Pugh Maureen; Brooking RachelLOCAL GOVERNMENT (WATER SERVICES PRELIMINARY ARRANGEMENTS) BILLSecond ReadingDebate resumed from 25 July.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Good evening members. I call on Government order of the day No. 3. This is the Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. There are two calls left and it is the Labour Party call. I call the Hon—Hon Members: Rachel Brooking.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): —Rachel Brooking. I'm so sorry. I've got to get my House head back on!Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you Madam Speaker. There is much excitement to be making this speech given that it is an interrupted debate—and I thought I might have got in before the dinner break but alas no. And of course at the end of last week's sitting week as well I was ready to go. So here I am speaking in opposition to this Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill which of course is all about pipes and treatment stations.I'll go back and remind the House of some of the previous speeches we've had on this bill given that I am speech No. 11. We're about to hear speech No. 12 and then that's it for the second reading. Of course we heard from the Hon Kieran McAnulty that the main implication from this piece of legislation is that rates will go up and that is the fault of this central government not of councils.We heard from the Hon Dr Deborah Russell about how this was not helping small councils. We know in New Zealand we have huge infrastructure problems and particularly with those small councils. There are 68 councils that provide water infrastructure. A lot of them are very small and this bill won't help them.We heard as well from the Hon Dr Megan Woods about how this bill is taking us backwards. It is not dealing with our infrastructure funding problems at all and it is more centralisation. We keep hearing from the other side tonight about localism and the importance of that yet here we have central government being able to tell councils what to do and not make any funding towards that. And we heard her ask the Government spokespeople on this bill whether they would stand up and say that this will not lead to privatisation of our water assets. I have not heard an answer to that question. There is one more speech in the second reading and I hope that that question will be answered.We also heard from Simon Court of the ACT Party and he lead off in his contribution about lead in pipes in my part of the world—in fact in the very beautiful electorate of Dunedin. He was talking about Karitane but also Waikouaiti and Hawksbury where there was a lead scare in the water system. Now he blamed that on the city council and that the pipes were old. In fact there was a long investigation as to why elevated lead was found in the water in those very beautiful northern suburbs and people were very worried about it. It was never determined what the case was but it certainly wasn't determined that it was lead in pipes but it may be some of the tap hardware. And that problem is one that is a very important one but it is not as simple as Simon Court made out.He then went on to say that changes in this bill around Te Mana o te Wai were somehow to make sure that when councils are considering water infrastructure—of course waste water treatment in particular—waste water wouldn't be put into fresh water. And he was suggesting I think I heard that we should be like Singapore and be reusing our water. In that way of course Singapore is quite different from New Zealand. It's a lot smaller physically and has a lot of people in it as well and we have very different infrastructure constraints from Singapore.But what I want to focus on is this talk about the changes to Te Mana o te Wai because quite strangely in this bill there is a Part 5 that was inserted and that is to amend section 138 of the Taumata Arowai Act. And that Act says at section 138(1) that Taumata Arowai—which of course is the water regulator created under the previous Government because we know that drinking water can be substandard and that has produced health problems. One of the first components of a full reform of our water infrastructure issues was to get a water regulator in place. So we have this water regulator and under section 138 they can make waste water environmental performance standards. Now there is nothing in that talking about the Resource Management Act (RMA) or in fact the national policy statement on freshwater but this change that we have in Part 5 of this bill—that section that I just summarised—says that there would be an insertion that When making these wastewater environmental performance standards … Taumata Arowai must not have regard to the hierarchy of obligations in clause 1.3(5) of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management."And if you go to that clause 1.3 in the national policy statement for freshwater it talks about this fundamental concept of Te Mana o te Wai. It talks about the concept it talks about the framework it talks about the principles and then at subclause (5) there's a hierarchy of obligations prioritising health and wellbeing of waterbodies then the health needs of people such as drinking water and then the ability of people and communities to provide for their social economic and cultural wellbeing now and into the future. So what this bill does is say that you can think about all the other things about Te Mana o te Wai but not that hierarchy. And why does this bill do this? I have no idea.But another curious things about this bill is that they insert a new section 138A and that is a "King Henry VIII" clause so that if this national policy statement on freshwater is amended the insertion I've just been talking about can be repealed. Why would you go to the lengths of having a "King Henry VIII" clause—which of course we know nobody likes; nobody who thinks about making good laws recommends having "King Henry VIII" clauses. But here we have one so that a body that already doesn't mention the RMA can't think about one particular subclause of this national policy statement. And that subclause is all about a hierarchy that puts the water body at the top and commercial interests at the bottom. So why is it that this Government is so obsessed with getting references to this hierarchy out of legislation—legislation that is not even mentioned in the first place? That can only be because they want more pollution and that will lead to dirtier water that people will drink. Shame on them.Now I've been in this House many times talking about pipes and treatment stations and I have to say they're very important things. We all know that for good societies to work we need to be able to get rid of our waste water in a sanitary way and we need to be able to drink clean drinking water. We also know that stormwater is a huge issue in New Zealand and we're seeing more and more problems with that with climate change. That is why Nanaia Mahuta worked so hard when we were in Government to address the problems of how you fund the upgrades of all of that infrastructure. And this bill does not address those issues. This bill enables councils to do what they can already do in terms of having council-controlled organisations. We've seen that. We see that here in Wellington. We know that there are already council-controlled organisations and it doesn't fix any of the funding issues that are still issues. This bill will no nothing except for cost ratepayers more and it is just like everything to do with water that this Government seems to be interested in promoting. It's just shameful."