Water Services Acts Repeal Bill

I move, That the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill be now read a second time.

I commend this bill to the House for its second reading. This bill serves as a decisive step in stopping Labour’s unpopular and divisive three waters regime. This Government is determined to do things differently, in a way that recognises the importance of localism and flexibility while ensuring a strong emphasis on investment in infrastructure and that regulatory requirements are met.

As I outlined in my first reading speech of this legislation, our plan for addressing New Zealand’s longstanding water infrastructure challenges, Local Water Done Well, will provide the tools for local government to deliver and the oversight necessary to ensure an efficient system for New Zealanders. The previous Government’s lack of trust in local councils led to the imposition of a mandatory and centralised co-governed 10-entity water model—a model that spent $1.25 billion without even implementing their policy approach. This flawed, one-size-fits-all approach would have burdened councils and it would not have actually delivered what New Zealanders need.

The coalition Government intends to make changes to build better water services for current and future generations in New Zealand, ensuring strict bottom-lines for water service delivery are met without entangling local councils in co-governance structures. We know the status quo cannot continue. The reality is that we need to have a plan which supports local councils to make the long-term investment decisions that they need so they can control the water infrastructure and invest over the long term, and that is exactly what Local Water Done Well will do.

The first bill, which we’ll be passing by the middle of 2024, will set out provisions relating to council service delivery plans and transitional economic regulations. It will also provide streamlined requirements for establishing council-controlled organisations under the Local Government Act 2002, enabling councils to start shifting the delivery of water services into more financially sustainable configurations should they wish to do so.

A second bill, providing for the long-term replacement regime, will be introduced in December 2024 and passed by the middle of 2025. This will set out provisions relating to long-term requirements for financial sustainability, and provide for a complete economic regulation regime and a new range of structural and financing tools, including a new type of financially independent council-controlled organisation. This second bill will also establish regulatory backstop powers to be used when required to ensure effective delivery of financially sustainable or safe water services.

In addition, we will also make necessary amendments to the water regulations legislation to ensure the regulatory framework is fit for purpose and workable for drinking water suppliers. All legislation to support the implementation of Local Water Done Well is expected to be passed by mid-2025, ahead of the local government elections in October 2025.

The Water Services Acts Repeal Bill, which we are passing through the House today, is the first step in restoring continued local council ownership and control of water services and responsibility for service delivery. Local Water Done Well recognises the importance of local decision making and flexibility for communities and councils to determine how their water services will be delivered into the future. We will do this while ensuring a strong emphasis on meeting rules for water quality and investment and infrastructure.

Financial sustainability is a key principle of this Government’s plan to implement Local Water Done Well. Financial sustainability can include revenue sufficiency, balance sheet separation, ring-fencing, and funding for growth. We’re creating options for councils around how they choose to ensure their water services are financially sustainable. Balance sheet separation is one of the ways that councils can achieve this, and, ultimately, this Government will be working alongside councils, not forcing solutions upon them.

This is a Government which actually believes in the importance of local government and in the responsibilities that they have towards their local communities. That is why I just want to acknowledge my colleague from the ACT Party Simon Court and his speech before, which was saying water delivery is a local government issue; they are responsible for this infrastructure. It is our job, as a Government, to ensure that they have the foundational policy and the ability to make the long-term investments in the long-term assets that water is for their communities. They need to ensure that they are funding for the long term, they need to have access to long-term funding tools, and they need to ensure that they are funding this as a must-have, not a nice-to-have. Council-controlled organisations can help make those long-term decisions and raise that long-term debt and spread that cost over the life of those assets rather than upon ratepayers today.

So we commend this legislation to the House. This is about repealing what was a divisive policy from the last Government—policy which wasn’t even implemented despite six years and over a billion dollars spent on it—and we’re actually going to act in pace to get this implemented so local government has the tools and the policies to be able to get on and make the long-term infrastructure investments they need for New Zealanders.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The first point that I would make is that if this was such a crowning glory for the Government, wouldn’t the Minister of Local Government want to use the whole time that he has—10 minutes—to explain why? Because, ultimately, I think that touches on something quite crucial here, and it touches on exactly why we oppose this repeal bill: we oppose this repeal bill because it won’t work. We oppose this for the very simple reason that this will not help. This will cost ratepayers more and it will not lead to more affordable water services that meet the regulatory requirements. That’s not just us saying that; it is the Minister’s own advice.

It is quite clear that the only way to achieve the level of expenditure across all councils—noting that there are a very small number of councils that are in a particular position, unique to themselves, but on the whole, across the board, $185 billion needs to be spent. Councils cannot do it by themselves. Many are at their debt cap; they can’t borrow more. Many councils aren’t at their debt cap but represent communities that simply cannot afford to pay higher rates. What on earth are they going to do? They have to do the investment because this Government, quite rightly, is keeping the water regulator which will ensure that councils meet the minimum standards. That is something that the local government sector themselves welcomed and, actually, many said should have been in place years ago, and I agree with them. So I at least congratulate the Government for keeping that, but let’s see what that will do in practice.

We have a water regulator that will require councils to meet minimum standards. For some councils, that will require significant investment almost immediately. What are those councils that can’t borrow more going to do? What are those councils, be they in lower socio-economic areas or rural areas with a low rate-paying base, many of whom are on fixed incomes that can’t afford to pay higher rates—what are they going to do? I’ve heard nothing to suggest that the Government has a solution to that other than allowing them to do council-controlled organisations. They already can and it hasn’t worked. Look at Auckland; that’s unaffordable. Look at Wellington; that has not worked. Many councils in the Wellington region, as part of Wellington Water, concede that something else has to be done.

There is nothing new being proposed aside from ring-fencing of funding which will force councils to put rates up. It’s not councils’ fault; they will have no option. I absolutely oppose the language being used by the Minister, saying that this will force councils to spend money on the necessities rather than the nice-to-haves. How offensive is that to hard-working councillors and mayors who are trying their hardest to make sure that they are investing in infrastructure with the limited means that they have? And here we have a Minister criticising their decisions while one hand is being tied behind the council’s back, and once this bill is repealed and the so-called replacement is brought in place then both hands will be tied behind their back.

If we take the Minister on his word that there will all of a sudden be massive council-controlled organisations across the country with councils working together, I would pose a very simple question which I hope that the Minister answers at committee stage: why would a council that is in a relatively good financial position voluntarily agree to work with a council that is at their debt cap, has a very small number of ratepayers, and simply cannot afford to do it? I am deeply concerned about a number of councils in particular. I am especially concerned about the Tararua District Council. The Tararua District Council, which is part of northern Wairarapa and southern Hawke’s Bay, has 12,000 ratepayers. Obviously, there are more people living there, but there are 12,000 rating units in that area. They need to find $600 million over the next 30 years. That’s not our numbers; that’s derived from the council’s own numbers. How the hell are they going to do it by themselves?

