Local Government (Water Services) Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Local Government (Water Services) Bill.

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

Hon SIMON WATTS: I move, That the Local Government (Water Services) Bill be now read a second time.

This is the third and final piece of legislation for implementing Local Water Done Well, the Government’s plan to address water services challenges. It is a complete legislative framework for New Zealand’s water services delivery system. It provides enduring settings for our vital drinking-water, waste-water, and stormwater services. At a national level, we have had historic under-investment, which has resulted in significant challenges that are difficult and costly to address. This bill provides a flexible and enabling framework for local government to address challenges and ensure that they do so and do not emerge again. It emphasises a need for financial sustainability and sets clear economic, environmental, and water-quality regulatory standards.

The bill also provides for regulation of water services that is based upon and designed to be proportionate to that risk. In the extreme, those risks can be significant, particularly around public health, environment, life, and property. This bill provides regulation to achieve safe and effective water services without excessive costs, compliance, and requirements. Local Water Done Well maintains local ownership, choice, and decision making. In support of financially sustainable water services, the bill introduces new council-controlled organisations, known as “water organisations”, with requirements around public ownership, governance, and accountability.

I would like to acknowledge and thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee for the improvements that they have made in regards to this bill. They have made a large number of amendments and adjustments, which are comprehensive and necessary with this type of complexity and complex bill. I would also like to thank those many people that made submissions to this bill, particularly councils, local interest groups, iwi, and many who have contributed throughout the course of this water services reform.

After considering the submissions, the committee has recommended 367 amendments to enhance the bill’s workability. Feedback has been heard and well used. The committee made a number of recommendations, including two new statutory objectives to be included for water services providers. This supports housing growth and urban development and promotes an efficient use of water resources when providing water supply.

To further support housing growth and development, the committee also recommended improvements to workability of the development contribution provisions. The committee also recommended additions to the bill to support the effective transfer of responsibilities from councils to water organisations and to clarify that certain responsibilities cannot be transferred. The committee agreed to modifications to ensure that accountability operates effectively in practice and enables water organisations to get on with their job.

As you can see here, there are a wide range of recommended changes, many of which have been adopted by this Government and will enhance this legislation to ensure that it is enduring. The bill also contains provisions to ensure that Watercare is classed as a water services provider and water organisation, while retaining specific responsibilities relating to water services that are provided under the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act.

Regarding stormwater management, rainfall without regard for property boundaries or who owns it, the bill provides clarity about who is responsible for managing the various types of risks and hazards. The committee has recommended changes to definitions and processes to support water services providers to plan, manage, and regulate activities that will impact the stormwater network and protect people and property.

I would like to thank the committee for their work with iwi, in particular, to ensure that the bill upholds Treaty settlements. I want to acknowledge the hard work of the committee, committee staff, and the Parliamentary Counsel Office on the bill. They have all worked relentlessly in a short time frame to strengthen this legislation. The proposed amendments will help establish effective and enduring regulatory settings for New Zealand’s water services that will be workable for water services providers and our communities. This is a reform that will benefit our communities for generations to come. For that reason, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise as Labour’s spokesperson for local government on this bill. The Minister is quite correct in that this is basically the third in a series, or a trilogy, for what is the Government’s inadequate approach to water reform, not getting the fundamentals right—

Hon Rachel Brooking: A horror trilogy.

TANGI UTIKERE: Actually, it is a horror trilogy, because that is exactly what communities are going to experience in the long term if the Government proceeds with this proposed form of water reform. Labour, it will come as no surprise, will not support inadequate legislation in this space. We will not support something that is significantly underdone and is, basically, subpar as a solution for communities all around New Zealand.

