Watts Simon; Little Andrew; Leary IngridSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much Madam Chair. I want to move us to Schedule 2 which is part of Part 2 of this bill and an area that I haven't got in to substantial conversation to date on—but it's pretty significant because Schedule 2 outlines the water services entities and their service areas. There's been a huge amount of conversation through the select committee process in regards to this; not only how many entities there are—which of course has been landed on before—but what Schedule 2 Parts 1 to 4 outlines is all of the councils and where they're going to reside under this new model.My questions for the Minister in the chair potentially may be quite applicable because the Minister may be aware of other reforms currently under way by the Government that are also putting in place different geographical boundaries—I think off the cuff around health reforms or the localities model; I think about the recent Resource Management Act reforms in terms of boundaries. So my question here to the Minister is what consideration and what conversation was had with other Ministers in other portfolios in terms of looking to try and align the boundary that aligns on the map of New Zealand in order to get some consistency in terms of how we are managing and operating specific services—in this case water services—across this country?I'll give you an example—and it's in regards to Part 4 of Schedule 2 and you'll see a little footnote at the bottom with two elements: Marlborough District Council and Tasman District Council. Both of those councils are actually part of Part 3 which is Eastern and Central including Wellington. So in effect the top part of the North Island has been cut off and because they've used boundary lines that were through the Ngāi Tahu settlement process—and I acknowledge that that was some of the rationale. But why then is that potentially inconsistent with other reforms across other aspects of Government and in particular—if I link back to clauses 11 and 12 of Part 2 which if I remember off the cuff are the objectives and functions of the water services entities. As the Minister articulated in her opening conversation on Part 2 the substantive aspect of this bill is around synergies and the achievement of financial synergies and other synergies but particularly financial synergies in regards to operational expenditure and capital expenditure. You can see where I'm going with this—Marlborough and Tasman districts are up the top part of the South Island and all of the remaining elements of the entity of which they are part of sit in the lower North Island. There are no water pipes across the Cook Strait—maybe I'm out of touch but I'm pretty sure that's the case. There are no synergies in regards to slicing off those two elements at the top of the North Island but there's a huge amount of synergy that they have with other parts of the South Island and if I look at the boundary councils that are on the cusp of Marlborough and Tasman there's synergies there; we can't argue with that. But why has the Minister in this instance in effect trumped the Ngāi Tahu boundary over and above clause 11 and 12—which is the pure purpose of this bill to achieve more efficient safe and healthy drinking water—why has that been in effect deprioritised in this example? And based on that how does the Minister foresee in terms of the interaction occurring on waterways—particularly in the stormwater aspect that in effect span both the councils that are in Schedule 2 Part 4: the Southern Water Services entity and those that are part of the Eastern Water Entity. Because don't forget these two entities are going to be managed by two separate boards and two separate regional groups two different call centres—one probably in Wellington one in Christchurch. I'd appreciate it if the Minister could provide some context and some background to conversations in that regard.Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): Thank you Madam Chair and thank you to Mr Watts for that—I think you know a very important question. And I can tell him too—there were considerations given to aligning regions as we often do when we're looking at organisations that span the country looking at regions that might align with regions that have been established for other purposes. And the member is right; if you went through some of the big Government departments and operations you will find New Zealand carved up in a multiplicity of different sorts of ways. In relation to and at the time of course we were looking at this programme of work and this legislation. We were also doing the health reforms and we've got four regions scoped out for that and we did wonder whether there was some alignment. A couple of factors in this: first of all in order to get the iwi Māori input along the lines that is provided for in the framework we've got on this legislation it has to be noted that there is iwi Māori input along the lines that is provided for in the framework that we've got on this legislation. It has to be noted that there are iwi who do straddle the Cook Strait—so iwi here in this part of the North Island rohe and also the top of the South Island. So it was about getting some consistency there. And the second factor was—in the end this is about catchments particularly when it comes to stormwater. This is about catchments and making sure that when the entities are making decisions about how best to manage water flows throughout catchments they're reference points for consultation and make sense in that respect. And on that basis we determined the regions as they are defined. INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): I move That the question be now put.