Water Services Acts Repeal Bill

Members, we now come to Part 2. Part 2 is the debate on clauses 8 to 18, “

Thank you, Madam Chair. Members, this part repeals the Water Services Entities Act, which also legally disestablishes the Northland and Auckland Water Services Entity; repeals the Water Services Legislation Act 2023, which provided those entities with powers to carry out water services in place of local authorities; repeals the Water Services Economic Efficiency and Consumer Protection Act and confers powers on Taumata Arowai, the water services regulator related to the consumer protection role; repeals a number of local spent Acts—these are in Schedule 3; the administrating local authorities have confirmed these local Acts are outdated and no longer required to carry out statutory duties and obligations.

There are consequential amendments. There’s a number of provisions in relation, in Subpart 2, to the disestablishment of the Northland and Auckland Water Services Entity—I know there’s a range of questions, potentially, going to come in regard to the employment rights of people employed by that entity. The good news for the committee: there was only one employee, which was the CEO. The bad news was that he had a very high salary. The last Government employed people on $700,000 salaries for those water entities, and that person was employed for that entity. But that is all part of the wasteful expenditure of the last Government. So that is in relation to what is happening in relation to that.

There is also a range of other clauses in this part which provide our local government authorities with a range of powers in relation to their setting of long-term plans (LTPs), flexibility in relation to the time frame that they wish to set them within, and amendments around consultation. There are, effectively, two options for local councils: they can delay setting their long-term plan until 30 June, or they can delay it by one year and just put in place a one-year annual plan instead. These are all choices that we have made available to local councils to help them have that flexibility as we repeal the last Government’s regime and replace it with Local Water Done Well.

I would just point out to members of the House: the vast majority of councils, other than Auckland and Northland, were required to have water on their long-term plans for at least the next two years in terms of setting those LTPs, in regard to the process. What we’re saying here is that they will now have to set a long-term plan which adds that water back on as part of that LTP as we put in place Local Water Done Well.

There’s also a range of definitional changes, obviously updating a range of Acts and legislation, recognising that the last Government’s legislation will be removed and ensuring that the definitions and references to legislation are consistent through legislation which is affected.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I appreciate your guidance provided in the previous part in terms of how I provide my questions to the Minister. My question to the Minister of Local Government goes back to Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles, and want to query the Minister in terms of his Government’s engagement with the 19 iwi of Tāmaki-makau-rau and the 12 iwi of Te Tai Tokerau and the many, many hapū of that region and the 219 marae of that region for the proposal to disestablish the Northland and Auckland water services entity. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the ability to take a call on this committee of the whole House stage. It’s my first call—I was unable to take a call in the last part, unfortunately, but I do have a couple of questions for the Minister of Local Government, kind of relating to two separate issues that have arisen out of this particular repeal bill.

So the first one really is: what employment advice has the Minister taken around the most appropriate way of dealing with the disestablishment of the chief executive as outlined in clause 15 of this bill in Part 2? The Minister made some comments before, which I wanted also to know if he thought they were appropriate, in terms of stating publicly the salary of an easily identifiable individual and making a joke about the number of employees at that entity. We’ve heard a lot of rhetoric from the Government in relation to the value that they place on what they call “bureaucrats”, and I just wanted to know—and it’s quite disappointing to see that rhetoric continue in relation to individual people—did the Minister in fact consider it might be a possibility, considering most of the liabilities on this Act are being transferred to the Department of Internal Affairs, to simply transfer the employment to that entity, therefore leaving the issue of redundancy, or redeployment, or otherwise, within the Department of Internal Affairs to properly and discreetly deal with that particular issue? It seems to me that there might be some value in looking at that, and I think these are important questions because I think New Zealanders deserve to know that their Government, no matter what their position and no matter who their employer is, takes their employment rights seriously, and so I’m interested to hear the Minister’s response on that.

The second point, discrete point, that I wanted to raise was in reference to the accompanying departmental disclosure statement that has been provided with the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill. In this, there are—and this follows the usual structure of these types of documents—a number of boxes which simply say “no”. I know that other colleagues have looked at the consultation provisions specifically in relation to the number of potential consultations or areas that the Minister could have looked at in drafting the bill—which includes, obviously, the section that we’re looking at—but didn’t. But the one that I wanted to ask the Minister about is 3.1 of the departmental disclosure statement, which looks at whether there are any other international obligations that might be impacted by this bill. That doesn’t relate only to Part 2; it relates to the whole bill, but it is also relevant to Part 2 because it may be that there are international obligations that may have relevance to those clauses which are contained within there. The ones that I was able to quickly find, in my research into whether there are international obligations in relation to water, are the UN resolution on the human right to water and sanitation that was passed by the General Assembly on 3 August 2010, and also the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation that was passed on 22 February 2016. I wanted to know, does the Minister know: did New Zealand vote for those resolutions, and, if so, did he receive any advice on whether the repeal of this particular law, including the part we are looking at, has any implications on those international obligations? Because I think that would be interesting to find out.

Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. I just wanted to say a few words about Te Tiriti o Waitangi and make a statement about it to the effect that if anyone in this Chamber believes that Te Tiriti o Waitangi does not apply to one part of this bill but to another, they’re very much mistaken.

My question in Part 1, and I’m going to repeat it now, because it’s also relevant to this, is that when we are addressing issues of Te Tiriti o Waitangi—and I’ll start by going to 3.2 of the departmental disclosure statement where it specifically asks about the effect of this bill on the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. Going back to my question that I asked and that was not addressed: was the iwi of Wanganui consulted about the impact on Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act or not? It seems a pretty simple question to ask. It could be “Yes, we had a wānanga about it.”, “We had a hui about it.”, “I sent them a letter to say, ‘Hey, we’re changing your legislation.’ ”, or it could be nothing. I’m going to take silence as being nothing, just as I’m sure we take silence on the separation of the balance sheet as “no” as well.