The Finance and Expenditure Committee considered this bill, and there were a number of submissions. What was really interesting, in the opportunities that I took up to sit in on that committee, was the number of councils that—rightly so, actually—engaged with the process to share their views, but, more importantly, I think, to share their experiences around what this Government has forced them into doing as a result of this proposed piece of legislation. This is something that was very interesting to listen to, and it came as no surprise that many of the councils who fronted up to the select committee were talking through the steps that they were forced to take, in what is a very hurried fashion, really, because the time is ticking for them to comply with what would be contained, in terms of submitting their water delivery plans.

The Labour Party submitted a differing view, and there’s one line in the differing view that I want to point out because it is extremely apt. It really goes to the heart of why it is that we are opposing this bill this evening. It’s because we believe that the Government’s proposed changes “lack the longitudinal courage required to ensure the provision of affordable water services for communities of interest over the decades to come.” When it comes to listening to and understanding what it is that they are painting as a picture, a lot of the stats, a lot of the figures and the data that they’ve presented, actually don’t add up to a rosy picture for communities moving forward into the future.

Of course, this is a Government that’s not really interested in understanding the long-term implications for councils, because their view of localism is something quite different to what many around the country will experience localism to be all about. What they campaigned on is quite different to what we’re experiencing this evening. We heard the Minister talk briefly before about the fact that, when it comes to the three waters, when it comes to reform around drinking water, stormwater, and waste water, there has been a historical level of under-investment in this area, and nothing is being done by this Government—that’s my view—in terms of seeking to address that or to make it adequate. The Minister talks about communities having local ownership, choice, and some form of sustainability. Well, it’s far from it—it is far from it when communities are, basically, dovetailed into a position where they must hurriedly race around and try to scramble around to find partners to make this work for them. It is something that is simply setting the sector and local government up to fail.

One of the interesting things, of course, is that this is a Government that did promise councils that any reform in the water space that they would deliver would come with the financial capacity to be able to deliver it. There is nothing in this bill—there is nothing in these water reforms—that provides any additional tools, any additional funding opportunities, directly to councils to support them in meeting that particular challenge. What that means is that this is a Government that is very happy to set councils up for failure. Failure in the long term is what is going to be coming down the road for councils as a result of this water reform under the Government’s name.

This is also something that doesn’t really force or encourage or incentivise regional collaboration. This is not going to provide any incentive for councils to want to work together. Over the last few months, I’ve been taking the opportunity to meet with councils around the country to listen to the issues that they are facing, and my goodness, they are stocking up under this Government. They really are. Every week, there is something more lumped on to councils that they expect them to follow through, and they don’t provide any funding tools to support them in that particular space.

What’s really interesting is, when one talks to councils and hears from councils about what their experience is around water reform, there is a number of councils that will have no element of choice around this. They will be positioned in a sense where they will be, largely, orphaned. They will be like the last person on the dance card who doesn’t get a partner. The fact is that all of those other councils that are around them have gone through a process of maybe identifying who they would work with, and then there are councils who will, basically, be left on their own, not because they want to be but because they have to be as a result of this Government’s reform.

We all know that councils are working hard to deliver their water services delivery plan by early September, but, of course, if they are not in a position to be able to do that, the Government has indicated that they will intervene. There is a specific provision, if triggered, that will allow the Government to, basically, intervene and to put in place what they consider as Crown water specialists to follow through that particular process. What is interesting in the select committee’s report, which has been developed as a result of listening to the evidence and the submissions that the committee received, of course, is that the report confirmed that there is actually contingency planning that is under way for intervention towards councils where that may be the case.

The Minister and the Government might like to paint a rosy picture around this, but the reality is that the select committee report—that has, effectively, been authored by the committee and the recommendations adopted by a majority of Government members—clearly states that there are contingency plans under way for intervention. Look, the time frames are very tight, so it’s no wonder that that may be something that is triggered, effectively removing that sense of localism and the choice that they may choose to make.

What I think is really interesting is that councils are already facing difficulties when it comes to their financial capacity, when it comes to the rates rises that are on the increase as a direct result of this Government. These rates rises that are being experienced by communities all around the country are a direct result of the decisions that have been taken by this Government—

Andy Foster: That’s not true.

