Little Andrew: South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Little Andrew: South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 20 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8054. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) 
: 
 I appreciate the opportunity to take a call on the South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill. I think that with all due respect to the Hon Chester Borrows his account is a somewhat sweetened account—a sugar-coated account—of what happened and notwithstanding the Labour Party’s support for this bill I think it is important for the record to show how we got here and that the residual concerns for the Labour Party are questions of process. If there is one thing that has come to define and mark this Government it is its lack of respect for due process. 
We know from the previous speakers and indeed from Mr Borrows himself that the background to this scheme is that it was funded through a scheme in place at the time. There was a dollar for dollar or 50 percent public subsidy for the scheme. During the process of the local authority amalgamations and changes in the late 1980s it became the responsibility and the property of the South Taranaki District Council inherited from the old Egmont County Council. The fact that there was a 50 percent subsidy from the Government of the day reflected the two sets of interests: that the farmers who were part of the scheme would get value from having a water supply to supply their farms and the troughs and the people who live there and also that there was a community benefit in having good viable farms at a time when frankly it was the beginning of the renaissance of dairy farming. Taranaki has been a stronghold in dairy farming for many years even before this time so it occupied a very important place but the scheme remained in public hands notwithstanding the fact that the Government provided 50 percent of the cost because it reflected the sets of interests. 
The other public contribution was of course that in the early life of the scheme much of the maintenance was undertaken by the local council at its expense with no pass-on of costs to the farmers who were subscribers to it. The council looked after the operation the treatment plant and the head works so over a period of time that was a considerable expense. Then there was a move on to effectively privatising—for the local authority to divest its interest in it. It is interesting that at that meeting—and I have the minutes of that meeting and although Mr Borrows says there was no bullying the minutes are pretty clear about what was said and who said it and when—the chief executive of the South Taranaki District Council is quoted as saying when there was some resistance to the idea of privatising it and he himself was expressing some reservations: “The council has not changed tack. The decision on the books”—which was about divestment—“is still to investigate divestment via a local bill but there is now a stronger view that it is a strategic asset.” and therefore the council should retain it. 
Mr Borrows was at the crucial meeting on 15 August 2011 as was another member of this House Shane Ardern. Both are good members but they were at a meeting to push through and influence the council to bring about this divestment. Here is the point: they said that if the council did not agree then it would come to Parliament. Mr Shane Ardern is quoted as saying: “If Cold Creek community failed in their divestment request then there would be some legislative programme through Parliament that would bring about the kind of ownership it desired.” He went on to say that if the council did not proceed with divestment then the members of the scheme would take legal action which would cost a lot of money and headache for both parties. So the threat was there and that is what the concern is. 
That has led to an issue. One of the things that the bill provides for is that there is to be a referendum on divestment of the scheme and the question is whether it should be just for those who are subscribers to the scheme or for the wider community. Andrew Williams of New Zealand First has Supplementary Order Paper 179 calling for a broader referendum base and we support that referendum. We support the bill but we support that referendum because we think that that is what is needed to repair the due process or the process that has not been followed. Thank you.