Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I'm pleased to take a call on the Water Services Entities Bill. I won't be Shakespearian in my quotes and nor will I I hope be full of sound and fury like some other speakers. The establishment of these four water services entities and the way they will deliver three waters services is a major change so the high level of public interest in that is to be expected. And yes as others have acknowledged we had more than 88000 submissions. But the Taxpayers' Union and the National Party—as they're perfectly entitled to do—had organised a lot of those submissions as form submissions. It was interesting through the select committee process to hear individuals who were representative of those form submissions and hear their concerns. Like others I would like to comment on the misrepresentation and the fear and hysteria that has been whipped up particularly around co-governance. Co-governance is an opportunity to broaden the information to broaden the perspectives that contribute to decisions. Water is a taonga and iwi and hapū have long sought greater involvement in decisions about how water is managed. So we in the Greens support an approach that embraces Te Ao Māori that leads to the entities ensuring that iwi and hapū are represented at the table to contribute their perspectives which in our view will lead to much better submissions. But there's been a lot of talk about infrastructure. The key infrastructure is that which nature provides: the lakes the rivers the aquifers which are the sources of our drinking water. The Greens have long advocated for changes in the way we manage land to ensure that we protect those drinking-water sources. We are really pleased that one of the changes in the bill which National has criticised is to ensure that the concept of Te Mana o te Wai also applies to geothermal water and to estuaries because of course rivers move into estuaries and out to sea. So if we're going to do integrated management Te Mana o te Wai which is a key part of the new Resource Management Act reform must be in this bill as well in an integrated way. But the Greens do have significant concerns. The fact is that balance sheet separation and the need to take these assets—the water treatment plants the sewage discharge plants the pipe network—off council books and enable the entities to borrow against those separate from council and separate from Government has been a key driver of the changes. It has led to a much more corporatised approach and our preference would be to see much more of a structure that resembled council-controlled organisations because of the really direct stake that that gives councils in the ownership and management.Labour has a majority. This bill will pass. Government has made it very clear. So what the Greens have sought to do throughout the select committee process is to make constructive recommendations to seek change and to respond to the concerns that have been raised by submitters. National's approach of simply saying it is going to chuck out the five years or more of work that the Department of Internal Affairs Treasury councils and others have put into this bill and this reform is not going to get us anywhere. I would really like to acknowledge Minister Mahuta for the good faith and integrity with which she has led these changes has engaged with local government and councils has ensured that the recommendations from the local government working party have been included in the bill and has now taken on board the changes that have been recommended by the select committee. I also acknowledge all of the work that has been done by councils across the motu in mobilising collecting the concerns of their communities representing those in an eloquent and constructive way to the select committee and seeking some changes some of which have been made to the bill. So the concerns that remain for us the significant ones—the number of entities it's still going to be four. We don't think that adequately connects to local communities and to the regional boundaries that exist for resource management. Those entity boundaries are not the same as apply for any other administration unit in Government. We think the entities are too big so we would prefer that the four entities became seven with three to four in the North Island and at least three in the South Island. That would be a better connection to communities and it would allow councils to opt in more if they wanted to amalgamate and it would achieve that scale issue that's so sought.We also seek that Watercare be able to continue because there's no evidence that shows that Watercare is not performing. In fact there's evidence that shows that it is delivering. That shows what a council-controlled entity which deals with two waters can deliver. Because the proposal to include stormwater from the get-go from 1 July 2024 when the entities will start we think is not appropriate largely because stormwater is so connected to the urban planning and land management responsibilities of territorial authorities. It's a key part of creating place and councils like Christchurch—which have worked to ensure that stormwater management is integrated with recreation management with the new restoration of wetlands creation of new recreational facilities—are much more going to prioritise stormwater management which meets other needs and creates nature spaces. And we think it is overambitious. The work that is required to separate out stormwater assets in terms of overland flow paths areas where stormwater drains is complex. The entities will have a lot to do with drinking water and waste water. Why not focus just on that review how that has gone in a couple of years' time and then decide whether to include stormwater? So it's not something we support and the Greens' support for this bill in the committee stage and third reading will be dependent on getting some of the changes that we've set out in our alternative view. I guess the other final point on stormwater is that the technical reference group noted the complexity of stormwater systems and the fact that there wasn't a dedicated pipes network and the difficulties of untangling that. We haven't seen the evidence that would justify stormwater going through.One of the other key changes that was included as a result of the select committee deliberations is the response to the concern about privatisation. So there is a new provision in new clause 164A around Major transactions" and a 50 percent threshold. If the entities are going to acquire assets that are more than 50 percent of the value of their current assets that is a major transaction. That triggers a requirement for a 75 percent majority of the regional representative group. Similarly if obligations are going to be incurred that affect more than 50 percent of the assets or more than 50 percent of the assets will be disposed of. We think in the Greens that it would be a strong protection against privatisation if that threshold was reduced quite significantly to at least 10 to 25 percent. So that's something we'd really encourage the Government to consider further because of that concern about privatisation because of the advice that the committee received that the entrenchment proposals which the Greens still support that we have at least a 60 percent majority requirement for any change to provisions which required the entities to continue to deliver the water services. If that entrenchment provision can't go through because it is not constitutional which is what officials advise and what the Attorney-General advises then at the very least there needs to be a much lower threshold to trigger that 75 percent majority of the regional representative group.Many of the other changes that happened in select committee again go as others—particularly the chair Barbara Edmonds—have noted go to increasing transparency and increasing accountability. The changes in response to the submission of the Office of the Auditor-General requiring a review of the asset management plans and the like are steps forward; so is the requirement that not only will the regional representative group and the regional advisory panels be subject to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) and the official information requirements but so too will the boards of these entities. The governance provisions are complex but at least having LGOIMA apply to the board deliberations will ensure a much greater level of transparency in addition to requirements such as the annual shareholders meetings.So the Greens still have concerns but we need change and National proposing along with Act that we just ditch this bill is not taking us anywhere. Kia ora."