I think the Minister of Local Government, if he truly believes, as I’m told, that they’re upholding Te Tiriti o Waitangi, should actually answer that question. Failure to do so means that they’re not, in my opinion, and I’m going to listen very carefully now. I’ve narrowed it right down to that.

And my original questions also included whether he would continue to uphold—and it’s in the departmental statement as well—Tupua te Kawa in making those decisions. I think it’s critically important for us to know—for this committee to know, for the people of Wanganui to know—whether or not those principles are going to be upheld.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity; thanking members for the questions. In relation to the member Hūhana Lyndon’s question around engagement with mana whenua, and it relates also to the Rt Hon Adrian Rurawhe’s question in regard to iwi consultation, officials have been directed to consult with iwi who will have their settlement Acts amended by the bill. They have been kept informed. They understand where the Government’s direction is going, and we will continue to be engaging with iwi throughout the process.

The issue is in relation to the existing Treaty settlements, and the Act simply amends references to the Acts we’re repealing, and because those Acts and the entities hadn’t come into force, the actual impact is negligible, but we will continue to engage with iwi as we work through the policy development. We will also be expecting local councils, who will have responsibility for water, to be having those conversations with their local community, particularly where there are existing Treaty settlements and agreements in place.

In relation to the question around the chief executive redundancy, the issue here was in relation to the salary. That number had actually already been released under an Official Information Act request, and it’s worth noting that three of the four establishment chief executives were made redundant by the previous Government when they shifted to 10 entities, so if they want to complain, they should look in the mirror.

In relation to international obligations, there are no international obligations that are explicitly linked to this bill. New Zealanders will still have Taumata Arowai, which will have a very important role in terms of regulating water quality.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. My question is specific to Schedule 2, which as we know makes up Part 2, and it is regarding—we’ve got it on page 19 of the bill, and it’s about amendments to the Water Services Act 2021, and of course the Water Services Act remains in place. Now, we have that section 14(1) of that Act is going to be amended. Now, section 14(1) refers to Te Mana o te Wai, meaning application and effect, and it’s defined in relation to the national policy statement (NPS) for freshwater. And then if you go to section 5 of that Act, it talks about the definition of the national policy statement. It’s very clear that that national policy statement is the one that we all know about that was put into force in 2020. That national policy statement has a definition of Te Mana o te Wai. Now, we have heard from this Government—I haven’t been listening to all the speeches today, so I’m not sure if it’s come up, but we’ve heard in questions to the House that there is a desire to change the hierarchy of Te Mana o te Wai. Now, that hierarchy at the moment is that first we care about the health of the water, and we’re doing regulation; secondly, the health of people; and third, consumptive or commercial uses. So we know that this Government wants to change the balance amongst that hierarchy—which can only mean more pollution, in my opinion.

But what I want to ask, relating to this change of Te Mana o te Wai, is that the replacement not only refers to the 2020 national policy statement; it also then says—and this is the change—“and any statement issued under that section that amends or replaces the 2020 statement;”. And why this is important is not only for the political reasons that I’ve just outlined—about how I don’t think it’s a good thing and I don’t think most people would think it was a good thing to change our water laws to enable more pollution; I think most people want healthy rivers—but it also goes to a legislative drafting point. That is because the NPS is a regulation, it is a secondary instrument, it’s spelt out in the current legislation that it just refers to the 2020 version, but now we’re saying it’s any other replacement to the 2020 version. So that is anything that Ministers change—by regulation that doesn’t come through this House—will amend the definition of Te Mana o te Wai in a piece of legislation that we’re not even repealing today. That is very significant, and I think needs an answer because it is generally considered unacceptable—or that you need a very good justification—to have a “Henry VIII” clause.

Hopefully, I’ve spelt out here that it’s different from what the current legislation says because the current legislation specifies the version of that regulation, the national policy statement that applies.

So you can always, if there are other versions of the regulation—which often happens when you’re looking at the primary legislation—go back to the version that existed when the primary legislation came into effect. This clause changes that and I think has both major political ramifications, major policy ramifications, and is also bad lawmaking.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Speaking to clause 9, the repeal of the Water Services Legislation Act, I want to ask the Minister of Local Government what advice he has had, and what thoughts he has, on what will replace the considerable body of regulation that was included in that Act to govern the way that stormwater services are managed.

What I think was really significant about those provisions in the Act is that, for the very first time, water entities, or now the councils, largely, were required under the law to have a stormwater management strategy. They were required to be the ones who were responsible under the Act for this work—for the first time ever. They were required to adopt a risk management approach to stormwater networks. They were required to work with other entities, like transport agencies and other infrastructure agencies, and include them in their strategies and plans. They were overseen by two regulators, one for the health and safety of the water, another an economic regulator.

That’s significant because we know that there are many councils who simply haven’t done the stormwater management job. They chose not to spend, not to invest, and the anniversary weekend floods a year ago exposed the fact that, in our largest city, which is home to about a third of the country’s population, the council for decades has simply not been doing the job of investing adequately in stormwater networks. So I’m really keen to know what advice the Minister has had on what will be the environment now for councils and what kind of accountability, what kind of responsibility, will they be held to in the discharge of their responsibilities.

Another example of the work that went into the Water Services Legislation Act that there’s now a question mark over—and I would welcome the Minister’s advice on this—is that the select committee actually did a lot of work on the responsibility to manage stormwater networks in our urban areas. In many of our urban areas, it is streams and creeks that make up the stormwater network; it’s not always pipes. And, for many of our cities, particularly the ones that have had a lot of development in the last 30 years, the stormwater networks are not concreted and underground; they are creeks and streams. And in my home, in West Auckland, it’s almost all creeks and streams. When they’re not properly managed, the effects can be catastrophic, as we saw 12 months ago.

This is a problem because Auckland Council has a 2015 bylaw that says that any stream that abuts a private property or runs through it is the responsibility of the private landowner and not the council’s responsibility. So they don’t maintain those streams and creeks, and they frequently get blocked. It’s a problem because it’s simply not feasible for private landowners to spend $100,000 to hire a whole lot of heavy machinery to clear a stream, right? So they don’t do it. And we know from experience that Auckland Council almost never uses its compliance powers to remedy that.

