Twyford Phil; Williams Arena; Wade-Brown Celia; Brown SimeonHon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Madam Chair thank you. I'd just like to ask the Minister of Local Government some further questions about the purpose of the bill in relation to balance sheet separation. We have had some questions about balance sheet separation but it's my argument that they haven't been directly or adequately addressed by the Minister in his response.So given that much of the design of the legislation that this bill will repeal was put in place with the intent of achieving balance sheet separation in order to unshackle the water entities from the constraints that the rating agencies place on them in terms of the cost of borrowing and their debt limits I really invite the Minister to directly address the purpose of this bill in relation to balance sheet separation. Is it the purpose of the bill to eliminate balance sheet separation? Or is it the purpose of this bill to facilitate balance sheet separation continuing? There's plenty of public commentary from members of this Government acknowledging the importance of balance sheet separation.I was curious that the Minister in what seemed like a response to the questions about balance sheet separation talked about discussions with Auckland Council around financial sustainability. Well they're two different things. You could argue that balance sheet separation is a means to financial sustainability but there's plenty of evidence and plenty of literature out there to show that actually balance sheet separation is a very powerful tool in significantly increasing the amount of borrowing against existing revenue or assets.I'd like the Minister to tell the committee whether he's had advice from Standard & Poor's or any of the other rating agencies on the question of post repeal of this legislation whether or not the entities will be able to achieve balance sheet separation.And I'd like also to know whether the Minister's had advice about whether or not council-controlled organisations under the existing legislation can achieve that separation given that they're in fact subsidiaries that are controlled by the parent entity. I would have thought that's in contradiction of the necessity of entities that have balance sheet separation and will not be bailed out by the parent entity in the event of some kind of financial crisis. So I'll leave it there. Thank you.ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to take what will be a very brief call in this debate because I'm hoping that the Minister of Local Government will engage with me in a back and forth over five questions that I have relating to his previous answer about Auckland. But I'd also like to first say that I have seven amendments to this part which I seek to debate because I'm sure that the Minister will be interested in some of those which improve the purpose of the legislation.Can I just draw your attention Madam Chair to Speaker's ruling 124/5. This helps the House to understand our responsibility in this committee stage: Consideration by the committee of the whole House is the nuts and bolts stage in which a bill is considered as drafted to decide in effect whether the detailed clauses do properly incorporate the principle of the bill already agreed to by the House."So as we are debating the purposes of the bill what I'm seeking to do here is to set the committee up for a proper debate in Part 2 about whether my proposed amendments to Part 2—which there are four of—are incorporated into the principles here. So that is why I think we need a substantive debate on the principles and that's why I'm going to ask five questions to the Minister now about whether those principles quite capture his intent.So my first question of five to the Minister is: under paragraph (b) of clause 3 if a purpose of the bill is "to disestablish the Northland and Auckland Water Services Entity and make related transitional arrangements;" is it implied in that purpose that Aucklanders will be better off because of the disestablishment of that entity Minister? My second question related to that—unfortunately I would be happy to change this approach but I can't. So my second question is: if we take it that the Minister's intention is to improve the conditions for Aucklanders in the service delivery and in the amount that they pay for their water services is it also the purpose of the bill to improve the situation for South Aucklanders and particularly those in Papakura whose water is delivered by Veolia? The Minister will be familiar with this particular local quirk where a private provider provides the water services in some areas in South Auckland. It is something that the local councillors who represent this area have spoken a lot about—that the local member for Papakura the Hon Judith Collins has also spoken about—and it has a particular effect on South Aucklanders. I'd like to understand how that relates to the purpose described in paragraph (b).CELIA WADE-BROWN (Green): Thank you Madam Chair. I have a number of questions for the Minister of Local Government. Many people have spoken about people's health and the water and I would like to know if in any of this process of repeal he has considered any care for the other species that depend on the clean water of our awa or the shellfish that depend on the lack of sedimentation—sedimentation from dealing with stormwater improperly including that famous road of national significance Transmission Gully and the subsequent degradation of the Porirua Harbour.Secondly given the plans to repeal the urban development legislation and move that to the Resource Management Act does the Minister consider that mandating some kind of water sensitive urban design and helping nature clean up our water would be a cheaper and more effective way than always putting in more expensive infrastructure?I would also like you to look at your colleagues smearing local mayors—whether it's Councillor Foster myself previous Mayor Prendergast previous Mayor Wilde—when there were huge millions whether it was moving from $11 million in 2009 just on the capital expenditure of the water network through to more than $30 million in the current forecast; whether the attitude that we were not aware of underground damage for earthquakes—we were working on cross-contamination we were working on a number of things—from some of the members of this House is helpful to a future partnership that will last longer than the next three years.Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Thank you Madam Chair for the questions that were received. In regards to the issues in terms of Auckland Council I note that the member's put a number of amendments on the Table in regards to the Northland and Auckland entity. The Government has stated that we will be repealing Labour's 10-entity model which was a co-governed 10 entity mandated model. And the Northland and Auckland Water Services Entity which was the only entity which was actually under way—we are repealing the model and therefore we are repealing that entity as well. So we don't support it continuing. So we don't support the amendments that the member has put in place in relation to that.But what I would say is that officials are working very closely with Auckland Council and the mayor to ensure that we have a financially sustainable model for Watercare. The mayor has—including putting out a tweet yesterday saying that it's great to see the Government repealing this legislation. So I just want to put that on the table.In regards to the issue—sorry it wasn't a tweet it was an X. I should clarify that for the committee. The issue in regards to the Veolia contract is an issue for Watercare. In regards to the questions around the roads of national significance and the storm water I understand those issues aren't relevant to this part. And smearing local mayors again I don't think is relevant to this part either."