The Government might say they won’t be by themselves. So the next question is: who is going to voluntarily join with them? They are going to be left on their own, high and dry, with no capacity to pay for what they need. Now, the Tararua District Council also has the fourth-largest roading network in the country, something that they have to also service themselves, and this was a cyclone-affected area. They have taken on considerable amounts of debt as a result of being hit by Cyclone Gabrielle. They cannot do it; I’ve used this example a number of times and the Minister has never given me a credible response as to how they are going to do what they need to do. They are going to be left high and dry, and I think it’s a disgrace.

There are many other councils who, by 2051, are going to be facing costs that ratepayers simply cannot afford, and it is a legitimate question that deserves an answer: who would join with them? I’m not convinced that the entire Canterbury region would voluntarily join up, as was proposed under the current settings in the affordable water reforms. I can imagine that Christchurch, Selwyn, and Waimakariri might join together, but why the hell would they voluntarily accept Ashburton, where, without reform, each individual ratepayer is facing $8,690 each year, by 2051, just for water? They have massive costs; they have a small population compared to other areas. I am not convinced that the larger areas that are in a better financial situation would voluntarily join with them.

Listen to the Minister’s language today at question time. He was asked whether he will guarantee that ratepayers will save money as a result of his repeal. He said it would be cheaper. Cheaper for who? Not for ratepayers, but cheaper for them. And this touches on this Government’s priorities; they’re more than happy to give money away to landlords but won’t invest in core, key infrastructure. They have broken a promise. They stood here in the House—they went to every single district council in the country and said, “If you back us, we’ll back you.” They said, “We will help fund your infrastructure.” It’s not true. There’s been no announcement of funding. There’s been many a question about funding and at no point has the Government said, “Yes, we will.”

So here we have councils, who are unlikely to have other councils join up with them, left on their own. Some cannot borrow more because they’re at their borrowing cap. The Government, despite promising they would help fund it, have now refused to do so. What are they going to do? Their short answer, unfortunately, is “nothing”, because they won’t have the money. We’ll either have councils going bankrupt or councils not meeting their regulatory requirements in terms of water standards. That’s a disgrace.

The National Party started this process under the Hon Anne Tolley. Anne Tolley recognised that there was a problem and started this work. The Hon Nanaia Mahuta continued it on, and then I took over and made some changes as a result of listening to the local government sector. It is telling that the National Party’s rationale for this repeal focuses on mayors’ comments at the start of the process, not after the changes were made. Once those changes were made and it moved from four entities to 10 in a more regionalised model, the majority of councils expressed support for it, including many councils that had signed up to Communities 4 Local Democracy—who vehemently opposed the proposals—who came out, after the changes, in support.

This repeal is unnecessary, it is irresponsible, and it is lazy. It is lazy because, in politics, you need to show leadership even when things aren’t popular. What they are trying to do is cynical. They are saying—whenever you ask them why they won’t guarantee that ratepayers will save money, the answer is “That’s a matter for the councils.” Because, later on, when rate bills come in and people can’t afford them, they’ll come to the Government and they’ll say, “What are you going to do about it?”, and the answer will be “That’s a matter for the local council”. We hear it all the time; we’re going to hear it in the future. They are setting them up; they are setting councils up, promising them something they know they cannot deliver. Balance sheet separation under their plan is a myth. Councils will be left high and dry, with no provisions for extra revenue, and the Government’s response will simply be, “Well, you’re on your own.”

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. On behalf of the Green Party, access to healthy water is a fundamental right. It’s our responsibility, as lawmakers and representatives of the people of this country, to ensure that everyone has access to healthy water, that it is treated as commons and a public good.

We have learnt, not just in Aotearoa New Zealand but around the world, that when communities work together to manage access to water, it works better. It’s something that—it’s fundamentally part of the commons. Throughout the process of the water services repeal, the Green Party raised many, many concerns and many facts that were coming from the communities most affected, and we sought changes. We won many of those changes, not all of them.

Ultimately, we oppose the bill, which is passing though under urgency today, because it is going to create more uncertainty for councils and communities. While the reform wasn’t exactly what the reform would have been in a Green Government—or even with a Labour-Green Government, because we didn’t have one of those—the reform was, at least, setting a clear direction and, as the previous speaker the Hon Kieran McAnulty said, they listened very carefully to what local communities and their representatives were asking for and they did make many changes. I certainly saw—with people who were lobbying me as an infrastructure and energy spokesperson last term—that there were concerns about certain bills, but most of those concerns were addressed, if not through the select committee process, through the committee stages of the bill. In the final stages of the bill, many, many of those concerns were addressed.

The reality is this Government believes its own hysterical rhetoric that it stirred up around these reforms. It has stirred up absolute hysteria and fear and made it divisive, despite it being a relatively sensible proposal, because, when those parties were in Opposition, they were desperate to do anything to get people to vote for them and to attack the Government of the day. There was not a constructive Opposition; the constructive opposition was from the Green Party.

We got some wins. There’s still huge opportunities to do things better; we maintain that stormwater should rest with councils, not the independent entities. That’s because stormwater is so fundamentally related to decisions around urban planning and transport infrastructure. There are huge opportunities to do things better—like low-impact development, green infrastructure, which not only brings nature into our cities but it works with nature to take the pressure off the pipes, and it ends up being much more cost effective. We need to make sure that our institutions are set up in a position where they can make the right decisions in the planning rules and in the transport infrastructure and in the rules around development, so that we can take full advantage of low-impact development. That’s something that I was hugely experienced with—before I came to this House—as an urban planner, and I’m sorry to see that it hasn’t been more embraced in New Zealand. But it was picked up in the final legislation as something that entities should be looking at, and it’s one of those areas where there’s a win-win. There’s a better environmental outcome and a lower fiscal cost, and when those two things go hand-in-hand—and a better urban amenity for those living in our towns and cities—of course we should be embracing them and ensuring that organisations that are looking after the infrastructure aren’t just totally focused on concrete and pipes, when, in fact, working with nature can get better outcomes and take pressure off those reticulated systems, especially where they are combined.

Of course, there is a need to repair and improve pipes. Let’s go back to the origin of the crisis that we’re now seeing unfold in Wellington, in my electorate of Rongotai, in my neighbouring Green electorate, Wellington Central, and I’ve seen, just today, in Auckland. There is a crisis of under-investment in the horizontal infrastructure. Let’s be honest about what caused that. It is 30 years of a neo-liberal ideology that said we should try to keep taxes low and spend as little as possible. It was subsequent central governments pushing more and more responsibility on to local councils without ever offering the proper funding for them to carry out those responsibilities.