TANGI UTIKERE: Members opposite may say “That’s not true.” Well, I’ll tell you what, I look forward to actually hearing the fulsome contributions that they will make on this, because I actually predict that Government members will stand up, they’ll make a very brief contribution, and they’ll sit down. They will choose not to address the elephants that are in the room. They will choose not to address or to rebut the concerns that have been expressed around the decisions that they have been taking. They won’t stand up and tell us, “These are the tools that we’re going to put in the tool box to allow councils to fund this and to head down that path.” Maybe they’ll prove me wrong, but I doubt that that will necessarily be the case.

What’s really fascinating, I think, is that these are decisions that have been taken by the Government—and we are on the final leg of that horror trilogy, in terms of this form of reform—that actually ignore the lessons, the understandings, and the experiences of the folk of Havelock North, of Queenstown, of other rural communities around New Zealand. That’s unfortunate, because what communities and councils around this country need is a Government that’s going to give them some hope, and this is something that actually is far lacking from this Government in what they’re seeking to do. They talk about localism, but they’re not prepared to front up when it really counts. There is no financial component in this legislation. They are simply saying to councils, “We expect you to do this. We are not going to incentivise it.” There are no carrots in this particular piece of legislation; it’s all stick, stick, stick. Quite frankly, communities deserve much better.

As we head into the future with water reform on the cards, it will be such under this Government that failure is what is on the horizon. It’s on that basis that Labour will continue to oppose this reform.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. One of our country’s most pressing and fundamental challenges right now is this one. It’s our people’s access—or, actually, in many cases, lack of access—to clean, safe drinking water. That is just such a basic fundamental that you’d think we would have sorted it out by now, yet we haven’t.

The other aspect of it is this continual, perpetual cycle of waste-water and stormwater infrastructure and systems that unnecessarily harm not only the health of the environment but the health of ourselves. You’d think the solutions to that—when it comes to protecting communities’ drinking water, when it comes to the delivery of waste-water and stormwater services that don’t unnecessarily harm the environment—would be something we can deliver. And yet for so long, thanks to literally decades of elected members who have consistently put off investing in these really important aspects that are fundamental to Kiwis’ lives, we’re in this situation where we’re, essentially, up waste-water creek without a paddle. This bill, unfortunately, is not providing Kiwis with the paddle that they so desperately need.

What we do see tonight—and, unfortunately, likely in the rest of the process of this bill through Parliament—is yet another missed opportunity. I say “another missed opportunity” because we’ve just had the second resource management bill, the amendment bill, which already deprioritises fresh waterways and particularly fresh water that is already significantly degraded—which, unfortunately, is a big hunk of our rivers, streams, lakes, and ultimately oceans that we interact with every day and that we need to be healthy and safe for us to actually interact with those spaces.

Because it is 2025, this was an opportunity to create an actually fit-for-purpose framework. It could have ensured that no community was left behind. It could have ensured that we didn’t have substandard, poor-quality drinking water, and that our environment was protected and restored. We could have had the full involvement of iwi Māori in that process, in their exercise of rangatiratanga over fresh water in their rohe. Instead, we’ve got this, another rushed process, and it’s something which councils particularly picked up on in their submissions on this bill. I’m talking particularly about Ōpōtiki, Thames-Coromandel District Council, and Palmerston North City Council, who talked really strongly in their submissions about how they didn’t even have the time to consult with their communities. That was something that was echoed across submissions. This is too important to be ramming through without due consideration.

