Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. Look for the viewers watching Parliament TV the people listening at home it's clear there's not a lot of point litigating this stuff with this Minister. This Minister has offered barely a defence of the three waters reform and the Water Services Entities Amendment Bill. This Minister hasn't even bothered to book in Department of Internal Affairs' staff to appear with them here tonight. He's sitting here unsupported in the Chamber—for those of you who are listening and not watching. Where are the officials that this Minister would usually have lined up behind him? Or have they given up on the reforms as well?Because I'll tell you what: those officials from the Department of Internal Affairs who have been given this task who might have actually delivered something coherent and workable based on what they briefed David Seymour and I back in 2020 before the election I think they've given up too. I don't think they even care if this passes or not. Their heart's not in it. You're here all by yourself Minister.So here's the question for you: did they give up and throw in the towel on your reform programme Minister when one of your Labour Party colleagues Rachel Boyack proposed to put fair pay agreement collective bargaining nonsense into a water services bill? Did they say We don't have time for this. We've got to get a water services piece of infrastructure through."? I think that's what they said. In fact I might have heard them say it. Minister you're going to pass this tonight.Hon Scott Simpson: No.Nicola Grigg: No.SIMON COURT: Maybe tomorrow maybe this week. Certainly in the next three weeks. Minister when this bill passes instead of four chief executives required for four ginormous water service entities there's only going to be one needed—one that's going to go to the northern entity "entity A" the Auckland and Northland entity. The three chief executives the Department of Internal Affairs have hired as implementation or transition chief executives for the other three entities well those three entities are gone with this bill—they're gone.Minister I asked you this afternoon in the House in the Estimates debate on local government will the Department of Internal Affairs make the three chief executives whose roles are made redundant when this passes—will they make those chief executives redundant? Or will they keep them warm? Will they keep them warm? Will they put them in the warming draw in case some new juicy roles come up that they might just want to apply for? Or will they do the right thing and send them back to the job market so the private sector can determine if those three spare chief executives—maybe the private sector can discover what they're worth.Are they worth between $600000 and $800000 a year or are they not? Because the Department of Internal Affairs won't need them the water services entities won't need them the taxpayers won't need them. So when this bill passes—whether it's today tonight whenever it gets Royal assent—Minister will you tell the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) to make those people paid millions of dollars in taxpayer money currently for sitting around doing goodness knows what—will you tell the DIA to send them packing get them back on to the job market? Maybe they can do something efficient in the private sector. Maybe they can even apply for a role with one of the 10 water service entities or the other nine hopefully at much lower chief executive pay rates. Because it beggars belief—CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Mr Court you're getting off the section—well off.SIMON COURT: Unfortunately Mr Chair all of this came up in select committee and it was not resolved. But I take your point.Let's not punish this Minister any more. He's suffered enough with this hospital pass of a Water Services Entities Amendment Bill. He's suffered enough. Soon the voters will end his suffering. He'll be a backbencher like me. I tell you what: I reckon being a backbencher is a lot more fun than being a Minister in a Labour Government. Minister the voters are going to offer you that opportunity. But in the meantime what ACT says is you can adopt our Supplementary Order Papers. If you do that I'll go back to our leader David Seymour and our caucus and I'll ask "Could we therefore support the bill passing with ACT's recommended changes?" It's quite likely we could. But if you won't support it Minister there's no point in ACT continuing to labour the point. The voters will make up their mind. Minister the ball's now in your court."