Now, in Aotearoa New Zealand, one of the lowest share of national revenue gathered is actually gathered by and spent by local government. In the countries we like to compare ourselves to, they spend more on infrastructure. They tax in a fairer way. They have capital gains taxes, they have inheritance taxes. They don’t let the wealth accumulate with a small number of people over multiple generations, because they know we all benefit and we’re all better off when we collectively use our resources in a way that benefits us all. I’ve lived in other countries, so I can speak to this with particular lived experience; it’s possible to do things much better. But in order to do that, we have to address the unfairness of our tax system, we have to ensure that local government is receiving enough of the national revenue to be able to invest in the infrastructure and to undertake the responsibilities that we expect them to undertake.

Unfortunately, out there, in the debate, we see a lot of misinformation—a lot of misinformation—where people conflate investment in complete streets that will allow our kids to get around our neighbourhoods under their own steam, that would help reduce congestion—things like protected bike lanes and safer speeds around schools; that somehow that’s really high cost. That’s absurd. That is an absurd statement, because it is the lowest cost, highest value transport investments we can make, and we know this from many, many economic evaluations. On top of it, people are saying, “Well, don’t spend money on the bike lanes, we need to focus on the pipes.” We’re comparing maybe $10 million on bike lanes with $10 billion needed on pipes. Cutting the investment in our transport infrastructure for our neighbourhoods is not going to fund the pipes. It’s not going to address the issue. On top of it, it’s going to make transport worse. I say to those living in rural areas: nobody is asking people in rural areas to take public transport or ride bikes where it doesn’t make sense. No one has said that. What we are saying is spend the money and do the sensible investments in the cities to solve the urban transport problems in the cities, and then we have more money to spend on the roads in the rural areas.

Because what you will find is that the National Party, the National-led Government, is spending the vast majority of the money on highways in the cities, in the very places where they are the most counter-productive. To say that speed bumps and speed management and red-light cameras and bike lanes are the cause of all our problems is just utter, absurd nonsense. It’s coming from a Minister who is extremely inexperienced in life, and who, frankly, believes his own hysterical rhetoric because he is an extremist. The Minister of Local Government, the Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is an absolute ideological extremist who would fit in with the Republicans in the United States, campaigning against access to reproductive health for women at university. He doesn’t know. So he says he cares about cost-effectiveness and fiscal responsibility, but it is not there in the priorities of the National Government. It is not there. Show me the numbers. Show us the numbers. If it is true that the Government cares about fiscal responsibility, let us see it in the priorities for transport investment. Let’s see it in the priorities for investment in infrastructure.

Because one thing I know to be true is you get what you pay for. If your focus is not spending money and—oh wait, oh hold on, sorry, returning money to landlords so that they don’t pay their fair share of tax, we are not going to be able to raise the revenue to invest in the infrastructure we need long term. And we can dress it up and talk about council-owned council-controlled organisations and public-private partnerships and all of that, all the different financing mechanisms. Fundamentally, if you don’t raise enough revenue to invest in the infrastructure, we all pay for it. We’re all paying for the short-sighted decisions of the last 30 years, which was very much driven by an environment that said, “We should try to keep taxes on the wealthy low. We shouldn’t have a capital gains tax, we shouldn’t have an inheritance tax. We should let wealth accumulate in a small number of people who become absurdly wealthy and then they can use their enormous wealth and power to influence politicians”.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Now we are straying from the bill. Back to the bill, please.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: We oppose this bill because, fundamentally, it is creating uncertainty for councils at a time when, potentially, there are tweaks and things that could be made better about the model that was put forward, and the Greens would support that. We don’t need a wholesale repeal of the model. We’d like to see some actual constructive input rather than hysterical rhetoric that’s trying to stop councils from investing in things that communities genuinely need. The reality is that our local government needs much more sustainable and generous funding in order for communities to be able to make the sensible, long-term decisions, particularly to deal with the climate crisis, which is not going away.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. So I guess I am not sure if I’m old enough to make this speech according to the last member, Julie Anne Genter. But, look, the repeal of three waters is not just a relief to many New Zealanders, it’s symbolic of the broader change in direction away from centralised instincts of Labour and back towards empowering local communities.

The claim that the Labour Government was trying to sell to New Zealanders was that a larger water entity would be more efficient. There was no requirement for councils to reduce rates, reflecting the fact that they will no longer be supplying total water services. Not only did some local governments take their eye off the ball when it comes to services and replacement of their pipes, now many ratepayers in towns and cities must contend with the cost that their core infrastructure is now going to impose upon them after falling behind, when supplying and servicing critical infrastructure should be the first job of council.

I would like to acknowledge Minister Brown’s statement that water infrastructure is the responsibility of local government, and this Government will create the environment to enable them to do just that. We all know the status quo isn’t up to scratch, but Labour’s bureaucratic co-governed regime was never the answer. Three waters would have been great for middle-managers but a disaster for water users, with layers and layers of bureaucracy separating decision makers from the people.

The ACT-National coalition agreement delivered stopwork notices to the three waters work stream. We’ve also committed the Government to instituting long-term city- and regional- infrastructure deals, empowering local authorities to use public-private partnerships and tolling and other such mechanisms to fund infrastructure and to look at their pipes.

I would also say to the previous member’s comment, New Zealand actually has one of the OECD’s most centralised tax systems. But this Government will introduce fiscal incentives for councils to enable more housing, including looking at sharing with councils a proportion of GST collected on new residential builds to help fund infrastructure like pipes and encourage councils to get more houses built.

Now, I also reflect on the Minister of Local Government’s answers in question time today. There was an interesting one from the Hon McAnulty which, in the end, exposed the $1.2 billion already spent on three waters.

Hon Tama Potaka: How much?

CAMERON LUXTON: I believe it was $1.2, was it?

Hon Members: Yep.

CAMERON LUXTON: Outrageous, right?

Hon Tama Potaka: It was $1.2 billion.

CAMERON LUXTON: It was $1.2 billion—sorry, $1.2 billion, Minister Potaka, thank you for that. But I’ve got to say I was heartened when it was followed by a question from Katie Nimon which then allowed the Minister to talk about how we will be restoring local government ownership and we will be removing this divisive and overly bureaucratic mega - co-governed bureaucracy. The Minister also spoke about two further bills coming, and I’m looking forward to working with the Minister and the associate—was he under-secretary, or? I’m still new learning all these roles, but Mr Simon Court, who’s doing great work in this area.

Katie Nimon: Getting the job done.

