Leary IngridINGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you Madam Chair. I've got a question for the Minister. I've got a number of questions actually relating to Part 1 and the purpose of the bill to manage and deliver water services." and I'm wondering if he can explain to me in a number of scenarios what those words "manage" and "deliver" mean. My first reference point would be the Clutha District Council which could quite well be one of those orphaned councils. Originally the residents of Clutha in my electorate of Taieri were looking at an up-to 20 percent rates increase. The council has opted to do less than that but that is not going to fix the water problem so we're going to end up with a scenario where the councils are trying to keep the rates down to allow quite a senior population to potentially stay in their own homes and yet the water infrastructure will not be fixed and they will have difficulties and they will be probably very likely orphaned. So this has been an absolute headache for the small councils down in the lower South Island and I'd like to hear what the Minister's solution is for Clutha in particular. Would he be requiring it to join forces say with Dunedin City Council or with Christchurch City Council or does he have another scenario? Would there be a bailout or is this going to be the collapse of that council? Because there is no way that the people of Clutha can afford the rates rises that they would have needed which would minimum be in the 20s—and we're looking at the 30s—going forward if they were to actually manage water infrastructure. And would it be difficult under the scenario that my colleague the Hon Dr Megan Woods raised in the previous question?My second one relates to the people in Eastern Bush in Invercargill where they haven't had a significant rates rise. It's only about 10 percent but they've just been issued a three-year boiled water notice. So that's three years of boiled water because the water is deemed dangerous. There has been no incentive I guess for that council either to increase the rates because the councillors know this is the end of their political life. And if there's not going to be a bailout by the Government then I don't know what's going to happen. But they are looking at three years of boiled water. Is this a difficult situation in the scenario that was raised by my colleague the Hon Dr Megan Woods?The third situation is a little bit more complicated and goes to the situation in Auckland because when I look at the purpose of the bill and it talks about managing and delivering water services and then I go to the definition section to see what that includes it talks about "stormwater". And then when I go to the definition of "stormwater"—this is in the definition section—it refers to streams that could be related to the infrastructure. Now under the bill as it currently stands we had a really nimble solution to be able to resolve some of the problems that happened with flooding in Auckland because what happened was many properties that suffered significant damage and cost was a result of badly managed stormwater systems. And there are in fact 3000 kilometres of streams in Auckland. And the way the law was being applied prior to the legislation of the Labour Government was that individual councils could determine whether they required those water systems to be cleaned out or not and who bore the liability. And it was really a patchwork. What happened was we had some very perverse outcomes where some people in Auckland who maybe managed the stream going down by their property ended up having to face liability for stormwater overflows due to the—I would say—negligence of councils or perhaps even the bad behaviour of neighbours where they had allowed build-up in the streams. And there was no consistent application of the law. What happened under the legislation was that we were able to say "This needs to be uniform. There is a duty of care where it makes sense on the councils or they can put homeowners on notice and if the homeowner doesn't reasonably clean up the stream then they will be accountable."When I look in this repealing legislation it's silent on whether in those scenarios the streams in Auckland are part of the water infrastructure system and who would bear the liability in that case. The words "related to" are quite ambiguous. And so I'm keen to know how the Minister would see resolving that and whether he intends to do anything because if he doesn't and this piece of legislation remains silent on it then that is going to be a real headache because there will be events. We know that these one-in-100-year events are happening every year. This scenario will come up. We had costs estimated up to $14 billion as a result of weather-related events and storm water and flooding across particularly Hawke's Bay and Auckland. So that's not a minor issue that I'm raising. It is technical but it's very very important that we have clarity about what constitutes the stormwater network what constitutes waterways being related to the infrastructure and where that line is drawn whether the scenario had even been envisaged and whether there is going to be certainty for the water entities and for homeowners as to who bears the liability and what the accountability is if they do not keep these streams and rivers clear."