stormwater and then a separate one again to deal with stormwater off roads. That’s not what’s being proposed.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just a question to the Minister—section 13, pages 34 and 35, and in particular (o)—it says this is one of the functions of the water service entities: “to mitigate the effects of climate change and natural hazards, and support and enable climate change adaptation”. The question to the Minister is: in the absence of a climate adaptation bill, it seems like a very big ask for a water entity. And I’m still trying to get my head around how all of these particular bills actually fit together. Could the Minister, please, explain just how much is dependent on the water entity and how much will be shared around perhaps climate adaptation and some of the other resource management bills that we have just put into play in the House? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. That was actually a very useful question from Barbara Kuriger. But, Minister, before you get around to answering that, can we just come back to the transport stormwater system. The road corridor, whether it’s in a city or on a State highway, is usually impervious from boundary to boundary. It’s concrete footpaths or asphalt roads, and that very large surface area contributes a lot of stormwater to the urban stormwater system—much, much more than would typically be contributed even by roofs off residential buildings. So, up until this point in time, with local councils being the road controlling authority and owning the stormwater system, they’ve been able to balance internally the cost of managing that stormwater through stormwater treatment ponds or collection.

Where I live in Te Atatū Peninsula, in fact, there’s a whole series of wetlands being constructed as part of new subdivisions, which take stormwater off the road network as well as the residential roofs and driveways and filter it and treat it through a series of ponds. In fact, it’s already filtered and treated to such a high standard that we have all kinds of native ducks, dabchicks, and other rare and threatened species that have decided that the stormwater quality in Auckland’s Te Atatū Peninsula is so good in the Harbourview Orangihina Park that they’ve decided to call it home, at least on a temporary basis during nesting season.

But all of that stormwater that comes off roofs or roads has to, in the future under this model, be attributed to one entity or the other. Now, if it’s coming off roofs, then we could assume that maybe it’s local councils or residents that have responsibility for paying for the collection, treatment, and final discharge of stormwater. But, if it’s coming off roads, then we would have to assume that the road controlling authority, which would still be local councils, would need to make some kind of provision for paying for the treatment of all the stormwater off their local road network. So, Minister, what do you expect relationship agreements to include so that that cost could be evenly attributed? I’m pretty sure that councils and their ratepayers won’t want to have to pay for a whole lot of stormwater that isn’t theirs. But, again, if councils are still the road controlling authority, will they still be paying for it?

Now, all of this is not determined, Minister. While you, in your role as local government Minister, and previous Ministers have claimed that there’ll be significant reductions in the cost of three waters for current and future ratepayers, actually, if we think about the volume of water that councils will continue to discharge to the stormwater networks operated by water services entities, Minister, isn’t it likely that councils—and, therefore, ratepayers—will continue to pay a significant amount of money for stormwater in addition to what they pay water services entities? And I’m assuming that, at some point in the future, they’re going to get separate bills; one that might say “Water Services Entity A” and another “Water Services Entity B”—or “Water Services Entity 10”, or however many eventually get stood up. So, Minister, how can you be confident, given it’s not clear who’s going to pay for stormwater and whether it comes off a road or whether it comes off a residential property, or whether it comes off council parks and reserves, how this is going to be allocated? And what, if any, savings can ratepayers expect from the stormwater service component of their rates that they currently pay?

Thank you, Mr Chair. Minister, I just wanted to ask around this new section 5(kb), in clause 4(2), which says that “agreements, arrangements, or understandings that local authorities have entered with mana whenua relating to water services transfer to water services entities:”, and I just wanted to ask: did the Minister take any advice on the use of the words “mana whenua” in this bill?

The reason I ask that is just because the Waitangi Tribunal, in the Wai 64 tribunal report Rekohu: A Report on Moriori and Ngati Mutunga Claims in the Chatham Islands, wrote that “Mana is inherent in persons, not land, and ‘mana whenua’ appears to be a modern thought that does violence to traditional ethics. It has prejudiced all on the islands and prejudices Maori generally.” The tribunal went on to say, “we think the statutory reference to mana whenua is contrary to the principles of the Treaty, being out of kilter with cultural ethics, and is prejudicial to all claimants as a result.”

It went on to say that “The term ‘mana whenua’ appears to have come from a nineteenth-century Maori endeavour to conceptualise Maori authority in terms of the English legal concepts of imperium and dominium. It links mana or authority with ownership of the whenua (soil). But the linking of mana with land does not fit comfortably with Maori concepts. Recent research tends to agree that the term ‘mana whenua’ itself does not appear in the early records about customary rights to land. The Crown’s interim closing submission in this claim drew usefully on Grant Phillipson’s collection of evidence from missionaries and others familiar with Maori language and culture, originally collected in the 1860s and published in the Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, as well as some unpublished material. These opinions confirm that the term ‘mana’ was personal and was used in regard to the influence or authority of chiefs. Other opinions compiled in the Appendix consider that mana whenua was a nineteenth-century invention. Crown counsel likewise challenged—we think correctly—its use to describe a general authority of a particular group over any area of land.”

Mr Chair, thank you very much. The definition of “mana whenua” was debated in the Water Services Entities Act extensively last year, and this bill refers to the definition that had already been passed.

In regard to Mr Court’s questions, essentially, the bill sets out consistent standards and the tools for entities and partners to create bespoke working arrangements for each particular area. I think that’s the appropriate approach. Of course, every area will be different, but we want it to be consistently applied. But the bill also makes it very clear that, whilst stormwater systems are complex, the entities will continue to have responsibility for discharge and the majority of work.

And finally, to Barbara Kuriger’s question around the impacts of climate change, we’ve seen the impact recently that severe weather has had on stormwater, waste water, and drinking water systems. Whilst we are bringing in these reforms, we felt it was only appropriate that we require the entities to take into account climate change, and give them the objective to mitigate against climate change. That, of course, was an obligation that was provided to the entities when this was debated in 2002.

Look, I’ll just note—I intend to leave the Chair—that although this is wide-ranging, the questions have been relatively narrow and they have actually been quite repetitive to date. That will be taken into account when we resume tomorrow. It is now time to leave the Chair. The House will be resumed at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)