CAMERON LUXTON: Now—yeah, get the job done, that’s right—I’d also like to just relate a story from my experience with water infrastructure. So I live in Tauranga—we have metered water-supply. Now, we’ve heard a bit about what metered water-supply can do when identifying leaks and making sure the people that are actually using water are paying for it. A few months ago, I had a leak at the front of my property, and going and inspecting it I realised that the leak was coming from the other side of the toby. So this is not me paying for the water, because it’s not going through the meter and spinning, so I’m not paying. I call the council and I say, “There’s a water leak.” They go, “Which side of the toby is it?” I go, “Oh, it’s on your side.” They go, “All right, we’ll get there and fix it straight away.”—because they know that these costs are going to load up on the collective ratepayer base who will have to pay for it. Whereas, once it’s on the other side of the toby, the incentive would be on the property owner to fix it. This is the sort of thing that means that a place like Tauranga doesn’t have leaks running down the street, and it’s somewhere that is working well with its water infrastructure.

I’d also like to talk about people who don’t rely on a reticulated water scheme. We heard again: a “right to water”. Now, I agree that every human should have a right to water, but that doesn’t give you a right to infrastructure. If you were living somewhere where it is too unaffordable for a local government to get pipes to, you might have to rely on rainwater. Now, I do not think that we should be stopping anybody being able to gather water how they choose; get it out of the ground with a consent, and also tap into town supply if that’s what’s needed. But this centralising of Government provisions of water cannot stand, and I’m glad that we’re repealing this bill. I commend this bill to the House.

Thanks. We’ve heard from the Green Party member who spoke just a moment ago, Hon Julie Anne Genter, that access to water is a fundamental human right, and I think we would all agree with that. And she also said that when people work together, fundamentally, that’s a really good thing, and, fundamentally, that water is part of the commons.

Yet the piece of legislation that we’re removing at the moment—or the pieces of legislation that we’re removing—actually weren’t seeing water as part of the commons. They took it away from the people, took it away from the localities, and said, “We’re going to put it in these very large entities and we’re going to take it away from any local control or influence.”—any meaningful local control or influence. I mean, it was a massively complicated process that they set up—“and we’re also going to divide New Zealanders into some people who have more influence and some people who have less influence.” That doesn’t sound to me like something that is looking at water as a fundamental human right and something which is part of the commons.

As I said when I spoke earlier, what we actually saw—and the High Court agreed—is that the last Government was going through a process which the courts said was expropriation. Normally, we would say that is theft. It was taking somebody’s asset away without compensating them for it.

Look, what we’re doing today is we are doing exactly what we—the collective coalition here—said we would do. Goodness me! That’s terrible, isn’t it! We’re actually keeping our election promises. In fact, we’re keeping lots of our election promises and we are repealing the legislation which these parties on this side of the House campaigned against.

Now, we’ve been told, “Why do it now?” Well, it’s a very obvious reason: councils are going through long-term planning processes. Actually, I think they deserve certainty. Because if they are doing it on the basis at the moment—and I do know that some of them are doing exactly this; they are planning their long-term plans on the basis of the legislation as it stands at the moment; that is, the legislation which we are about to repeal. But if it doesn’t get repealed, they’ve got to keep on marching ahead on the basis that it hasn’t been repealed. So they’ve got to deal with the law as it is. And it makes much more sense to say, “Look, we’re going to get rid of that so you know where you are at the moment—you know that there’s reform coming.” So that gives them some certainty to be able to plan and to budget.

The other point is—it was about the commons and about taking people with you. Well, we’ve heard that the leader of the Labour Party has acknowledged that people weren’t taken with them. You wouldn’t get 88,000 submissions—the vast majority of them against it. You wouldn’t start off with something where you said, “Councils, it’s your choice. You can opt into this if you want to.”, and then go, “Oh, we’re actually not so sure that the councils are going to do that, so what we’ll do is we’ll change our mind and we’ll say that you can opt out of it. So you’re in unless you opt out.” And then they go, “Oh no, we still haven’t got them on board. So what we’ll do is we’ll force you to come in.” That’s not good faith, but the process of the legislation that we are getting rid of today and over this week did exactly that.

We’ve also heard a lot from the Opposition benches here about rates rises. Now, how was water going to be paid for under Labour’s legislation? It was going to be paid for by the magic money tree somewhere, wasn’t it? Well, no, it wasn’t going to come from the magic money tree. We’ve had this supposition—in fact, again, the Green Party spokesperson said that it’s all about things like capital gains taxes and we could have more money from somewhere to put into the water system. Actually, under what we’re appealing, it wasn’t the Government that was going to pay for it either. Who was going to pay for it? That hadn’t actually already been worked out. When you started off, it was still, in all probability, going to go through the council’s bill. A lot of it would have been rates funded, others of it would have been user charge through meters where those meters already exist. But you can’t just magically magic up a whole lot of meters. So, for a period of time, it would still have gone through the council’s rates bill, so people would still have seen it that way. But even once it was fully implemented, it was going to come from who? The water consumer. And who do you think the water consumer is if they’re not very, very similar people to the ratepayer—many of them are exactly the same people.

We heard Ingrid Leary, on the other side of the House, talk about how this is an imposition on renters. Well, I can tell you one thing: who pays the power bill? Is it the landlord? I don’t think so. I think, by and large, the power bill is paid for by the tenant. So who do you think was going to pay the water bill when it’s separated out and it’s charged on a meter? I don’t think it was going to be the landlord; I think it was going to be the renter. So we’re hearing some rather fragile arguments from the other side on this.

So not only was the transfer not going to be immediate and water service entities would have taken some time to get their billing systems up—and certainly even longer to get water meters in place, because that would have been an inevitability—it’s going to take some years to get water meters in place in some places. It’s a very big and expensive task. There’s no magic money tree there.

Then we’ve also heard about the poor councils—the ones who are not in a good state. Three waters, as it was originally proposed, basically split the country into four areas. Why did it split into four areas? Because it said, “We’ve got big Auckland, they can look after the northern bit. Actually, we’ve got big Hamilton sitting up there in the middle bit. They can look after some of that area. Wellington can look after this area here, and Christchurch can look after the bit at the bottom.” It was based on cross-subsidies. So, basically, what we’re hearing from the Opposition benches there is that some of the councils which are in better condition wouldn’t do it of their own volition, so we’ll force them to do it. So, basically, what we’ll say is, “Your rates, your water charges in an area which had done a good job, are going to end up paying for those who are in not quite such a good position.” That seems to be the logic which we’ve heard from the other side.

So why would those councils want to get together? Well, at least the legislation which we’re looking at allows them to make that choice. But in none of this was there any Government money—Government money was never promised. There was a little bit in the transition process, but nothing after that. So all the issues around tax reform, etc., were absolutely irrelevant.