It’s also completely ridiculous when you’ve got a stream that can literally go through hundreds of suburban private properties in a city like this. You cannot hold one landowner responsible for a blockage that is allowed to happen by a landlord a kilometre upstream. So it’s an absolute nonsense. It was one of the significant contributory causes to the catastrophic flooding that happened a year ago in many parts of Auckland, and these provisions, apparently, are being wiped clear by this repeal legislation. I am very keen to hear from the Minister what thought he’s given and what advice he’s taken on this matter.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wonder if I might talk to my Amendment Paper, which is on the Table, because, if I’ve heard the Minister of Local Government correctly, he’s not going to refrain from repealing the Water Services Economic Efficiency and Consumer Protection Act. It’s a pity, because some of the work that the previous Government has done around economic efficiency and competition, the new Government has actually picked up and, I must say, done really well with. I’m thinking of the Grocery Commissioner and the fact that that’s been embraced by the new Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.

If we think about it, food and water are, basically, the two necessities of life. It would be good if the Minister could follow his ministerial colleague in embracing the fact that a Water Services Commissioner with the attendant powers, the dispute resolution framework, and all of those things that are in that piece of legislation, are, in fact, a good thing to hold on to.

But don’t worry, there is a middle ground. Because I can see that if the Minister is thinking that if he repeals the other pieces of legislation, then this will be sitting by itself, lonely and with nothing to do. So my Amendment Paper proposes that we simply put that bill on ice whilst the Minister sorts out his new proposals. It would be kind of awkward to repeal this bill and then have to dream up new ways of doing fundamentally the same thing when the Parliamentary Counsel Office and officials, along with the Government of the day, have done a pretty good job of getting this bill into shape in a workable form, including negotiating and listening to iwi, as the right honourable member mentioned earlier. That work’s all been done and it would be time-consuming and wasteful to do it again.

So it’s a little innovative. And I know the Clerks—I shouldn’t probably refer to them. Not a familiar technique, but rather than repealing it, just place it on hold, which is what my clause 10(1) would do: suspend it. Make it very clear that no powers exist under the Act whilst it’s suspended. There are no rights and obligations which come to play under the Act. There’s no cause of action which exists under the Act whilst it’s suspended, but then allow it to be revived—brought back to life—by you, Minister, by Order in Council. Now, the ability to bring things back from the brink of death isn’t really something I’d want to confer on that particular Minister, but here we have it—giving it to you there. So that is what I suggest. Then making sure that that Order in Council could also adjust the time frames that sit in the Act, because obviously times will have expired for them to have been done.

But what we have here—and this is the real point, and I’m fighting for the Minister to preserve it—is an apolitical, very carefully drafted piece of legislation that fits well within the existing ecosystem of competition and consumer legislation. The Commerce Commission has already begun work on setting up the Water Services Commissioner, and I understand made an appointment of someone who’s expected to assume that role. The expertise is there, the drafting work is there, and it’s a whole lot of investment which will be utterly wasted. But worse than that, it will have to be redone. Because we know that competition and efficiency work is necessary and consumer protection work is necessary.

As I said earlier, this was something which was worked on quantitively, it turns out, in the Finance and Expenditure Committee—I made an error there—but it was a very useful committee. So by suspending this piece of legislation, it will preserve it all in place. We won’t have to come back to Parliament, take up enormous amounts of parliamentary time, go back to the community, go back to select committee, go back to the submissions process to put in place—and I know what it’s like. You won’t be able to just say, “We made a mistake; we’re unrepealing that bill.” You’ll have to come up with a whole new framing of it which does fundamentally the same thing. A wasteful exercise of something that’s good. So I would invite the Minister to look favourably upon that Amendment Paper.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just recent questions—one in regard to Te Mana o te Wai. This legislation is aligning it with other references to the national policy statement. And in terms of that definition, obviously the Water Services Act or the Taumata Arowai legislation or Resource Management Act legislation would be others that have similar clauses.

In terms of the stormwater issue, obviously stormwater reverts back to councils who have responsibility for making those investments. I noted the member the Hon Phil Twyford was talking about the issues in regards to private landowners and the management of storms and waterways. These are the responsibilities of private landowners, and the regulator in regards to that would be the council in terms of working through those issues in relation to that private stormwater.

In terms of the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s comments, as I said in Part 1, the Government is repealing that legislation. It was designed to fit the 10-entity model. We are repealing their three waters, co-governed, mega-entities reform, and we will be putting in place our own consumer regulation in terms of those issues that he mentions as part of our Local Water Done Well policy. But the legislation is not worth putting on ice because it relates to a fundamentally different approach to how we want to deal with water infrastructure, and that’s why we’ll be repealing it and replacing it.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Those that have been following along will know that I’ve asked the same question twice already and the Minister of Local Government has not answered, and it is the same thing for the question that Grant Robertson has posed, that I’ve posed, and that the Hon Phil Twyford has posed around balance sheet separation that the Minister has yet to answer.

Ministers are obligated to answer reasonable and relevant questions. Fortunately, those questions that were relevant to Part 1 were also relevant to Part 2, so I will ask again a very simple question, and I hope the Minister has time to answer it. He has time to send tweets, I note, whilst he’s in the chair. Perhaps he will have time to answer questions. Ironically—ironically—the tweet may go some way to giving me the answer.

The question I’ve asked twice already, and now for a third time, is in relation to both the purpose and now the proposal to repeal. In declaring the Government’s intention to repeal the water services Acts, the Minister has said that he had worked alongside councils to develop this policy. I want to know what councils he’s worked alongside. The way the Minister presented it was that he had worked with the majority of councils and that he had the majority of councils’ support. I propose that that’s wrong, and this is an opportunity for the Minister to clarify it. It would have been a straightforward answer, but his refusal to provide an answer makes me suspicious.

