Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill

Good evening, members. I call on Government order of the day No. 3. This is the Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. There are two calls left, and it is the Labour Party call. I call the Hon—

💬 Hon Members: Rachel Brooking.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): —Rachel Brooking. I’m so sorry. I’ve got to get my House head back on!

Thank you, Madam Speaker. There is much excitement to be making this speech, given that it is an interrupted debate—and I thought I might have got in before the dinner break, but alas no. Of course, at the end of last week’s sitting week as well, I was ready to go. So here I am speaking in opposition to this Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill, which, of course, is all about pipes and treatment stations.

I’ll go back and remind the House of some of the previous speeches we’ve had on this bill, given that I am speech No. 11. We’re about to hear speech No. 12, and then that’s it for the second reading. Of course, we heard from the Hon Kieran McAnulty that the main implication from this piece of legislation is that rates will go up, and that is the fault of this central government, not of councils.

We heard from the Hon Dr Deborah Russell about how this was not helping small councils. We know, in New Zealand, we have huge infrastructure problems, and particularly with those small councils. There are 68 councils that provide water infrastructure. A lot of them are very small, and this bill won’t help them.

We heard as well from the Hon Dr Megan Woods about how this bill is taking us backwards. It is not dealing with our infrastructure funding problems at all, and it is more centralisation. We keep hearing from the other side tonight about localism and the importance of that, yet here we have central government being able to tell councils what to do and not make any funding towards that. We heard her ask the Government spokespeople on this bill whether they would stand up and say that this will not lead to privatisation of our water assets. I have not heard an answer to that question. There is one more speech in the second reading, and I hope that that question will be answered.

We also heard from Simon Court of the ACT Party, and he led off, in his contribution, about lead in pipes in my part of the world—in fact, in the very beautiful electorate of Dunedin. He was talking about Karitane, but also Waikouaiti and Hawksbury, where there was a lead scare in the water system. Now, he blamed that on the city council and that the pipes were old. In fact, there was a long investigation as to why elevated lead was found in the water, in those very beautiful northern suburbs, and people were very worried about it. It was never determined what the case was, but it certainly wasn’t determined that it was lead in pipes, but it may be some of the tap hardware. And that problem is one that is a very important one, but it is not as simple as Simon Court made out.

He then went on to say that changes in this bill around Te Mana o te Wai were somehow to make sure that when councils are considering water infrastructure—of course, waste-water treatment in particular—waste water wouldn’t be put into fresh water. And he was suggesting, I think I heard, that we should be like Singapore and be reusing our water. In that way, of course, Singapore is quite different from New Zealand. It’s a lot smaller physically and has a lot of people in it as well, and we have very different infrastructure constraints from Singapore.

What I want to focus on is this talk about the changes to Te Mana o te Wai, because, quite strangely, in this bill, there is a Part 5 that was inserted, and that is to amend section 138 of the Taumata Arowai Act. That Act says, at section 138(1), that Taumata Arowai—which, of course, is the water regulator created under the previous Government, because we know that drinking water can be substandard and that has produced health problems. One of the first components of a full reform of our water infrastructure issues was to get a water regulator in place. We have this water regulator and, under section 138, they can make waste-water environmental performance standards. Now, there is nothing in that talking about the Resource Management Act (RMA) or, in fact, the national policy statement on freshwater, but this change that we have in Part 5 of this bill—that section that I just summarised—says that there would be an insertion that “When making these wastewater environmental performance standards … Taumata Arowai must not have regard to the hierarchy of obligations in clause 1.3(5) of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management.”

If you go to that clause 1.3 in the national policy statement for fresh water, it talks about this fundamental concept of Te Mana o te Wai. It talks about the concept, it talks about the framework, it talks about the principles, and then, at subclause (5), there’s a hierarchy of obligations, prioritising health and wellbeing of water bodies, then the health needs of people, such as drinking water, and then the ability of people and communities to provide for their social, economic, and cultural wellbeing now and into the future. So what this bill does is say that you can think about all the other things about Te Mana o te Wai but not that hierarchy. And why does this bill do this? I have no idea.