We’ve also heard that you get what you pay for. I think the reality is you started to see some councils—some of maybe the less responsible ones—where the kind of rhetoric is very much along the lines of, “Well, if we don’t have to pay for water, we’re going to look very much better. It’s still going to hurt the ratepayer, the consumer, in the back pocket, but we’re going to look much better and maybe we can go and spend some more money on something else we otherwise couldn’t have done.” So it actually takes some discipline off some of those councils.

So I’m delighted to support this. If you’re looking ahead at where we go, I think we need to keep on working to drive efficiencies. We need to set sensible standards, and that’s clearly what the intention of the legislation is. And one of those areas where you can be more efficient is the previous legislation—the legislation which is being repealed—went all the way down to two houses constituted a local water scheme; two houses. That makes absolutely no sense—that level of intrusion into peoples’ lives. And it certainly included a lot of those local water schemes where you might have a couple of dozen houses. Those people, they wanted to do their own job. They were doing their own job perfectly well, thank you very much, without the Government intruding on it. So I am delighted to support this legislation going through, and I look forward to further conversation.

This is a split call. So first I call Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke.

Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka, otirā, tēnā rā tātou e te Whare.

[Thank you, Madam Speaker, indeed, greetings to all of us.]

Ka mātakitaki iho au ki te riu o Waikato

Anō nei hei kapo kau ake māku

Ki te kapu o taku ringa

Ka whakamiri noa i tōna aratau

E tia nei he tupu kua hou

[I look down on the valley of Waikato

As though to hold it in the hollow of my hand

And caress its beauty

Like some tender verdant thing]

Ka tīmata ake au ki te tangi apakura nā Kīngi Tāwhiao i te rironga o tana whenua me te raupatu o tana iwi.

Ka tohe au, ka tohe au. Ka tohe au ki tēnei pire e tāmi ana i tōku whakapapa me ngōku tūpuna.

[I begin with the song of lament of King Tāwhiao upon the loss of his land and the confiscation of his people.

I disagree, I object. I oppose this bill that suppresses my genealogy and my ancestors.]

I stand here today to debate and strongly oppose this bill as a mokopuna Māori nō tōku awa koiora o Waikato [Māori grandchild from my living river of Waikato].

This debate doesn’t just start at three waters for me. I know I’ve only been in the House for five minutes, however, this starts 50 generations ago and it starts with our pepeha. Now, some members may be thinking, what does this have to do with this bill? My answer is that this has everything to do with this bill. As a mokopuna of our pepeha, we have a complete conscious awareness of our surroundings and of our taiao. In the event in 2016 in Havelock North, four people died and up to 5,000 people became ill from drinking contaminated water. This resulted in an inquiry which found the contamination was a result of the systemic failure across services, provision, regulation, and source protection. Simply put, the infrastructure of our water is not sustainable and it is a human failing, not an environment failing.

The original intent of this three waters bill was to simply provide drinking water for everyone, every day, and the infrastructure of waste water, drinking water, and stormwater. However, this became a right-wing rhetoric feast for the public. Let’s be real: the issue is not about the water or the infrastructure; it was the fact that an amazing, well-educated indigenous woman with a moko kauae was leading this mahi. Every 500 metres we would see a “stop three waters” sign, and the disgusting race division that was not perpetrated by Māori but was from white right-wing fragility. If we look at the wider context of why—from the perspective of a 21-year-old wahine from Rāhui Pōkeka—I will reply with this:

I rongo a Kāwana Kerei kua tata te tū mai te whakatū o te kīngitanga Māori. Ka mea mai a Kāwana Kerei, “E Pō, tukuna tō kīngitanga ki raro”.

Ko te whakahoki a Te Wherowhero, “Ehake i ahau tēnei taonga, nā ngā iwi katoa o te motu.”

Ko te whakahoki a Kāwana Kerei, “Ki te kore e turaki i tō kīngitanga ki raro, ka whawhai au mō te whitu tau, mō te iwa tau.”

Ka mea a Pōtatau, “Ka whawhai mō te waru tau, iwa tau, e kore au e mate.”

Kātahi ka mea a Kāwana Kerei, “E Pō, he kau tāku. Ka horomi i ngō whenua, ā pau noa. Ka whakapau te kau nei o ō puna wai katoa.”

Ka mea a Kīngi Pōtatau, “Ka hoki au ki te wai a Arona, he mana whenua e kore e mimiti.”

Ka mea mai a Kāwana Kerei, “Ka pau i a koe ngā huawhenua katoa te kai, ka kai koe i te aha?”

Ka mea a Kīngi Pōtatau, “Ka kai au i a koe.”

[Governor Grey heard of the impending establishment of the Māori kingdom. Governor Grey then said, “Pō, let your kingdom come down”.

Te Wherowhero’s response was, “This taonga is not mine, it belongs to all the iwi of the nation.”

Governor Grey’s response was, “If you do not disestablish your kingdom, I will fight you for seven years, for nine years.”

Pōtatau said, “We could fight for eight years, nine years, I will not die.”

Then Governor Grey said, “Pō, I have a cow. It will swallow your land until there is none left. These cows will drink all of your water sources until they are gone.”

King Pōtatau said, “I will return to the water of Aaron, a terrestrial authority that will never dissipate.”

Governor Grey said, “Once you’ve consumed all of the vegetables, what will you eat?”

King Pōtatau said, “I will eat you.”]

In my vision of an Aotearoa hou for fresh water, we as mokopuna of Waikato will not have to wait another generation to swim in our tupuna awa or watch our river be used as a literal toilet dump. We have been hearing all sorts of views on who owns the water. Some say, “We own the water.”, “No, we own the water.”, “The Government owns the water.”—all sorts. But I am here today to say the water owns you. We as Māori believe we are the teina to our pepeha.

Hei whakakapi i ngā kōrero [To conclude these statements], we have heard this Government being called the three-headed taniwha, but for us in Waikato, our taniwha are kaitiaki. So we will not be following these taniwha; we will continue to follow Tarakōkōmako, Paneiraira, and Tūheitia. Tēnā rā tātou katoa.

Tamatha Paul.

Close—Lan Pham.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Oh, sorry—I’m so sorry.

LAN PHAM: That’s totally sweet.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The photos are really, really small!

LAN PHAM: Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Firstly, I want to thank the member who’s just spoken, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, for putting this bill into the perspective and context that it actually needs: seeing the challenge of this massive under-investment and our road ahead in the context of our mokopuna.

It’s been well-traversed already how significant the legacy of our under-investment in water infrastructure is, not just for us as people but for our environment, and so I’m really pleased to speak again in opposition to the repeal of these Acts.