Whilst sitting in the chair during this committee stage, instead of answering basic, simple, relevant questions, he’s tweeted a picture of himself standing next to the Mayor of Waimakariri, the Mayor of Manawatū, and the Mayor of Whangārei, and I wonder if that was his consultation. Are they the mayors that he’s spoken to? Not quite councils, as he’s presented it.

Hon Simeon Brown: Oh, the member’s feeling lonely—the member’s feeling lonely.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Ministers aren’t supposed to heckle from the chair, Madam Chair. Perhaps you might want to inform him of that.

The Minister stood in the theatrette and said to the nation that he’d been working alongside councils in developing this policy. He’s refusing to tell us who. He tweets from the chair a photo of him standing alongside three mayors—is that the only consultation he’s done?

I thank the member for that question, and I would just like to note that our policy, Local Water Done Well, was announced about 12 months ago. It was worked on while we were in Opposition, and then we took it to a thing called the election and New Zealanders voted for it. So not only did we work with local councils but New Zealanders voted for it, and now we’re delivering it.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I really wanted to pick on the transitional arrangements for local authorities, and I mentioned earlier in the previous readings about how important these long-term plan conversations are for councils, particularly as they are often the most significant conversation that councils will actually have during their three-year term. So this is really timely for them, and the uncertainty is a real drain.

So I want to get some clarification from the Minister of Local Government. I want to pick up on the provision for local authorities, where it says that where they have already started their long-term planning consultation under the previous policy settings before this repeal goes through, they are able to do so—put their plan through without reconsulting. I just want to hear from the Minister: what are the potential implications for those councils who expected that the assets and associated debt would be moving and may now be looking at funding those water services improvements themselves? Does the Minister think that it’s appropriate that rates may be significantly raised without adequate consultation, and what does he propose the justification could be that councils use when they’re responding to these disgruntled ratepayers, which is essentially inevitable?

The second aspect of this is with the transitional arrangements, and it’s permitting local authorities to have unaudited long-term plan consultation documents. Now, I’m interested as to whether this pertains to the entire long-term plan consultation document, which we know can cross so many areas because councils deliver on so many wellbeing assets, services, and projects for their communities. Does this just pertain to water services or is this about long-term plan consultation as a whole, presuming that the intention, initially, is just to allow flexibility for the water services part of the long-term plan?

The third aspect that I’m really interested in hearing more from the Minister on is about the provisions allowing local authorities to actually defer their entire long-term plan by a year and be replaced by what’s been called an “enhanced annual plan” for the next financial year. What advice, if any, has he had about the implications for this? Because, again, really important conversations and really important work for councils and it’s just not quite clear where this information—how it will actually be applied in the setting. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to ask about clause 14 and the relationship it has to the rest of the provisions there, because I can see that you’ve talked about how there was only one employee, but I can see that there’s a board there. So I’m assuming that they are not employees in the same way? What we have is a provision relating to employment which says that there’ll be an honouring of terms, but it looks like an entire breach of any terms that relate to those board members. It looks like they get no compensation even if it’s agreed that they will, etc. I’m wondering about the reason for doing something so drastic.

This is a Government that, I understand, talks a lot about property rights. These are contractual rights, and it just doesn’t seem at all necessary to go so far. I presume people who are appointed to a board have turned down other positions—they probably took this very seriously, it’s probably had an impact on them, and they probably have some form of stipend, etc. So I wonder whether that advice has happened. I’m also concerned about the employment. I’m not entirely satisfied with the Minister of Local Government’s answer with regard to the obligations under employment, because usually it wouldn’t be a case of redundancy and rights; it would be a case of good-faith consultation and redeployment and then maybe redundancy and triggering crystallising termination rates. So I’m concerned about what the Minister has said with that, and I’d love some fleshing out of that but also the justification as to why such a harsh approach would be taken.

I also wanted to talk for a moment about the point made by the Hon Phil Twyford and just give the Minister a little bit more fleshing out there. I was also on the committee when we were talking about the strains that were in the urban areas and the lack of, really, a practical solution for people in the floods last year when a lot of debris was brought down those little streams and the streams were blocked. So there were real flooding issues as a result of that. I also had one in my area where the lack of maintenance of the water system meant that there were things over one of the big filters and we ended up with a whirlpool on that street and quite dangerous situations.

So I was really impressed, when we were going through this, at the collaboration of all the parties in terms of coming up with a solution which was a lot more practical in terms of the responsibility being with the councils for those streams. It seemed really unfair and unreasonable to expect a private party who happened to back on to one of those areas to be responsible for the clearing of that when in fact they hadn’t even produced the debris. So why would we be throwing—and I’m going to use a pun here—the baby out with the bathwater?

Why would we leave aside all the things that we got to as a collaborative group, which is exactly what the New Zealand public wants from us? Why would we do that and get rid of everything, when my friend the Hon Duncan Webb has put to you a proposal which was to suspend that piece of legislation so at least you could catch the things that were useful out of it and adapt it? Obviously, that has a huge benefit for the public in terms of not having to reinvent the wheel. This is really helpful when we’ve actually had those discussions, we’ve toughed it out, we’ve talked about those issues, we’ve had the submitters in, we’ve talked about the realities of those floods close to a time when they’re impacting on people, yet the Minister seems to want to chuck that out.

So what I would like to know is: will he consider suspending that bill, which has been so much good work? I do see it as very consumer friendly, very applicable in any situation where we’re redesigning the situation. I’d also like an answer to the question that I have about the board members and the employees and why, when we do these things, we have to cut out rights, which I understood were sort of sacrosanct in the National Party faith, anyway, because Mr Seymour talks about property rights all the time.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to thank the members for their questions. A number of questions in regards to the transitional provisions around the long-term plans (LTPs) and the choices that we are giving to councils. I just want to note that what we’re providing to councils is a range of options and flexibility in terms of setting their long-term plans, as this change in legislation obviously happens at a time when they’re setting their LTPs. All of the things that we’re putting in place are simply about providing flexibility and choices to councils around the consultation requirements, around the time frame in which they need to finalise their LTPs, and whether they wish to delay that by one year, but also some protections in terms of the annual plan to ensure that if they were to delay by 12 months, their next annual plan would have the right information that it would need to have in place around all of the issues, including water services, roading, and other services that councils provide.