Now, I do want to acknowledge that the entirety of the bill was not a complete disaster. Thanks to some really strong voices, particularly from iwi Māori, we’ve seen and do support the strengthening of Māori rights and interests when it comes to Treaty settlement obligations, particularly to Te Ture Whaimana o Te Awa o Waikato and Ngāti Rangi, which is now provided for in the bill. It is right and a good thing that these provisions also apply to all persons who are exercising functions, powers, and duties under this bill. We also really welcome the fact that regional councils can now be part of considerations, discussions—and even potential water entities themselves—because we see their role as a key way to actually provide equity across communities, to actually provide a voice for some communities who are ultimately being left behind in this.

However, ultimately, we’re not supporting this bill, because there is still this unacceptable void of involvement for iwi and hapū who have not yet settled. This is completely unacceptable. We live in Aotearoa, where tangata whenua have existing rights and sovereignty, particularly when it comes to fresh water and freshwater systems. The role of iwi Māori, in their partnership with the Crown under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, means we have obligations, and they need to be clearly provided for in water-service governance and delivery with really clear mechanisms for iwi Māori voice and representation, particularly in terms of protection of their rights and interests.

The other key parts of this bill that we absolutely oppose are those that take us further away from appropriate investment in adequate drinking water, waste-water, and stormwater infrastructure. This would allow, particularly, not only for environmental improvement but for this actual achievement of te mana o te wai, which we know is central to what we need in this country to actually turn the dial in the freshwater space. Now, where this is particularly glaring in the bill is in these perverse single standards proposed for waste water and stormwater, and also the removal of the objective to provide water services that do not have adverse effects on the environment.

Now, I firstly want to pick up on this perverse single standards for stormwater and waste water, because they’re absolutely ill-thought-out and they’re absolutely dangerous when it comes to our environment and our communities, particularly in terms of their disconnection between the actual receiving environment—be that a river, an estuary, or an ocean—and the actual environmental outcomes that communities want to see in those receiving environments.

We know that these stormwater and waste-water standards will override any existing or more stringent standards or limits already set in key legislation. This is across national policy statements, it’s across the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement, our national environment standards, or our regional district plans. This is completely overriding community voice and the processes that communities have been in for so many years in actually achieving this. There have been lots of councils who are really concerned about this. I wanted to pick up, particularly, on Environment Canterbury’s submission, because they point out really clearly—just taking Ōtautahi Christchurch’s waste-water discharge to ocean as an example. This is just north of Ōtautahi Christchurch city. The single standard for this was no more than 1,000 colony-forming units of enterococci bacteria in 75 percent of samples and no more than 5,000 in the remaining 25 percent of samples. Now, this new single standard takes that to 40,000 enterococci colony-forming units in 90 percent of samples.

The absolute worst part about this is that, when you combine this with the removal of the objective to actually provide water services that do not have adverse effects on the environment, it means Kiwis and communities are missing the boat with an actual futureproof reform that would put an end to essentially this ambulance-at-the-bottom-of-the-cliff approach to our water services. Instead, we’re just going to muddle along with this phony solution that further entrenches our failure to design, build, and deliver infrastructure projects that protect the health of our communities and the health of the environment.

The Minister, in his opening comments, talked about choices. I think what’s really glaringly troubling about this bill is questioning on what planet it makes sense to actually choose to deprioritise the safety and quality of people’s drinking water. Why would we choose to set up the conditions that risk locking in further under-investment in substandard infrastructure that, ultimately, harm human and ecosystem health? This is just an incredible and unfortunate missed opportunity. What we’re really disappointed about is that our pressing water issues won’t go away. They’re just going to continue to be exacerbated and get worse over these years and decades. Communities deserve so much better, and they can next year when we actually vote this Government out. Kia ora.

It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of ACT and speak in support of the Local Government (Water Services) Bill. Firstly, I want to thank all the submitters to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. We had 180 submissions and a number of people actually presented in person, a number of them councils and other organisations which did very detailed submissions that would actually improve this bill, and, as the Minister said, we had 366 amendments. There was obviously a lot of interest by stakeholders directly affected by this bill, and I do want to thank them for the time that they took. As I said, I think we’ve greatly improved it with their input.