I had the privilege of serving on Canterbury Regional Council for two terms, and it was rather disconcerting over that time to see the misinformation and deliberate drumming up of race-based rhetoric not only from our current Government now but from local government elected members too. And I believe the public deserves better.

But I really want to use councils as an example here, because councils are typically made up of people from very diverse backgrounds, with different views, and despite these differences in opinion, councils ultimately figure out how to work together. And it prompts me to beg the question: why is it so hard for this Government to work constructively?

The Government’s approach of scrapping the reforms—scrapping the Natural and Built Environment Act, scrapping the Spatial Planning Act, and now scrapping the water services Acts—is a huge missed opportunity to build on the work that has been done so far and is now leaving councils and communities facing years of uncertainty. There was scope for this Government to amend rather than repeal. Starting from scratch on the reform process due to knee-jerk governance means time lost and uncertainty for how the system will operate moving forward. And it’s a huge missed opportunity and one I cannot stress enough.

We could have built on the good things that were in the reform, that we need and we know are so important to making the system effective: aspects like recognising the importance of iwi and hapū at the decision-making table, aspects like mandating for nature-based solutions for infrastructure investment that have multitudes of other benefits—biodiversity benefits, recreational benefits, amenity benefits, and the list goes on.

Kiwis deserve better, because effective governance of water services has to be integrated with good land-use planning and spatial planning in alignment with our actual natural catchments and the actual movement of water through our entire ecosystem, ki uta ki tai, from the mountains to sea, and the repeal of these Acts now takes us further away from that.

Whatever comes next, the wider and longstanding call from local government for better funding models must be taken into account. These reforms must now ensure that shifting the assets and liabilities back to councils does not leave them under more financial pressure, because we know that, ultimately, councils under pressure means flow-on impacts with cuts to other services and wellbeing functions that are so important to communities, and we know that they suffer.

Councils need sustainable funding mechanisms, and central government should be listening not only to local government but to the wider recommendations of the Future for Local Government review that has many improvements that would have aided us in our water services challenges ahead. Good governance over water services and our water resources is inseparable from better land-use planning and genuine Te Tiriti partnership and governance, and the repeal of these Acts simply gets it wrong.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, I’m going to be brief on this—I made most of my points in the first reading—but I would like to say that it is quite ironic that we’re debating this bill in the city which is the worst example of good management of water infrastructure. However, the Act that was put in place to deal with it had no impact on that. What we really need is Local Water Done Well, and we will deliver that. So with that, I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. There’s a quote that’s often attributed to President Lyndon Johnson, and it’s this: “Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.”, and that I think is particularly relevant to the legislative record of this Government over the last few weeks. They’re really good at destroying things and kicking things down and not great at coming up with solutions to the big challenges this country faces, and, my goodness, New Zealand has a massive water infrastructure problem.

The country hasn’t invested—well, for decades, and the result is that too many Kiwis don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. In our cities, the waterways are chronically polluted because we pump waste water into our streams and creeks and harbours, and I hope that the other side of the House agrees with this third point, as well, which is that the entrenched failure to build infrastructure—that is, pipes to carry water—is a major inhibitor of the ability of our towns and cities to grow. It stops houses being built. It stops our communities growing and developing, and that drives up the price of housing for New Zealanders.

The bill to get New Zealand’s water infrastructure up to scratch is estimated to be $185 billion, and at least—at least—this Government is leaving Taumata Arowai in place, which is the regulator that our Government set up to set environmental standards and standards for clean, safe drinking water for our people. But the effect of taking away the affordable water reforms and leaving the regulator in place with no other significant intervention proposed to allow the infrastructure to be funded and financed—the infrastructure that this country desperately needs—can only mean one thing, and that is that the ratepayers are going to pay through the nose. There is no other way for it to happen. This Government is setting up a massive liability for ratepayers. It will come at a cost—a huge cost—and the ratepayers of New Zealand should be afraid. They should be very afraid.

Far from being a genuine effort to fix the problem for the benefit of future generations, this bit of legislation from the National-led coalition is pure partisan politics. It is theatre. It is simply there to say to the people who voted for the National Party and its coalition partners, “We campaigned against these terrible affordable water reforms, and now we’re going to get rid of them.” It’s theatre—that’s all it is—and I think that this country deserves better.

The bill repeals all of the work that was done to set up a new, financially and environmentally sustainable water system for New Zealand, and it puts nothing in place except the bland assurance that councils will have the ability to set up council-controlled organisations. Well, newsflash: councils already have the ability to set up council-controlled organisations.

I want to focus the time that I have on two particular aspects of this issue. The first is the financing problem, and I think it’s widely accepted in this House that the way that New Zealand has been financing water infrastructure is a big part of the problem that we’ve got. Many, many councils are up against their debt limits—debt limits that are, effectively, set by the rating agencies that assess the balance sheets of these councils and their entities—and that says, “This is what is going to be the cost of financing that you have to bear, with the cost of borrowing money to invest in infrastructure.”

One of the great benefits of the affordable water reforms was this thing that we just called balance sheet separation. It was based on the idea that the rating agencies regard revenue from water consumers as a much better, more bankable bet than revenue from general council rates. They apply, effectively, a much lower debt limit on councils and a higher debt limit and lower borrowing costs on water entities, and they do this internationally. So by separating out the balance sheets of the water entities from those of the councils and reassuring the rating agencies that the councils will not bail out a water entity were it to get into financial trouble, the water entities would have higher debt limits. They would be able to borrow more to invest in the pipes at a lower cost to their organisation, and that would, effectively, in the case of Auckland and the new water entity that would have been in place there, have allowed Watercare to borrow two to three times more to invest in the water infrastructure that the city needs than it currently can, because its balance sheet is, effectively, integrated or consolidated into Auckland Council’s balance sheet.

That’s what balance sheet separation means. It was one of the major ways that would have allowed the country to invest for future generations in the pipes that we need, and this Government has taken away that opportunity. It is offering nothing but the blandest reassurance that, actually, the council-controlled organisations will be able to achieve balance sheet separation and will then be able to borrow more, and that is, in my view, a real shame.

The second issue I wanted to touch on is the kind of investment that we need in our water infrastructure. My city—Auckland—is a case study of a city that simply hasn’t invested in the water infrastructure that it has needed for several decades as it has grown, and we saw that in the floods a year ago, when an extreme weather event saw whole communities, whole suburbs, experiencing catastrophic flooding because Auckland Council has not invested in stormwater ever. It has been utterly negligent.

Our waterways—our streams, our creeks, our harbours—are polluted with waste water, with sewage, and this summer, every time there has been a significant rain event, dozens of Auckland beaches have been off limits because they are polluted by raw sewage running into our waters, as well as run-off with heavy metals and contaminants from our streets. This is not rocket science; it is simply because we have failed to invest in the infrastructure.

