Grigg NicolaNICOLA GRIGG (National—Selwyn): Thank you Madam Chair. I want to turn the Minister's mind please to Part 1 clause 6—seeing as we've been traversing much of these parts—and the definition of green stormwater infrastructure". As the Minister will be acutely aware the Canterbury province suffered some one-in-200-year storms almost two years ago in May 2020 and then again in June 2021. What we've seen in that intervening period of time are large-scale landscape changes and the Minister will also be aware that the regional council has lobbied the Government for financial assistance to continue to clear rivers to ensure future flood-proofing. Now if the Minister drives south from Christchurch there are three large rivers. There are the Waimakariri the Rākaia and the Rangitata River and in between there is a slightly smaller chain of braided rivers called the Ashburton River which runs out to sea on the township of Ashburton. If you drive inland from the Rākaia River specifically you're on a road called Thompsons Track and then I'm thinking of a specific area where you turn right on to Tramway Road. This was an area of farmland that suffered enormous damage. I think up to 20 if not 30 hectares were submerged. Now what we've noticed there when I refer to landscape change is that particular wetlands have arisen: bog or you might call it a lagoon of sorts. But my question really is around the definition of "green stormwater infrastructure" particularly when we're referring to "a natural or semi-natural area [etc. etc. etc.] … managed to provide stormwater services;". In this particular area that I'm thinking of—and there are multiple instances of this across the Canterbury region—there is an intersection of roading and stormwater drainage of a natural river and farmland. In this particular corner I've noticed in the last 18 months—and when I say "corner" I'm talking of probably two if not three hectares of crack willows arising. These as we all know will cause floods because they do cause blockages and this is right on the Tramway Road bridge which I presume is going to be managed by the Ashburton District Council. So here to my mind we have a confluence of different authorities. We've got to some degree the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) we've got to some degree the Ashburton District Council and we've got to some degree the landowner and presumably in future if and when this bill passes Entity D will have the overarching authority over this space. Where is the demarcation as to who manages the future flood-proofing the flood mitigation work of situations like this? As I've said these are occurring multiple times throughout Canterbury with all the network of braided rivers we have all the roads that run along the rivers and run across the rivers the bridges that run across the rivers and of course the stormwater systems that have been established both naturally and man-made to feed water back into the waterways. We're also seeing instances—and again I'm talking about the stormwater infrastructure in particularly my part of the world in Selwyn around Te Waihora / Lake Ellesmere. Historically there's been a large flood bank that has been built and managed by the regional council—by Environment Canterbury. Over the past year we've seen a number of large southerly swells and southerly storms that have come in and they have effectively smashed that flood bank to smithereens. There's now a landowner who's got 60 hectares of land covered in flood debris rocks sand—you name it. Right alongside that farm is the Taumutu marae and already they're seeing that their urupā has been exposed by the sea and they are being moved away by this change in sea swells. So with regard to the provision of flood banks and flood protection at the moment the regional council and the district council have thrown up their hands and said "We don't manage this any more. The climate is changing. This is unaffordable." But in regard to the fact that this flood protection bank has traditionally protected both farmland and urupā and marae—again to what degree is there a demarcation and where is the ongoing responsibility for the management of these kinds of what I presume would fall under green stormwater infrastructure and the way that they will be managed to provide stormwater services? So the picture I'm trying to paint is that there are multiple existing authorities there are multiple flood-mitigation measures and there's also the ongoing conversation about the lack of financial resourcing to continue this flood mitigation work. Then of course I could further extend that definition of "green stormwater infrastructure" to the large large-scale aquifers that fall underneath the Canterbury Plains. One might describe this as naturally occurring stormwater infrastructure of course allowing the free flow and drainage of water from the underground aquifers or rivers out to sea. We've seen again that we've had a particularly wet winter and spring. You only need to fly into the Canterbury Plains to see how very very waterlogged they are. Obviously in recent times they have dried up but that water did stay for at least four to six weeks. The whole plains were like a sponge full of water—absolutely logged with water. There is no drainage so of course with that surface water building you increase the risk of more surface flooding on to roads particularly and into our stormwater networks. The networks are starting to fail because they are being overused and they haven't had the investment put into them. That is because there is so much confusion and complexity in the system but I think that was made more particularly convoluted by this particular clause—clause 6—in that there does not seem to be a definition—a true definition—of "green stormwater infrastructure" as it applies in reality. So Minister I would like some clarification around the responsibility for the multiple agencies: the NZTA the Ashburton District Council the Selwyn District Council Environment Canterbury the landowners themselves and of course the potential for this Entity D."