Watts SimonSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to rise to speak on Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 310. And isn't it ironic that we're back here in the House when only a few—or literally last week or the week before we were in here under urgency undertaking a debate in the committee of the whole House stage lasting nearly 10 hours and a debate that went well into the night and bright and early in the next morning. But the fact is we're here today because of basically a significant mistake that was made on that evening. And there should be lessons that are taken from what occurred at that point from the Government in terms of the decisions that were made and the impact of that decision in terms of the controversial nature of it—and also I think what was a dangerous precedent in terms of our democracy.The Government has apparently by accident or by mistake defied a constitutional precedent that is a result of where we are today now on an embarrassing backtrack. And so let's go back on some of the time line in terms of what led us to where we are. In December of last year the concept of entrenchment was first raised by the parties of the House from a letter from the Minister. And on that basis—as has been clearly made—National did not support the Water Services Entities legislation in general and we did not support the entrenchment aspect and therefore we opposed Labour's first proposal around this model.But during this time—and as we saw in the debate that occurred last week in the committee stage when the Hon Eugenie Sage tabled her Supplementary Order Paper 285 to entrench the privatisation provisions within this bill. But the challenge with that Supplementary Order Paper is that it reduced the usual percentage of 75 percent majority within this House down to 60 percent and that was quite simply because it was known that National—and I'm sure other members of the Opposition—would not support that Supplementary Order Paper or that entrenchment.But irrespective of that point and irrespective of the public impression and the pressure around this the Government used its majority to ram through this change. And I think there's a perception out there potentially by some members of the public that this was slipped in under the radar. Well I can be very clear—and for those that were members in the Chamber and in here when that occurred—that is absolutely false. In truth the senior Labour Ministers and the PM missed this because it was debated extensively in this House and during that debate that evening the Minister herself admitted under questioning that the Attorney-General had submitted advice against the entrenchment provisions. She said it in as many words and I quote We know that while this particular SOP may not pass the constitutional threshold there is a moral obligation of people who believe that privatisation should not occur to support that particular SOP".And during that call I made on the topic I said and I quote "it's quite interesting where in effect against the recommendations of the Attorney-General we're going to now imply this new trigger point which is our moral obligation! Who cares what everyone else thinks; we're just going to come up with a new position! … [and] that's a real disappointment but that is what is going on here—and against the advice of other players. They know that it is not practical mechanism—that even an eventuality which would never occur this would [not] be effective." It was very clear that despite the points made by the Minister that there was a moral obligation for the Minister to support this they clearly did not communicate to the other members within their own party that this amendment was going to be voted for.So my question for the House today is: how did we get to this place—how did we get to this place? I asked oral questions today to the Minister in the hopes of an answer and I wasn't satisfied in terms of that. So my questions are as follows. When did the Minister become aware of the amendment to push for a 60 percent entrenchment—in particular what correspondence did the Minister have before the Supplementary Order Paper was tabled? When were the Prime Minister and other members senior members within the Labour Party made aware of this Supplementary Order Paper? And what correspondence was entered into before making the decision of what occurred in the House that has led us to where we are today?We then saw an extended process of back and forward and as played out further today between Ministers and other members of the Labour Party in terms of basically saying that they were not aware of what occurred on that evening. So what exactly occurred to lead to this screw-up? With all the talk of referrals to the Business Committee that occurred over the weekend—and on Sunday the Government finally admitted that it got it wrong. And I have a question about that: why was it that the Minister did not recognise that this was a mistake even when Opposition members in this House raised it in the debate before the Supplementary Order Paper was voted upon and Opposition parties voted against the Supplementary Order Paper—and when the Minister knew that the Attorney-General and other senior legal academics had raised it why did they wait until as late as Sunday to be able to say that this was a mistake? Or was it only when they saw that the public outcry in regards to this mistake was clear—they knew there was no way back? This has obviously raised a number of issues in regards to the outrage of Kiwis across this country and it's worth noting why. The New Zealand Parliament can only change some of its statutes simply by amending these statutes usually by a simple majority of the House of Representatives and it can therefore amend the New Zealand Constitution. To prevent abuse of this amending power a very small number—only six statutory provisions are entrenched and these provisions can only be changed by a 75 percent majority of the House of Representatives or by more than 50 percent at referendum. All but one of these provisions are contained in the Electoral Act 1993 and one in the Constitution Act 1986. These are all constitutional provisions that protect us and our democracy from dictatorships and long parliaments; all are absolutely fundamental to our democratic rights. It is utterly inappropriate to attempt to entrench a particular policy outcome regardless of the support that it enjoys at a particular time. What is equally inappropriate—indeed it is cynical—is to attempt to reduce the entrenchment threshold to a level that is lower than what has been used before at 75 percent simply because it was inevitable that this would not be passed if it remained at 75 percent. All these facts were known leading in to that evening and that decision when that was voted upon and opposed by National and also ACT at the committee of the whole House stage when the Minister first raised it. So I go back to my questions to the Minister: how did we get to where we are today? This is not a new concept. Never in the history of this country have we seen an ability or an action by a Government to try and institute entrenchment around such public policy. This was well understood. So what does that say about this Government and their ability to make decisions and to lead this country into the future? Whether this mistake was deliberate or simply one where Government of the day here did not care—irrespective; it doesn't matter. The reality is the decision was made the vote was taken and we are now dealing with a colossal mess of having to reverse that change and that is completely inappropriate in a democracy such as ours in this country—one of the earliest and longest-lasting democracies—to have that occur."