I know that some stakeholders still have some concerns, particularly around waste-water and stormwater consenting, etc., and I think we just need to make sure that we continue to look at how we’re going to align this bill and the issues there around the Resource Management Act changes in due course and make sure we do have consistent standards and approaches so that we’re not making people jump through too many hoops.

But let me be clear: this bill was well signalled by the Government, and it was in response to the total rejection by the electorate of the previous Government’s three waters. So this is the reason we have come up with the three bills. This is the third and final piece, and what this is doing is ensuring that we address the historic under-investment in water infrastructure but doing it in a flexible way and an efficient way that the ratepayers can actually afford in their communities. I’ve heard a lot of talk across the House tonight, but this actually does provide flexible options for councils to decide how they do their water services in their area and what works best for them.

The other thing I can confirm is that councils are well advanced in their plans because this has been well signalled. So there will be no problem in this being implemented. I commend this bill to the House.

Charles Dickens said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,”, and he was talking about A Tale of Two Cities. But I want to pick up from what Todd Stephenson was talking about: the tale of two bills. This bill has been through the Finance and Expenditure Committee. They have heard 183 submissions; 367 amendments. I might say that that shows you that a select committee is thinking, listening very carefully, and doing its work very well, and I think that is about authenticity in terms of responding.

I want to compare that with a Labour piece of legislation, which we’ve just had alluded to: 88,000-plus submissions. Did they listen? No, they did not—no, they did not. But to be lectured by the Labour Party over there about what this bill is doing, when they ignored 88,000-plus submissions, is galling in the extreme.

This bill gives councils choices—this bill gives councils choices. I know that those councils are thinking about those choices, they’re working hard on those choices, and they’re coming up with the solutions that they think are the most appropriate.

Did the Labour Party give those councils choices? Well, first of all, they said, “We’re going to allow you to opt in”, and then said—

Tom Rutherford: Voluntary. Voluntary.

ANDY FOSTER: Oh, it’s voluntary. And then they’re going to say, “We’re going to allow you to opt out if you really want to.” And then they said, “No, damn it, you’re in—you are in—regardless of whether you wanted to or not.” What is that, other than dictating to them? That gave the councils no choice whatsoever. I know, because I was on the other end of that. That really caused councils a lot of trauma; that causes councils a lot of trauma. Local Government New Zealand has not recovered from that yet. And you saw, of course, the setting up of campaign for local democracy. So do you think councils supported what Labour was doing? Hell no, they did not—no, they did not. What have we heard in this one? We’ve heard that councils, by and large, responded to it constructively, positively, and we have responded to them by making changes to the legislation through the select committee process.

The other thing I would like to just mention in terms of what else did Labour do with that—the enforced co-governance: did we have that? Did we see hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of billboards all over the country saying no to three waters? No, we did not. No, we did not see that rejection of this piece of legislation at all. This lead piece of legislation also did not spend $1.2 billion, I think it was—

Hon Member: Oh yeah, that’s right.

ANDY FOSTER: Yeah, $1.2 billion to get absolutely nowhere.

The last things I wanted to say: Labour’s proposal was very reliant on size. They kept saying, “Well, it’s going to save lots of money.” Well, of course it was—if you model it in a way which says that you’re going to have efficiency gains every year because it’s going to be bigger and better and brighter, of course it’s going to look bigger and better and brighter. But that was a nonsense, and we all know about that. At one stage, it reached right down to every two houses becoming a unit that would be managed in some way, some place hundreds and hundreds of kilometres away. Of course that offended people as well.

We all know that more needs to be done in the water area, but we can do more for less. We can be more efficient. One of the things, as I’ve said before in this House, is some councils are spending 40 percent of every investment in roads—and that includes all your water infrastructure—on traffic management. If we can get that cost down, we’re saving a lot of money and we’re able to do more for less.