The affordable water reforms—that our Government put in place and that are being swept away now—put in place a very real and sustainable solution to this problem. For the first time, we would have had a legal framework that would have told the water entities, “Your job is to manage stormwater in this city. It’s your job and the law says it’s your job, and this is what you have to do. These are the kinds of plans you have to put in place, and if you don’t, there is a powerfully tooled-up regulator looking over your shoulder.” We have never had that before, and, on top of those two things, we were giving those entities the power and the freedom to borrow up to three times as much money as they currently can to invest in the pipes in order to spread the cost of that infrastructure over future generations.

I look at Te Wai o Pareira, the creek that runs right through the middle of my electorate. It is so polluted that when kids go swimming in it, they have to go to hospital afterwards, frequently, because they get so sick. Every time it rains, raw sewage flows into that waterway, and manholes pop up on the streets and in the parks and in people’s front yards, and sewage cascades over people’s lawns. We had a solution to this. We had the institution, we had the legal framework, and we had the financing system in place to fix this problem—a generational problem that our country faces—and this bill sweeps that away and puts nothing in its place.

I stand to commend the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill because I strongly believe that Local Water Done Well will enable local governments to have the tools to find funding to make their long-term plans, and to have the flexibility, and to really deliver the water infrastructure that local constituents and users really need.

If the member’s opposite have emphasised so much on what they see locally, I wonder why nothing was delivered in the six years that they had the power and the time and the funding and, apparently, the solution to do anything. But the National-led coalition Government is very determined on the delivery of real changes to restore the council ownership and control of water assets. Our Government, with our plan—the Local Water Done Well plan—will give local decisions and the ability to fix where things are really broken, where things really need to be built, where water infrastructure is really required. So I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m just going to pick up from the comments of the previous speaker Nancy Lu around nothing being delivered, because there are examples in my own electorate of Nelson of exactly that—things being delivered. The repeal of this bill will make it so much harder for our council to deliver improvements in water infrastructure. An example in Nelson is the Saxton Creek upgrade which is about to be completed—a $30 million project that was needed because the stormwater was so deplorable. It was such a small culvert in a significant industrial area that when it flooded a few years ago it caused millions of dollars’ worth of damage, and the Labour Government invested $7.5 million dollars to bring that project forward and it’s about to be completed. It will mean the road where that culvert exists does not have to close when we have heavy rain in Nelson, and it will mean that the businesses in that area, like our meatworks, won’t suffer economic loss if we have a heavy rain event.

Now, the reason I raise that example is because one of the challenges that this legislation that’s being repealed was addressing was the fact that it wasn’t about councils not wanting to pay, it was about councils not being able to pay. I think that was a particular issue that got lost in some of the debate. I think there were some councils who felt that they were being targeted for not having invested. The point I want to put on record is it wasn’t about council members not wanting to do that; it was that the system was not designed to enable them to do that, because we all know that councils that put up rates to pay for infrastructure, they do get turfed out. And so, unfortunately, as politicians—politicians do act, and we all have to acknowledge it, at times, in self-interest. At election time in those years, you would see—

Hon Simeon Brown: Is that what you did for the last six years?

RACHEL BOYACK: At least I acknowledge it, Mr Brown—you would see councils choosing not to invest because they knew that the public wouldn’t support it. And so one of the massive challenges we now face is that the repeal of this legislation means we’re going back to the status quo. We’re going to have, supposedly, another year’s worth of policy development. And one of the mayors I’m talking to doesn’t know how this is going to work for the area of Tasman, which is an area in my electorate which has got massive challenges coming its way, particularly the need for a sewerage upgrade out in the Tasman part of the region. That’s going to be expensive. How’s it going to be paid for?

What I see that is so frustrating is this new Government, rather than saying, “Right, we had some concerns around this legislation, we need to actually sit down and look at it.”—just like with Resource Management Act reform, it’s: “We’re just going to toss the whole thing out.” All those years of policy work from independent, neutral public servants actually giving us the best tool possible to be able to invest—it’s just thrown away. I predict that in three years’ time, when we come back to an election again, we won’t have updated legislation that’s working. We won’t have any new council-controlled organisations. We won’t have the investment that we needed, but we would have seen ratepayers having a significant increase in the cost of their rates. Because, as my colleague Phil Twyford so accurately pointed out, the balance sheet separation that would have allowed councils to group together to borrow at a lower rate to invest earlier, therefore saving money—there’s tools out there that you study if you do accounting at university, you can learn about net present value. If you invest now, you save money rather than investing later. These were all the things that the reform was designed to do. But there was a smokescreen put up by the new Government—when they were in Opposition—because they just wanted to go after votes. They just wanted to go after votes rather than have an adult conversation about what was best for New Zealand.

Now, I sat on the Finance and Expenditure Committee that looked at the third piece of legislation where we made some changes, where we elected to turn four entities into 10. Now, it wasn’t going to deliver the best outcomes, but it was certainly going to deliver better outcomes than the status quo. In my area, we would have had Nelson, Tasman, and Marlborough banded together in order to still deliver a benefit. Now, my electorate has suffered significantly from flooding and a huge amount of that was due to poor stormwater infrastructure. In the Tāhunanui Hills, there is none—like, zero, no stormwater infrastructure. So my question to the Minister of Local Government when we get into the committee of the whole House stage is: is he going to front up and actually support the money that’s needed for the Tāhunanui Hills? Because it was an election promise from National to help fund this infrastructure, yet now they’re saying they’re not going to do it. So I do not commend this bill to the House.

The unbelievable defence of three waters reminds me of the belligerent, grumpy old man driving up the wrong side of the motorway blaming everyone else: 26 percent of people supported, at its peak, three waters, just as 26 percent supported the Labour Party. They tried to rebrand their three waters from four entities to 10 entities, but the confiscation continued. The Communities 4 Local Democracy—and if you have a look on their website, you’ll see a lot of council logos; keep scrolling, most of the logos are there—commented, “the proposed confiscation of assets funded by generations of ratepayers is not the right solution”.

So it gives me huge pride to be able to rise in support of this repeal bill. It was a lightning rod during the election, three waters—the hoardings were up all around the country for two years. They rebranded; the hoardings stayed up. People could see; people did not want to give up those locally funded, locally owned assets. That was the driving point.

This coalition Government will restore council ownership and control of council assets and of water assets, and so I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Some say the definition of “insanity” or “stupidity” is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. This incoming coalition Government is going to hand back to councils and expect them to solve an issue they’ve not been able to solve for decades.

