Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. We've canvassed many issues this morning and last night on this Water Services Entities Bill and this morning in the committee Minister Mahuta—in response to a question I put to her as to why only iwi and hapū are able to make Te Mana o te Wai statements which will direct the water services entities to give effect to those statements—said New Zealand's different." New Zealand's different! Well that aligns quite closely with what another Labour Minister said recently that "Democracy's different in New Zealand. That's why we need co-governance and need to allocate rights to groups based on who their ancestors were." And yet for all New Zealanders water is a taonga that we share. We have common interests in the resource whether we're recreational fishers farmers people who grow things like fruit and vegetables or livestock but apparently New Zealand's different. Well we must be quite different because if we look at the membership of the boards that will be established under this bill the boards of water services entities if we come to Subpart 6 of the bill for people following at home or from their offices it's clause 57 "Membership of [the] board". Now there will be four water services entities set up—each one with potentially tens of billions of dollars' worth of assets under management. And what clause 57 says when it comes to the membership of the board is what the board appointment committee—and that appointment committee of course will be the co-governance - based committee the regional representative group—must have account for when they're looking for board members of these corporations managing tens of billions of dollars of assets. I mean Watercare alone is $11 billion. You add a few more councils on to it and you're probably getting close to $15 billion. Of course they must have performance monitoring and governance experience—it's very helpful—and network and infrastructure industries experience; for example water services network and infrastructure industries. So I assume that means people who currently work for organisations like Watercare or Wellington Water or for other contractors who actually deliver the physical network services—very very helpful. And then we come on down the list and I was looking for financial management. I mean we're talking about corporations that will have billions of dollars' worth of assets under their management and that potentially would have a million customers and will be generating revenues of billions of dollars per annum. But I was looking down the list under "Membership of [the] board" at all the skills: public health; environment well of course that's important; perspective of consumers and communities; of course principles of Te Tiriti Treaty of Waitangi. Financial management is not included. It's remarkable. Financial management is not included. But when we consider the way this Government has treated taxpayer funds in the last three years raising $40 billion more from taxpayers hosing it out as if actually just spending money is an achievement in itself it's not surprising that they've omitted financial acumen from the requirements for members of boards of these large water services entities. And that is why ACT has proposed an amendment to the bill. We've proposed in Supplementary Order Paper 294 to insert paragraph (g) into subclause 57(1). Financial management should be a requirement. We think it would be remarkable if the Government voted against this amendment. We assume that omitting financial management was simply an oversight a design error not intentional. So ACT wants to offer our Supplementary Order Paper 294 our amendment to the bill. And we also would propose that in addition we add an additional subclause—57(3) we propose—that the board committee must ensure that at least half the members have knowledge of and experience in relation to performance monitoring and governance in network infrastructure industries. The ACT Party firmly believes that if we are going to deliver better water infrastructure and get better value for money and integrate infrastructure with growth in our urban environments a majority of the people running water corporations should have performance monitoring and governance credentials and network and infrastructure industry experience and in addition financial management experience. Now it seems remarkable that in the design of this bill over many years—in fact the first briefing I had from Department of Internal Affairs officials was in June 2020 during the election campaign where they offered the ACT Party—David Seymour and myself—an insight into the thinking behind this reform programme. And the ACT Party's engaged constructively with the Department of Internal Affairs. We've engaged with submitters and we've tried to get the important aspects of infrastructure reform incorporated into this bill. But we haven't been able to convince officials or the Minister to include financial management up until this point and that is why we proposed this amendment. To the Minister in the chair Minister Little can I suggest that you consult with the Department of Internal Affairs officials who are sitting in the Chamber with us right now this morning and ask them if it is an oversight that financial management is not included in the criteria for board membership of these multi-billion dollar water services entities? Because it seems remarkable and it seems an oversight. So what ACT would say is New Zealand is not different to the rest of the world. We are people who live in a country that is grappling with complex problems. We are growing. People come here to live here. We want to deliver better quality urban environments cities that we can aspire for our children and grandchildren to inherit and an environment that we expect to improve over time taking account of all the mistakes we've made in the past like putting waste-water treatment plants and foul sewage outfalls right where people customarily take shellfish or fish. We would never do that these days but we don't need a co-governance system imposed on infrastructure organisations to tell us that it's a bad idea to put the sewage treatment plant outfall right on top of a shellfish bed which is what councils and Governments used to do 50 or 100 years ago. We've moved on. New Zealand is no different to other countries. We're grappling with the same complex problems. We don't need co-governance. We don't need allocation of special rights to groups based on who their grandparents were—their ancestors were—to tell us how to manage water. What we do need are people who have experience in performance monitoring and governance of very large organisations of network infrastructure and the industries that support that whether that be in planning design construction maintenance of these networks. And we also need—it's absolutely vital—financial management. One of the fundamental reasons that the ACT Party agrees we need reform in the way three waters is managed is because of the poor financial performance of some councils which have under-invested and instead chosen to spend ratepayers' money on flamboyant things—like very expensive town halls and council buildings for example—instead of actually fixing the underground pipes. Now to the Minister in the chair Minister Little I'd like you to respond to this. ACT feels very very strongly that this is an important amendment that should have cross-party support adding financial management into the qualifications for membership of water services entities boards. The ACT Party would urge the Minister and the Government to take this on. Thank you Madam Chair."