Then, of course, there’s the consenting area. I’m going to give you one example. The re-consenting of waste water is ridiculously expensive. That is a challenge that a lot of councils face. We were in Blenheim the other day. They have a perfectly good waste-water system. It is going to cost that council $500 million to $700 million to discharge the land for 30,000 people. Every single man, woman, and child; that is $20,000. Is that affordable? No, it is not affordable. So not only did they do that; they gold-plated the system, they made it utterly unaffordable. I think this is the way forward.

Just in terms of under-investment, we’ve heard from the Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) that councils overall are spending 76 percent of what they should have been spending in terms of depreciation against renewals—76 percent for decades. And has the OAG called that out loudly? No, it hasn’t. I would say to the OAG: if that carries on, you, Taumata Arowai, and the Commerce Commission need to be putting the pressure on councils to make sure they invest properly in water infrastructure we can proud of and that can do its job into the future. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, this is what you get when you get the billboards all across the country, the knee-jerk, division-stoking “Stop three waters and co-governance” billboards across the country, and, in the words of the Prime Minister, you make policy based on bumper stickers. We have a significant infrastructure deficit in this country. In regard to water—the three waters being stormwater, sewerage, and drinking water—we need a proper investment in infrastructure. That’s what the three waters plan was seeking to do. It was finding the means to allow councils to afford what they did not have the rating base to afford. What this Government does is it throws out the magic money tree that you guys use to give $2.9 billion in tax cuts to landlords.

Hon Member: No. To give them the rightful tax cuts they should have to do business.

STEVE ABEL: And you wonder why everyone’s leaving the country, because there’s no redistribution of wealth.

Hon Member: Pretty normal stuff. You distribute it amongst them.

STEVE ABEL: Back to the subject—

Andy Foster: Yeah, keep to the subject.

STEVE ABEL: Well, I was responding to one of your chaps interjecting, which is permitted, I believe. Because we don’t have that proper investment in infrastructure, those local councils now are having to find the money through their rating base. What does that mean? Rates are going up. And what does it mean? The other thing you’re seeing is water bills are going up. There are people throughout this country right now, and I know in my part of West Auckland, where they can’t afford to pay their water bill, the water that they need to drink, that they need to cook their food, that they need to wash their children—all those things. They can’t afford to pay for that basic necessity of safe drinking water and household domestic water. That’s in part because of this infrastructure deficit that this Government is in denial of needing to be addressed at a central level.

One of the most egregious things was the removal of a part of the bill that said that its objective should be to provide water services that do not have adverse effects on the environment. Now, all of our water comes from the environment. This might be a shock to the members of the Government, but all of the water that we depend on has its origin in rivers, lakes, aquifers, or rain clouds, and that protection of the environment is the means to ensure that we have safe and clean drinking water.

What you get in those parts of rural New Zealand where we have a major issue with contamination of drinking water and groundwater with nitrate—most of which comes from dairy cow urine, followed by synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, followed by other forms of livestock urine—that nitrate contamination gets there through means of inundation and infiltration into the catchment that leads to the feeding of the aquifer. The people of Canterbury depend on that aquifer for their drinking water. Nitrate is extremely expensive to remove from drinking water, so you should be preserving and protecting the source water in the first instance. This Government, in concert with what they’re doing here in this legislation, they are also removing all the legislative frameworks that protect drinking water through protecting fresh water. They’re removing the freshwater protections that ensure that we have access to safe, clean aquifers and rivers.

One of the stark statistics is that currently, in New Zealand, there are a hundred cases of bowel cancer each year—new cases—attributable to nitrate water contamination, most of it in rural New Zealand and rural areas due to aquifer contamination. There are 40 deaths from nitrate contamination, in terms of bowel cancer in this country, every year—40 people a year die.

Suze Redmayne: Oh, that’s a long bow.

STEVE ABEL: That’s straight out of Otago University, Suze Redmayne. I can give you the paper if you’d like. It’s published international academic literature. Due to nitrate contamination of drinking water, 40 people a year are dying from bowel cancer.