When we came into Government, we thought “We have to do something different here”, because in 2016 many, many people had been harmed in Havelock North. And there were many other communities around the country that were having water challenges. I have some sympathy for local government leaders. There’s lots of leaders, but there’s not much leadership. It’s very hard to show leadership if you’re proposing to have rates increases. But that is what is necessary—billions and billions of dollars—to deal with the under-investment in crucial infrastructure.

Water, the source of life, arguably the single-biggest advantage that our country has over many of our competitors—we turn it into valuable food products to go around the world, because we have a reliable supply of water, good clean water. And so, when this challenge was before us, we said, “Well, should it be one water?”—drinking water, clearly, where people in Havelock North had been harmed, for their lives, because of incompetence, and many more risky situations. We said, “Should it be just one or should it be three?”

Well, I’m glad to follow the previous speaker Cameron Brewer, who sat on a council that has incompetently overseen the water assets of Auckland, where we’ve had billions of dollars of destruction to private assets—the assets that he would say he protects; those homeowners who, through stormwater non-management, have seen their assets destroyed, and beaches that can’t be swum at after a rain event. And do you know what? We said, “We need to address all three: drinking water, stormwater, and waste water.”

Many local-body leaders around the country have had their heads in the sand, and those same people were the ones who opposed the proposal from us to do it differently, to solve this for future generations. Shame on local government leaders that campaigned against us. You go back to your communities and try to sell a 50 percent rates increase. You go back to your communities and sell a 30 percent rates increase. Good luck to you! I’d suggest you won’t be voted in next time. I understand the challenges a local government leader has. We do have to invest. We as Government were prepared to come in, to sit down and work through this. Yes, it was three waters, not one, because we thought it was important—in Auckland in particular, where we see the interaction and the interface between them all.

Let’s roll forward a little way. Tourism was our biggest industry till COVID came along. The iconic destinations of Queenstown, Fox Glacier in the Speaker’s electorate, and Punakaiki—they have boil-water notices. People spend tens of thousands of dollars to come to our country to see this beautiful, pristine landscape, and they go to these destinations and are told they have to boil the water. What does that do to our reputation? That’s why we need to invest in the future. That’s why the mayors from places like, let’s see—let’s call a few of them out. The Far North District Council: 33 percent rates increase required; Hamilton, 25 percent; Buller District, looking at 30 percent; Porirua, up to 50 percent. Well, good luck when you impose those costs on communities, where there are many, many people who can’t afford the rates at the moment.

We had a proposal to do something different, and that naive Minister of Local Government sits in his seat now with all these wonderful empty promises and says that it won’t cost more. Well, he’s either going to sell the assets or allow the councils to increase their rates. And in the House today, we saw criticism of the Labour Government that we had increased debt to 24 percent of GDP. Well, it’s a bit uncomfortable—still at the lowest level of the OECD countries—24 percent. So then we’ll go and say, “Well, what are we expecting councils to do?” Well, in New Zealand’s fastest-growing area, Selwyn, they’ll have to dramatically increase their debt to 220 percent of their revenue. Good luck! Good luck, if that’s what is required to invest in the future that we need to protect the lives and the health of future generations. Lots of leaders, no leadership, and so too for this coalition Government.

Shame on you for this. And for those people who will be coming to our iconic destinations in the future, maybe there will be new, alternative, or creative ways of paying. Maybe they will have to pay for the meter as they get the water from the tap, to pay for a mini chlorination plant, or whatever. What we were proposing to do in Government was to share the risks and to share the rewards. The rewards were the reduced costs of building this infrastructure into the future. Yes, it is a colossal cost, and there might be some debate around efficiency. There are claims that we spent $1.2 billion and none of it went to council. Well, it did, and if we had some honest council leaders, they’d get up and say, like my predecessor Rachel Boyack, “$30 million was spent on a water plant.” There is hundreds of millions of dollars spent across this country on urgent water infrastructure work, and thank you to the councils that went on and did that, but shame on them for not putting up their hands and saying that money was necessary and we need more and we need to change the structure of how we do this into the future.

So I’m not quite sure how the Government is going to do it, other than, in my cynical view, setting up structures and encouraging councils to sell off their assets. We’ve seen this before from the National Government. Oh, the Minister will pooh-pooh that. Well, wait and see, Minister. We’ll be judging you on the results of this, because what we have—you know, of course, people ask me, “What’s this Government doing?” Well, it’s not what they’re doing; it’s what they’re not doing—not what they’re doing; it’s what they’re not doing. They’re not doing anything. All they’re doing so far is pulling apart the proposals and the progress that we had put in place. Oh, we won’t say they’re perfect, but they were progressive. And all we’ve seen since the coalition Government came together is stepping back. And, in this area, future generations are going to pay a huge price for this. Small communities around the country that cannot afford to put in place safe drinking water, safe stormwater systems, safe waste-water systems, are going to have to go somewhere.

So I say to local government leaders and those who are looking to stand on local government: good luck to you. Please work with the coalition Government and see what progress you can make. But it’s urgent, and the communities like Queenstown, where they had cryptosporidium; places like Fox, which had E. coli; places like Punakaiki, which had an unreliable water supply—those council staff and those councillors will be obliged to provide safe drinking water to people who have come to our country to try to have a great experience. They won’t want to get sick, and if they pick up the paper or go on Google, they will very quickly identify the fact that the councils have not invested to ensure their safety while they’re here, the Government didn’t do anything different to ensure they would support the councils to provide that safety, and so we’re back to the level of stupidity in this country that thinks we can just hand it back to councils, make them become economically sustainable. It dribbles out of the Minister’s mouth—“The councils will have to come to us with financial reports that ensure sustainability”.

It’s really tough out there at the moment. Don’t blame the local governments. The fact is that we have not invested in the past, we need to in the future, and this is a huge lost opportunity, because putting our best foot forward, working with councils and trying to come up with something that would protect future generations, is what we did in Government, and this coalition Government is just reversing that to the detriment of everyone in the future.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to start by saying there are some elements of what’s just been spoken that I actually do agree with, but a lot I don’t. First of all, I just want to say that communities across New Zealand—there are some councils that are actually doing a particularly good job in this space, so it’s not every council that we’re trying to find a solution for.

But we have to ask the question: why are we in this position? Literally hundreds of billions of dollars are needed to bring everything back up to speed, and it’s significant because as a result of it we can’t use the normal rating system. We need to look at new financing tools, etc., etc.

But what are we trying to achieve? Ultimately, it’s the supply of quality water for our communities. Ultimately, it’s the management of waste water so that we don’t destroy our environment and affect different communities, and also dealing with stormwater in a way that protects people, property, assets, and our environment. But we’re also trying to do this in a way that maintains local ownership, local control, and local delivery, and for that reason, I commend this bill to the House.

This bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill.

In Committee

Part 1 Preliminary provisions