Another curious thing about this bill is that they insert a new section 138A, and that is a “King Henry VIII” clause so that, if this national policy statement on fresh water is amended, the insertion I’ve just been talking about can be repealed. Why would you go to the lengths of having a “King Henry VIII” clause—which, of course, we know nobody likes; nobody who thinks about making good laws recommends having “King Henry VIII” clauses. But here we have one so that a body that already doesn’t mention the RMA can’t think about one particular subclause of this national policy statement. And that subclause is all about a hierarchy that puts the water body at the top and commercial interests at the bottom. So why is it that this Government is so obsessed with getting references to this hierarchy out of legislation—legislation that is not even mentioned in the first place? That can only be because they want more pollution, and that will lead to dirtier water that people will drink. Shame on them.

Now, I’ve been in this House many times, talking about pipes and treatment stations, and I have to say they’re very important things. We all know that, for good societies to work, we need to be able to get rid of our waste water in a sanitary way and we need to be able to drink clean drinking water. We also know that stormwater is a huge issue in New Zealand, and we’re seeing more and more problems with that with climate change. That is why Nanaia Mahuta worked so hard when we were in Government to address the problems of how you fund the upgrades of all of that infrastructure. This bill does not address those issues. This bill enables councils to do what they can already do, in terms of having council-controlled organisations. We’ve seen that. We see that here in Wellington. We know that there are already council-controlled organisations, and it doesn’t fix any of the funding issues that are still issues. This bill will do nothing except for cost ratepayers more, and it is just like everything to do with water that this Government seems to be interested in promoting. It’s just shameful.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The former speaker, the Hon Rachel Brooking, was entertaining, albeit a little bit incorrect, because whilst council-controlled organisations (CCOs) do exist and can and, in fact, are encouraged under this bill, what this does is this is only bill two out of three, so I can tell you the trilogy is not yet complete; wait for bill three. Just like the CCO in Auckland called Watercare, which now has a separate debt-to-revenue cap, which is one of the options available to us, because you asked about finance and also infrastructure funding and financing. So there’s a whole raft of tools that are coming.

One of the former speakers on this bill—MP Cushla—actually talked about a children’s song as well, and I actually felt like breaking into children’s song a little bit too; it’s called the “Hokey Pokey” dance. It was on this bill, or a separate bill. But, you know, when you put your right arm in and you put your right arm out, you put your right arm in and you shake it all about, you do the hokey pokey, you turn yourself around. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what it felt like if you think back to the three waters debacle when it was opt in, opt out, opt in, opt out—no council would be worse off. But you remember there was actually, you may not even—

💬 Tom Rutherford: Just shake the money tree.

The money tree, that’s right. You may not actually remember, but there were 30 options modelled around the water infrastructures throughout the councils, throughout New Zealand—30 models. Do you remember how many councils got to see or got to implement? One—it was one. That’s so much for localism. And do you know what? The Labour Government was actually very creative with those bills as well, with those entities. They came up with four names: the first one was called Entity A; the second one was called Entity B. It was ludicrous.

The other thing which was flawed and why we’ve had to bring in good water done well was because of the disproportionality. So, for example, where I live in the Waikato and Hamilton City Council, there were 24 entities or 24 councils that would make up Entity B, even though Hamilton City Council’s water assets are around $2 billion. There was a district council and their assets were worth about $50 million—so 40 times the magnitude—and yet do you know what the voting proportionality was going to be in Entity B? One each—how is that fair? How is that equitable when a $2 billion asset and investor and ratepayer legacy has one vote to a $50 million harmonisation—Entity B, as it was called. It was terrible. Not to mention co-governance, not to mention unelected representation with no accountability.

We had 14 layers of bureaucracy mentioned today through the Ministry of Health. There are three or four already just in the three waters proposal. No localism, no control, no certainty; central government knows best and we’re in here to clean up the mess. I could go on about what’s good about this bill, but I think it’s best just to get on and commend it to the House. Thank you.

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