Helen White made a number of comments in relation to what I’ve already answered in terms of the Duncan Webb’s points relating to why we’re repealing that other piece of legislation. I believe I’ve already outlined our reasons as a Government. In terms of the question around the establishment boards, they are not employees, so they are not entitled to redundancy. They are appointed based on normal procedure. In terms of the CEO, the role becomes redundant due to the fact that the entity won’t exist. That CEO had a redundancy clause in the contract, and that redundancy clause has been honoured.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to raise a completely new point on behalf of people in my electorate, in Taieri, where we have a lot of rural areas and we have mixed rural and urban water supplies. This was something that the select committee, under the Water Services Legislation Act, looked at very closely and had a lot of input from—I’d like to thank the local councils for their input.

This goes to a couple of questions that I had for the Minister of Local Government. First of all, what kind of level of drinking-water standards would he expect in relation to those water supplies, given that their primary purpose is not drinking water? Usually the primary purpose is actually about facilitating the farms—and it goes through multiple farms—which also raises the second question, about ownership and the role of the combined sewer overflows (CSOs). Where does the Minister see those mixed rural supplies being controlled and managed? Under this legislation, we reached a point where we acknowledged the investment that private owners had made—private farmers in particular had made—into these mixed-use supplies over many decades. There was a facility to be able to actually get ownership back to private ownership if a number of conditions were met: if 75 percent of the shareholders of that mixed urban-rural supply—and they were sort of deemed shareholders—were able to agree on it.

Now, under the repeal, I guess that leaves many of my constituents wondering: what does it mean for the investment that they’ve put into those mixed-use schemes? Are they going to be carved out and not be part of this alleged balance sheet separation exercise, or will they become part of CSOs; in which case, if they do, how does that ownership vest in the CSOs? Is there a facility for private owners to be able to have management or control again of those mixed supplies?

There’s another question as well, really, in all of that, which is that many councils have actually invested into these as well. So how are ratepayers who have invested into these schemes also acknowledged for their investment and input?

These are really, really important questions in the Clutha area, and also because many of the farmers may not always use the water for drinking water, but when they do, they don’t want to be held necessarily to the same standards as an urban water supply. So has the Minister turned his mind to a difference, perhaps, between urban and rural; and what kind of standards will be required? Then, secondly, I’d really like to just get his response to those questions around the ownership and some assurance for farmers—and, I’m sure, in other parts of New Zealand—who have invested for decades through their families into these schemes. How is he going to deal with that, given that the schemes don’t just belong to one particular family? Often it’s to communities, and often, as I’ve said, councils have invested into them as well.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was listening to Morning Report this morning as the Minister of Local Government was being interviewed about these water reforms. I took particular note of what he was saying about the options there were for councils going forward. His view was that councils could negotiate with each other to form water entities of some sort, so that councils could determine for themselves, for example, whether the West Coast would amalgamate with Canterbury, and so on. He didn’t answer the interviewer, but I want to put it to him now, and it’s of particular relevance to this—it wasn’t mentioned in the interview this morning, but it is relevant now—the Far North District Council and Auckland.

Now, under the proposed reforms that the Labour Government put in place, the Far North District Council would have been amalgamated with Auckland. The bigger entity, Auckland—we would have helped to socialise the costs of water provision across quite a wealthy area, really, and actually an area that is going to struggle to provide adequate water services in the future. Now, as it turns out, the Far North District Council—we estimate that without water services reforms, by 2051, every ratepayer there will end up paying another $8,690. That’s how much it’s going to cost the ratepayers of the Far North District Council.

You know, Auckland’s had Watercare for a long time and—despite the droughts a few years ago when we were all saving water furiously—in terms of supplying water, by and large, Watercare has worked well enough. There was an absolutely disastrous outcome, really, in the flooding, which my colleague Phil Twyford has referred to, particularly in West Auckland, where the fact that Watercare had neglected its stormwater system—the creeks, the small rivers—really did create a disaster. We had a solution in place for that. The Minister has just casually said, “Oh well, private owners will have to pay.”

But getting back to the Far North District Council, the only solution for the Far North District Council that I can see, and possibly some of the other councils north of Auckland, even if they don’t perceive it that way—

Hon Member: Kaipara.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: —is to attempt—yes, Kaipara, thank you; yep—to amalgamate with Auckland. But why would Auckland take them on? So the Minister said, “Well, we’re going to have some solution in place for that.” But at the moment, he’s just walking away from a solution that we had in place. Now, I note that the MP for Northland has not been here to plead the case of people in the Far North—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Order! It’s not appropriate to talk about members that are not here.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Oh, I’m sorry. No, he’s not—I take your point. I note, however, that the MP for Northland has not argued in favour of his constituents, so I’ll do it on his behalf. Those constituents need to know what solution the Minister has in place. Now, it’s analogous to the case of Westland and Canterbury; it’s analogous to the case of many small district councils and area councils throughout the country. One of the councils I have in mind is Rangitīkei—a rating base of 16,000 entities. How could they afford the water services reforms?

But in particular, in this section of the Act, I want to know from the Minister: how is it that he is going to get Auckland to take on the Far North water provision? Because that’s the solution we had in place; it was the solution that was going to save people in the Far North $8,690. The Minister’s just walked away from it and left people in the Far North in the lurch. So he has some sort of vague, pie-in-the-sky future where there will be some negotiations, but what incentive will there be? What incentive will there be for a larger council to take on the Far North?

