SpeechHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I'm pleased to take a call on the Water Services Legislation Bill. So we know that four water services entities are going to take over responsibility for service delivery and infrastructure for three waters from local authorities on 1 July 2024. Those four entities will provide three waters services to 85 percent of the population: around 4.3 million New Zealanders. The remainder of the population have got their own supplies or are on small community or private schemes. The Parliament passed the Water Services Entities Bill last Thursday that established the governance accountability and reporting arrangements for the entities and included some of the transitional arrangements and the Department of Internal Affairs oversight powers. So this bill is the third in a package of four bills. The first one the Taumata Arowai bill establishing Taumata Arowai as a regulatory agency we supported. The Greens opposed the Water Services Entities Bill at its third reading last week and that was largely because of the failure to secure the protections against privatisation of the new corporate entities because we favoured a council-controlled organisation model such as Watercare where it was very clear—point of order Mr Speaker. The members in front of me are talking quite loudly. Would it be possible for them to be quiet?Simon Court: Speaking to the point of order we accept that heckling is allowed but as long as—I understand—it's witty and infrequent. If the Speaker could just clarify.SPEAKER: I certainly will thank you very much. The reality is that members on the cross benches—and there are Speakers' rulings; I haven't got them in front of me right now—need to be mindful need to adjust the volume so that the member can be heard. Every member has the right to be heard in the debate. And so the Hon Eugenie Sage has felt the need to express that and so I just want to let members know on the cross benches they should be not so loud as to interfere with the giving of the speech.Hon EUGENIE SAGE: Thank you very much Mr Speaker. So because we favoured the council-controlled entity model; because we favour seven not four entities because we think seven entities would better reflect regional boundaries catchment boundaries; because we wanted stormwater to stay with councils we won't be supporting this bill because it provides the mechanics of how the entities will actually operate. It provides the details of how the assets and liabilities which local authorities currently hold will be transferred to the entities. It provides a lot of detail on the functions and powers of the entities that they will have in place of our local authorities and the regulatory functions and powers so that the entities can make the rules to provide for three waters and also engage in compliance and enforcement. It would have been very helpful if the Minister had talked about subsidiaries which the bill enables because it was very clear that the entities are not-for-profit Crown agencies—they don't pay a dividend as the previous speaker noted. But this bill provides for the establishment of subsidiaries which are able to pay dividends and there's quite a lot of detail in Schedule 5 about that but it's unclear as to whether these subsidiaries are to enable public-private partnerships or exactly what they are for. So the Greens have got some concerns about that. In terms of the regulatory powers and functions that the bill provides for it means that the entities can establish controlled drinking-water catchment areas such as Watercare operates in the Hunua Ranges and the Waitakere Ranges. We think this provision should have more power because the entities cannot make any rules about what happens in that land area unless they have the permission of the landowner. And if it's good enough under the replacement for the Resource Management Act to be able to have designations for renewable drinking water the Greens think we need to be able to give much more attention to protecting our water sources which is what controlled drinking water catchments should be all about and controlling the activities that occur in those catchments. And while the Government is saying that the entities will mean that in a generation or so we will get swimmable rivers I would like to point out that yes some of our rivers are polluted because of waste-water discharges but it is generally the land uses in catchments—particularly intensive agriculture—that has led to the pollution of rivers not always three waters. The bill also includes pricing and charging arrangements for water services and it signals a move away from these being paid by rates to an approach which involves direct billing of homeowners. Currently households pay an average of about $1300 annually for three waters and it is $1400 annually in Auckland. It's much lower in smaller councils where those councils haven't been investing adequately and aren't covering depreciation. The Department of Internal Affairs says that this regime will be more affordable and I think the jury is obviously out on that. The charges will be paid by property owners regardless of whether they are in residence or not and they'll be passed on by landlords to renters. I understand that Internal Affairs considered direct charges on tenants and residents but decided that that regime would be too complex. But here the Greens have some concerns because access to drinking water is a basic human right. We want to see more clarity around what basic allocations of water will be provided to households. What are the guard rails around the entity's ability to restrict water supply as a compliance measure and what are the guard rails around the penalties on unpaid water charges? We want much more certainty around what a minimum sufficient water supply is. While the bill doesn't provide for a free base allocation of water it does set some pricing principles. But we note that entities such as—well Watercare has got very clear policy in this area about when restrictions on supply can be imposed and a clear policy that if it's in doubt about the situation of a household and whether it's got people who are elderly or with medical or health concerns it does not restrict supply. So there are certainly some mechanisms in the bill to protect vulnerable citizens with this concept of geographic average pricing to smooth out and share costs across communities but there are also provisions for volumetric pricing. That's certainly a mechanism for encouraging water conservation and in places like Christchurch where the city council has installed water meters but doesn't use them it is now concerned about the inadequate attention to water conservation. But volumetric pricing can also potentially penalise large households which may use a certain volume per person which would be smaller than a small household but they end up paying more. So there is a power for the Minister to set regulations to limit the proportion of the entity's charges which are volumetric. We'd like to see a bit more detail around that. We're pleased that there's an ability to include water charges as part of a claim for a rates rebate but we do want to see a few more of these guard rails to protect vulnerable communities. One of the other reasons we are opposing the bill is the provision around rural water supplies which the Minister outlined. That means that rural water supplies which are currently operated by local authorities for the provision of drinking water and also to provide water for irrigation for agriculture and horticulture—they go across to the entities. But then if the entities get approached by an alternative supplier they can make that decision after a referendum that the water supply be transferred across because—Simon Court: Nonsense. Hon EUGENIE SAGE: Well the ACT member is saying Nonsense." The ACT member should actually read the bill. So this provision to allow for transfer we see as the privatisation of valuable water which agribusiness will benefit from because we have got these mixed-use rural supplies in areas like Canterbury where the council has subsidised the taking of water from rivers like the Hakatere / Ashburton to provide for drinking water but also for stock water and irrigation. If those schemes are privatised it means that the rivers continue to suffer and the farmers get the benefit of all that investment and subsidies from the past communities. The ACT members are objecting to this but that is just typical. So that privatisation of these rural water supply schemes is another reason that we are opposing the bill going to select committee. Nevertheless we—unlike some members of the Opposition—will be working hard to improve the bill. We will be reading submissions closely and will take a constructive approach."