What does this Government do about it? It removes the protections on fresh water. It gets rid of the means by which we ensure that our environment and the impact on that is protected, which is the source of our drinking water. It shows the absolute illogic of the way that this Government thinks about things because it doesn’t realise the environment is connected to us; we are part of it.

The so-called bumper sticker of “Stop three waters” was not a bumper sticker by this Government. That was a bumper sticker that was being held up—have a look on the internet—by New Zealanders, that was being held up by community groups, that was being held up by the mayors of this country. “Stop three waters”. Our bumper sticker was, “National will repeal and replace three waters”. That is what we are doing today with this second reading, this very key piece of legislation—the third piece of legislation.

This delivers on our election promise to deliver better water services for New Zealanders. It restores councils’ ownership and control of their assets and enables communities to sustainably invest. They can borrow, now, through the local government funding authority—and any suggestion that the local councils are not enthused by this, then look at the Department of Internal Affairs’ own report: 66 councils are involved, 36 indicative delivery models are already under way, 14 multi-council council-controlled organisations (CCOs) are in place—Selwyn has already been announced with its CCO; they have worked well together. This is a hugely successful reform.

The Labour Government—when they were in Government—said that we would never be able to find something to replace three waters with; well, this is what we have. Councils are loving it. It will deliver great results for New Zealanders.

When the Labour Party said that National and its cronies would never be able to find something to replace it with, it wasn’t because we thought they were going to deliver higher rates for New Zealanders. That is exactly what this trio of water reforms that this Government has delivered is delivering for New Zealanders.

The Department of Internal Affairs’ advice that the select committee heard as part of this process indicated that most ratepayers will incur higher costs compared to the previous water reform approach initiated by the previous Government. When people were driving up and down the highways looking at those National Party signs “We’ll repeal and replace”, did they include the sentence “and we’ll put up your rates bill”? That is what is happening as a result of this series of reforms. The Department of Internal Affairs’ advice to the committee and what the committee heard made it abundantly clear that that is the case.

What we are seeing is that it fragments our water systems, making it harder, not easier, for communities to afford safe, modern infrastructure. The Government is replacing a form of centralisation—and we all remember that railing that we heard from the National Party and the other parties that now form this Government; the railing we heard about that. What it is doing is replacing that, and what’s more, it is threatening councils that, if they don’t comply, the Government is going to step in and do it for them. That’s not what we’re hearing in the speeches from the Government members tonight: the coercive nature of what this legislation can and does impose on councils.

Instead of enabling collaboration, the bill is forcing smaller councils to go it alone, and this is undermining efficiency and sustainability. Regulatory oversight is being imposed, and the cost of compliance is being dumped on to already overstretched councils. This is a Government that says it’s making it a priority to make sure we’ve got regulatory standards in this country. Yet in this bill, what are we doing? There’s an imposition of these regulations on to councils that are going to lead to higher rates bills for many, many, many New Zealanders. National Party candidates across the country are going to have to face up to their voters next year and explain why their Government has put in place a series of reforms that is delivering higher rates. That in a cost of living crisis, that is what the National Party has chosen to make a priority.

Let’s look at some of the detail that the committee went into in this bill. The shifting of the financial risk to councils and ratepayers was one of the key things that came through. This is where the coercive nature does come through, because there is now a requirement under this legislation for every council to develop and submit a water services plan that meets financial sustainability and regulatory compliance tests, but there are no new funding mechanisms to follow this—councils are required to do this, but there is no ability for there to be the capacity within those councils to prepare those plans. It forces councils to ring-fence water revenue but not does nothing to address the real infrastructure funding gap.