I’ll just make a note: while I’ve just arrived, I have been watching the debate on TV. I know there are still some Amendment Papers that are yet to be discussed. In urgency, with a lack of select committee, we actually are looking for a bit broader discussion—and I’m going to call Camilla Belich.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just like to follow up on a few points that the Minister of Local Government has raised in his responses to some of the questions asked by others in the committee. Kind of covering two areas, the first thing was just to follow up on some of the comments he’s made around employment. The Minister responded that we need to look in the mirror around redundancies because, in fact, the Labour Government was responsible for some redundancies. Of course, I would proffer to the Minister, that was the case. The point is, really, the advice he received around employment, which he hasn’t answered, and treating those that are employed with dignity, not the fact of the redundancies. In a previous reply, he mentioned the effect of clause 15 in relation to the chief executive position, and he said that was, in fact, clear that that would be the position due to that clause.

I then follow that up with a question in relation to clause 17, which hasn’t been addressed: if what the Minister has said in relation to the disestablishment of the chief executive is correct, then doesn’t that mean that clause 17 is redundant? Because it simply states that existing contractual obligations continue to exist despite the passage of this Act, which would seem to me a truism and an unnecessary clause to contain within this piece of legislation. So I’d like to ask the Minister whether he’s actually received any advice on that particular clause, and why it is in fact in there, if his response to the previous issue is in fact correct.

The other major issue that I wanted to discuss is in relation to Auckland, which is where I live and which is the subject of Subpart 2, which we are discussing today. In Auckland, there are a number of issues with water quality that won’t come as news to anyone in this House. One of the issues that I’ve dealt with most in my work as an MP has been issues around Hobson Bay, and there’s an incredibly active group of people working on water quality in Hobson Bay. The group is called Hapua Thrive, and they’ve done a lot of amazing advocacy with MPs around the House on the terrible state of their waterways—when you walk around the coast there, all you can smell at certain times of the year is human excrement, and it means it’s unsafe and unusable a lot of the time.

One of the things that Auckland Council, through Watercare, which is the existing structure that we have—and there’s been a lot of praise of Watercare during the debate on these water reforms, the fact that Watercare exists and is, you know, well organised and has done things under previous councils, under the leadership of Phil Goff, and instituted things like the Central Interceptor to deal with these water quality issues.

Now, the Central Interceptor is a huge investment in infrastructure in order to deal with some issues surrounding waste water, but the question I have is: how will the Minister, with his reforms, which I believe we’re allowed to discuss because he has talked about Local Water Done Well in his previous response to a question—how will Local Water Done Well, when implemented, actually address some of the issues for waste water and the problem that we have with waste in Auckland? How will it in fact ensure that additional spending above what has already been spent—huge amount of investment into the Central Interceptor, which is still not sufficient to deal with the problem of waste water. This is one of the wealthiest communities in New Zealand and they are well organised and they have strong advocates, and they are unable to organise to the extent to get this addressed. They have an active local MP who you know well—David Seymour—he comes to their meetings, but there is no result on the horizon to allow people in Auckland to be able to enjoy Hobson Bay, and no answer that the Minister has been able to give on how his proposal, Local Water Done Well, would actually address this important safety, infrastructure and, arguably, human rights issue in Auckland.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There’s been a number of questions. Ingrid Leary was asking around mixed-ownership rural schemes. Many of these ownership schemes opposed integration into the last Government’s prior reforms, precisely because the schemes have had private owners over many decades for a range of purposes, including stock water, and so many of them will be quite pleased they’re not having to be part of the last Government’s mega-entities, co-governed bureaucracies. But, of course, Taumata Arowai will still continue to play a very important role in regards to drinking-water standards.

Deborah Russell has been asking a number of questions in relation to Northland, and, of course, our plans and our policies which have been announced will deal with those issues in terms of what local councils will be putting forward, and there’s more information that we released yesterday on those questions, but it’s obviously not in the bill.

In terms of Camilla Belich’s questions in regards to the redundancy provisions, the department did have independent legal advice, including employment law advice, in the development of provisions relating to the disestablishment of the Northland and Auckland entity. Again, I remind the committee there was only one individual actually employed, who was the CEO of the entity. Clause 17 is a general clause; it is a due diligence clause to ensure all matters are covered when disestablishing a statutory entity.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It’s a great opportunity to speak to my amendment on Part 2, clause 8. In clause 8, “Repeal of Water Services Entities Act 2022”, my amendment proposes to add “with the exception of the Wellington entity”. Now, I’m well aware that the Minister of Local Government has evidently done some consultation with councils, and so I thought it was only right for me to talk to my own council in Hutt City and to get their read out of what this means for people in the Hutt Valley.

The main concern they have is that with Local Water Done Well, which was announced well over 12 months ago, there is still no plan for balance sheet separation, and that appears to be the same question that has been raised today, time upon time, without there being an adequate answer. The concern is that those ratepayers are now going to see significant increases, and that is in the forefront of the minds of those councillors and also of all those ratepayers. It’s the level of uncertainty about what the future provides.

It’s quite interesting because, during the election, over at a candidates debate, Chris Bishop was pretty happy—he was saying, “Yeah, we’re pretty much all on the same page here. We think that there should be a separate entity and that it’s at arm’s length from council, and we can use that. So we’re all good here. We’re all going to be the same.” The problem is that he points to Wellington Water as being the logical place. He said, “The Wellington region’s fine. We’ve got Wellington Water. That’s already set up as a council-controlled organisation. We’re in the right position.” The problem is that, under Wellington Water, we are seeing 44 percent of our region’s water literally going down the drain. We have local people who are out channelling leaks with funnels and pipes to put them in their gardens to save water.

So, in terms of what the problem is right now, councils have been told—Hutt City has been told—that it’s going to be at least 12 months before we have any kind of solution in terms of how we get balance sheet separation; 12 months of our water trickling down the drain while we’re in water restrictions and needing water meters. This is the problem that is only getting bigger over the 12 months, and we’ve simply had no answer tonight about what the solution is. And I was trying to think what the word is to describe taking away something that’s been proposed to fix a problem and then not replacing it. And I thought, “Is it ‘lazy’?” But no, I don’t think it’s just lazy; I think it’s arrogant. I think it’s arrogant to campaign on fixing a problem and claim to be elected on it without actually having done the work. I think that’s the problem that hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders are starting to click on to now, and they’re starting to realise that this was a gimmick.

