Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Chair. Thank you very much—patience helps. Can I acknowledge the Minister and the detailed and comprehensive engagement with the bill as developed and with the House tonight.The Green Party recognises that Government has a mandate for this legislation and it has the majority to pass it through. Our position has been one of constructive engagement seeking changes through the select committee and then tabling some Supplementary Order Papers to seek some further changes.One of those—and it relates to Part 1 Preliminary provisions" clause 6 "Interpretation"—is around stormwater. I would encourage the previous speaker Mr Cameron to visit Ōtautahi Christchurch because the city council has implemented green stormwater infrastructure to a very large degree.Christchurch is built on a floodplain. It's got a high water table in some areas it's got the Pacific Ocean on one side the Waimakariri River to the north. It has had some significant floods in the past and so the drainage fiord that was established in the early colonial days very much had a focus on efficient carrying away of stormwater. That was the council's focus.But over recent decades about the last 20 to 30 years it's focused much more on recognising other values: ecology landscape public recreation heritage culture places of mahinga kai—not just drainage. So we now see the Christchurch City Council having the largest native planting in the city with 100000 plants going into the ground as part of the Eastman and Sutherlands stormwater retention basins and wetlands. They cover 80 hectares. It recognises that in the upper Heathcote it's a major area for subdivision and growth.The Greens' concern is that councils like Ōtautahi Christchurch strongly called as did Auckland for stormwater to remain with councils because of that connection to place-making to providing other recreational assets and facilities in new areas for development.These big stormwater natural wetlands green stormwater infrastructure have been phenomenally successful in Ōtautahi in preventing flooding in the Ōpāwaho/Heathcote River—which was frequent—and so my questions to the Minister are: why would a water service entity which is wanting to ensure that its charges are low invest the millions that the city council has spent in providing for stormwater infrastructure that provides for other values and not just the efficient drainage and carriage of stormwater?How can the bill guarantee that water services entities will have that much broader vision? What weight will be given to council views if the councils want to retain areas like Eastman and Sutherlands Basin rather than have them transferred to the water service entities given that those wetland areas have got kilometres of walking tracks cycling tracks they're heavily used by local people as recreational areas and they are not just for the carrying away of stormwater?What mechanisms—because the select committee did consider quite carefully the definition of stormwater we added in the green stormwater infrastructure—will provide the certainty that we'll have the same breadth of values being implemented in stormwater management as has happened with councils?Given that there has not been a strong case established in the regulatory impact statement that stormwater should be transferred why is the Government so committed to proceeding with it when the entities will have more than enough to do dealing just with waste water and drinking water?"