When we heard Cameron Brewer saying that Labour said it could never be done, well, it hasn’t been done in this legislation. It has not done that absolute fix for what has been decades in the making, and what there has to be: the ability to have a long-term vision to fix via Government. This Government is finding that—that infrastructure funding gap has sat there and undermined our prosperity and our growth for far too long in this country. It is short-term thinking, and all it is doing is imposing more costs on to ratepayers. That gap is not insignificant; it is up to $185 billion over 30 years. Let’s get real about the challenge in front of us.

What we have seen from the National Government and their coalition partners is rates increases for New Zealanders. We’ve seen a lack of long-term thinking. We’ve seen an inability to actually come up with solutions. All they have done is what they have done for the last nearly two years of being in Government, which is to think success is undoing, without having any vision or any plan of what to put in place and, at the same time, imposing more costs on New Zealanders during a cost of living crisis. Labour is most definitely not supporting this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I don’t know how we get accused of adding more costs on. We go back to the Nanaia Mahuta model where there were four entities and co-governance, and today we’ve heard most of these entities have all chosen their own pathway: 65 percent have grouped together. That’s democracy. Minister Brown sorted out WaterCare Auckland with $300k, when the last Government spent over a billion dollars—a billion dollars. The last Government talked about co-governance and undemocratic, and we talked about council-controlled organisations (CCOs) and proportional shareholding. Tangi Utikere talked about the financial implications. We’re talking about debt to revenue, and we have increased the CCOs’ ability to borrow up to 500 percent, so they can borrow more to represent the life commensurate with the asset. This is good. You want a vision—here’s a good one for you. I commend this bill to the House.

All of this [holds up bill]—and we can all thump it down. A big, beautiful bill? Or a big, beautiful nonsense? My colleague Tangi Utikere said that this was the third in a trilogy of bills around water services and, of course, that just invited me to think about a trilogy that I’ve read, along with my daughters: The Hunger Games trilogy. You might recall that in The Hunger Games, in the first of those books, a corrupt Government sets children to fight against each other to the death. In the second of that trilogy, the districts start to fight back. But in the third of the trilogy—and is this is a tragedy, this trilogy—the rebels start to fight amongst themselves, they start to kill each other off, and then they turn around and just want to implement the same system all over again.

I want to pick up on a very particular point that I don’t think quite enough attention is being paid to by the people over there who are provoking this fight to the death: you see, what’s going to happen, and it has been clearly signalled and very much talked about right through the process of this bill, is that in order to pay for the water infrastructure, rates will have to go up. Now, this previous Government had a solution which involved central government helping with that expense so that rates were not going to go up in this excessive fashion. But this Government has introduced a solution that means that rates will increase. This year alone, in the Clutha District Council—Mr Stephenson, you’ll be interested in this—rates are going up by 16.59 percent. In Upper Hutt, rates are going up by 15.78 percent. In the Hamilton City Council—this is for you, Mr Hamilton—rates are going up 15.5 percent. In Waipā District Council, the rates increased 15.5 percent. In Hastings District Council, 15 percent. In Selwyn District Council, 14.2 percent. In Grey District Council, 13.73 percent. Another one for you, Mr Stephenson: in Queenstown Lakes District Council, 13.5 percent. In Westland District Council, 13.2 percent.

Now, these statistics, these figures on rates increases—the source for that? The Taxpayers’ Union. They are the people who are worried about increasing rates, not that Government over there. That’s quite an interesting position for them to be in.

So as this mess was put together, the mess that that Government has not dealt with is the issue of who pays. There is a pattern in this country of central government pushing requirements on to local government without the requisite funding mechanisms—local government, which has very limited funding mechanisms, which has to turn over and over again to its ratepayers to ensure that it can pay for the things that central government has mandated it must do. That Government over there has mandated these water reforms and has given it the semblance—the semblance—of councils being free to choose what they want to do, but—the consequence? These are extraordinary rates increases. In a time of a cost of living crisis, that Government is forcing rates increases on the ordinary people of New Zealand. What a shame. This bill is a piece of trash, and we are voting against it.

This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.