What I predict—what I predict—is that many places around New Zealand are going to, sometime in the future, come to the same place that we had arrived at under the previous Government. So the $180 million waste that he’s talking about was actually an establishment, going towards fixing that problem, and the waste that that Government will deliver to New Zealanders is that during a cost of living crisis we will see Kiwis having to pay double, triple, quadruple rates for what would have been achieved through having a simple solution. And the same problem in the Wellington region will apply as in others. Upper Hutt City Council does not want to come in. So how do you get other smaller councils to come in when there is not agreement? How is the Minister going to encourage those entities? Is he going to have meetings? Is he going to just hope they come together and see the benefit of it? That is a significant problem when some of those smaller councils are far outweighed by their debt and some of the bigger ones who have invested have no interest in taking them on.

So I look forward to hearing, and I ask the question again on behalf of the Hutt: what is the proposal to achieve that balance sheet separation that the council in the Hutt City still do not know about? They want too to know, from the Minister, what his plan is to fix the 44 percent of water that is trickling down our drains that our ratepayers and our taxpayers are going to have to fork out for.

What I’m just going to say at this point in time is that I have heard, over the course of the evening, the Minister answering questions about consultation and about employment. You may not be happy with the answers that you’ve received, but the Minister has actually answered some of those questions. I’m looking for original questions now.

Kia ora. Ngā mihi, Madam Chair. As I went to go get this bill, I saw on page 17 that—and listening to Adrian Rurawhe, I am going to ask a very straightforward question. I’ve already said my debate, my tohe. I’m not going to give a long whole whakapapa. A very straight to the point question: can the Minister of Local Government guarantee that this coalition Government will not breach its Treaty settlement with the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Act? Knowing that—taihoa—this Government actually settled with my iwi Waikato-Tainui in 2010, with the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Act, so it’s a very straightforward question. My people deserve this. My people deserve this answer. Knowing that I’m actually a mokopuna from this settlement, I would like to know: can the Minister guarantee that this coalition Government will not breach its Treaty settlements with our Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Act?

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Well, we got there eventually. We got there eventually—the Minister of Local Government was very clear. In the end, they actually hadn’t talked to many councils at all in developing this policy, certainly not those that are most affected.

So that then leads to my next question, because I think ratepayers, in the likes of Buller, Central Hawke’s Bay, Central Otago, the Chatham Islands—I’ve only got down to “C”, there’s a lot more councils that I could list—

James Meager: Ashburton.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY:—they deserve an answer. Because those ones—someone says “Ashburton”. Ashburton, the council that that member represents—the ratepayers that you represent, under your plan, will be facing bills of $9,000 a year—

James Meager: No.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: —for water. He says “No”? We’ll wait and see, won’t we? It’ll happen. This is what the Government members are going to have to justify to their constituents, because they’re selling them down a river.

So this leads me to one of a few questions that I’m sure the member for Rangitata would like an answer to as well. Why on earth would the councils in wider Canterbury join with Ashburton when they have a small rate-paying base, a massive roading network, and they have huge costs facing them? Costs of service without reform, in the Minister’s own advice—for James Meager’s constituents—is $8,690 per year, per ratepayer, just for water; and he’s about to vote for this repeal.

I look at other councils, like Chatham Islands. There’s been no talk of the Chatham Islands. What this bill is proposing to repeal is a bespoke guarantee to the people of Chatham Islands that the Government will pay for their water services moving forward. I want an answer on behalf of the people of the Chatham Islands.

What happens to a small council like the Tararua District Council, who, under the existing provisions, will be joined up with those other councils alongside the Horizons Regional Council boundaries—the Manawatū-Whanganui Regional Council? I guarantee that the councils in that proposed cluster won’t want to have a bar of Tararua, a region with only 12,000 rating units— $600 million they need to spend over 30 years. Why the hell would anyone voluntarily agree to join with them? It’s just not going to happen.

It’s exactly the same for the councils in the West Coast. They’re currently proposed to be with those in Canterbury, and you hear the mayor of Buller, Jamie Cleine, a phenomenal mayor, may I say—I’ve dealt with Jamie around the impact of weather on his region and the massive challenges they’re facing. That community has a brilliant advocate in their mayor. He doesn’t know what to do. He knows that if he just joins up with the other West Coast councils, it’s not going to work. He said so himself. He knows, in his heart of hearts, that the Canterbury councils won’t want a bar of them.

What guarantee can the Minister provide those councils? Because he didn’t give one this morning on Morning Report, when he was presented with those concerns from Mayor Cleine. All he got was dismissal.

He was also asked—the Minister, and this is my second question—around cost. The Minister said it would be cheaper under this Government’s plan. When I asked the Minister in question time today, we didn’t get much of an answer. So my second question is quite simple: cheaper for who? Cheaper for ratepayers, or cheaper for Nicola Willis? Because that is the guts of this, I think. They are trying to save themselves money. They don’t actually care about ratepayers, because when the rubber hits the road, they won’t be in Government. They’ll be able to push to the mayors, and the mayors will say, “We have no choice”. The Government will say, “This is local government responsibility”. You can see it being set up now.

So what are those small councils that no one wants going to do? Matt Doocey promised that you were going to help pay for them, but that’s being backtracked. So I want an answer to that. I want an answer around costs. I refer to the Prime Minister’s answer: when asked by Newshub on the news bulletin tonight, “What are your figures?”, he walked away. So I’ll ask the Minister. Here’s your opportunity to justify it in the absence of select committee. The Minister must have got advice. What are your numbers to justify your claims?

Thank you, Madam Chair. There’s been a number of questions which have been made by members. The Hon Ginny Andersen asked about wanting an exemption for Wellington. Well, the entity hasn’t even been set up. In fact, under the legislation we’re repealing, those entities weren’t going to be set up until mid-2026. So when she asked the question, “What is going to happen over the next 12 months?”, well, the previous Government wasn’t going to do anything over the next 24 months, so she may want to report back to her constituents on that.

The question from Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke in relation to their Treaty settlement, this Act doesn’t affect that at all, in terms of the question that she asked, and won’t have an impact as she posed that question. That is exactly what this legislation does.

And then, in relation to the question from the Hon Kieran McAnulty, we asked around the Chathams. The former Minister excluded the Chathams from an entity. This did not guarantee Crown investment in the infrastructure.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Please keep it original.

RACHEL BOYACK: I’ve got lots of original questions to ask. I want to focus on a couple of matters related to my proposed Amendment Papers, particularly in relation to stormwater. But before I do so, the Minister of Local Government has, a couple of times in his contribution tonight, mentioned the setting up of new entities, and I believe when he’s discussing that—so I’m just responding to the Minister’s comments. I’m interested in his answer to this particular question around the Orders in Council that are included in the most recent water bill that was put through the Governance and Administration Committee last year, because I sat on that committee.

My question to the Minister is: my understanding—and I’d like his clarification on this; it’s a pretty simple question, and I’m sure the officials can help him with this—is that actually those Orders in Council can be put in place by the Minister pretty quickly after the legislation was enacted. I think it was either immediately—so perhaps the Minister could answer that question. Can Orders in Council under that existing legislation that he’s referred to in his responses be introduced immediately, and were they scaled? I can’t quite recall, but maybe he’ll be able to answer, because he obviously knows a bit about the legislation, that it was either every three months or six months.

So maybe he could just clarify that, but I’ll come back to him if he doesn’t answer that question, because my recollection was that we could begin those Orders in Council from this point forward, and the Minister was able to stagger that over three points. So I was a little bit confused, because officials advised our committee that those could be happening throughout 2024, throughout 2025. The Minister seems to be saying tonight that it could wait until 2026, but that wasn’t my understanding of the legislation. So I’m sure he can get that clarification, but I’ll definitely come back and ask again if we don’t get it. Just noting because we don’t have that select committee process for us to be able to ask these questions of the Minister, so it’s just important to me, because maybe I just got my recollection of sitting on that select committee wrong.

But just to my amendments, there is a piece in here where I have some amendments inserting, after clause 8, an exception for the Tasman, Nelson, and Marlborough entity. The reason why I’m raising this and why I want to talk about stormwater—and I raised this in an earlier contribution today, in the second reading of this bill—is we haven’t had a big discussion about stormwater. But for those of you who know Nelson, you’ll know that we have a lot of hills around our inner-city area and we’ve had a significant number of climate change events over the last few years, one of which has been floods. We’ve often thought, “Oh, floods might mean flooding of properties.”

But what it’s actually shown is landslips. Landslips are from council land on to private property, from private property onto private property. One of the reasons this has been such a problem is that in the hills of Tāhunanui there literally is no stormwater—like zero stormwater. So when we hear that people have invested in pipes throughout our city, that is correct, but in developments that are over 100 years old, we don’t have a functioning stormwater system, which has led to a huge amount of land slippage. I know that the Nelson City Council has the investment of a stormwater system in its long-term plan, so I’m interested in whether the Minister’s going to help fund that, because there have been requests from Nelson City Council to Ministers for that support. There have been requests from myself, as the local MP, to Ministers for that support, and I will continue to seek that support as the local MP.

In another area of the city, Stoke, which is where my office is, we have assets that, again, have been invested in, and we keep hearing that councils have done a great job in investing—yes, they invested really well in Stoke decades ago. Those pipes have now come to the end of their useful life. So, yes, the council did a great job a long time ago, but now we know that there’s going to be a replacement cost. So my question to the Minister is: given that Nelson and Tasman and Marlborough have excellent plans, have shared plans across our region, know what we want to do, why can’t we be exempted so that they can actually set up an entity with that balance sheet separation? A council-controlled organisation actually wouldn’t do enough to allow that investment to happen. And if he doesn’t allow that exemption that allows for a greater level of investment—because we have a massive bill coming our way, and anyone who says we don’t, don’t listen to them; we have a massive bill—will he fund the infrastructure needed for Tasman and Marlborough and Nelson over the coming decades that we need for good quality water infrastructure?

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I’m going to call Hūhana Lyndon.

Kia ora. Ngā mihi, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): And it’ll be original, won’t it?

HŪHANA LYNDON: Yes, but I’d like to clarify for the committee, the Minister responded to Adrian Rurawhe’s question and confirmed that he had only advised the Waikato River Authority and Te Awa Tupua of the repeal. My question, which has not been answered tonight: what consultation and engagement hui have been held with the iwi of Tāmaki ki Te Rerenga Wairua, Auckland Northland, in the repeal proposal for the ending of the water services entity for our tribal rohe? That’s 19 iwi in Auckland and 12 in Tai Tokerau. Now, have his officials had any hui with the tribes of that district beyond Waikato-Tainui for the river authority? And if they have, what feedback has he received? Kia ora.

The question was in relation to iwi consultation. I directed officials at the Department of Internal Affairs to consult with iwi who had their settlement Acts amended by the bill. That process is under way, and we’ll continue to engage with iwi as we do develop further policy.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The 14 tabled amendments to clauses 8 and 9 from Rachel Boyack, Dr Tracey McLellan, the Hon Ginny Andersen, Cushla Tangaere-Manuel, Tangi Utikere, the Rt Hon Adrian Rurawhe, and the Hon Jan Tinetti to insert exceptions for various entities are out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation. The Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment replacing clause 10 is out of order as being contrary to the principles and objects of the bill.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment deleting clause 10 be agreed to.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 10 is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 17 be agreed to.