Grigg NicolaNICOLA GRIGG (National—Selwyn): Thank you Madam Speaker. This has been a long and convoluted process to get here to this point where unfortunately today due to the numbers in the House because of the result of the 2020 election this bill will pass. However for the record the National Party categorically opposes this bill today.I think it's helpful that we go through the timeline that has brought us here notwithstanding the events of 2016 in Havelock North; in 2021 when this Government started to make real noises about the dreams and aspirations for water reform in this country; that's when Nanaia Mahuta announced this four entities model. Ever since that model was announced there has been nothing but very vocal strident opposition to this proposal. And particular outrage I might add around the provisions of co-governance and the provisions in the make-up of these entities boards that does away with the democratically elected process of the councillors that we the people the ratepayers of New Zealand have elected to represent us.Let us not forget that back then this Government tried to entrench some constitutionally dangerous clauses—and they got caught out. They got caught red-handed and they embarrassingly for them had to backtrack. It was because of the concerns raised by the National Party that this was made public. This Government had no intention of making that entrenchment clause public. But in order to try and oil the waters the Government then went around offering $2.5 billion to councils to get them to opt in to the reform; that then brought us to the Water Services Bill. Then on 22 June the water reforms began in earnest with the introduction of the Water Services Entities Bill. That bill alone attracted 88000 submissions to the Finance and Expenditure Committee—97 percent in opposition.Again we have here today a bill that has been passed under urgency as have the others before it. The night before we were due to debate this bill the Government dropped a 200-page Supplementary Order Paper to its own piece of legislation. New Zealand has not forgotten the process that has led us here today and the Government has made changes to its legislation as it's gone riding roughshod over the democratic process here in New Zealand. This bill in particular is to establish and empower the water services entities by establishing their functions powers obligations and oversight arrangements. But unfortunately this is a missed opportunity. And I have to say to the Minister's commentary just earlier I think everybody in this House agrees with the case for change but it's how the Government has gone about it is where the agreement begins and ends.None of the legislation that we have in front of us here today is aimed at reforming the health and the quality of water. It will not improve water quality into the households and families of New Zealand. It is simply taking away the infrastructure that local councils have been administering that has been paid for by local ratepayers. This bill is making several expansions to an already highly criticised process. The Water Services Legislation Bill is even more complicated than the Water Services Entities Amendment Bill which also—I might add—passed under urgency. There are three key things in this legislation that the Government didn't want to talk about and I want to take a moment to go through those. Those primarily are that Kiwis will be paying for their water. We don't know by how much—the Minister was asked about that in the committee of the whole House and he said it's up to the entities to decide. That is unforgivable. That level of unassurance to the ratepayers of New Zealand is unforgivable. So too does this piece of legislation impose a fine and punitive regime a punishment regime—fines for non-compliance with the rules that the entities will set up.So in essence through the passage of this bill the Government is taking away assets and then it's forcing Kiwis to pay for the reforms. The Minister spoke quite at length about how in his view this is going to remove the liability of debt from councils. But he didn't mention it's also removing the assets from councils. He talked about financial independence and separation of balance sheets that these new entities would bring. But what he didn't talk about is that that could have been a provision provided to councils. That's where the National Party and the Government differ greatly: we would actually empower councils those that needed it with the financial independence that they needed.The designs of these bills do not provide enough protection for smaller councils with low rate bases. And I've used the example time and time again of Entity I which merges the Canterbury councils and the West Coast councils. Most of the Canterbury councils I would argue have very strong balance sheets have new modern assets and infrastructure; West Coast councils do not. There is a fundamental discrepancy there whereby some councils some ratepayers are having to subsidise others. I don't think either side of the ledger would agree that that is fair.There is no flexibility in the pricing. Again as I mentioned we asked the Minister to outline details on pricing. Those details are unavailable. We asked the Minister what liability the Crown would have around compensation for the likes of land that is needed in catchment areas. There are no details available. But I think it's the penalty regime that will shock New Zealanders the most and we talked a little bit about it last night in the second reading. There is an extensive enforcement provision laid out within this bill. It includes a fine of $20000 for breaking a sprinkler ban. Now we often have hot dry summers in Canterbury and most gardeners will get their sprinklers out in the evenings. But $20000 for breaking a sprinkler ban—when you put it in the context that the penalty for most petty thefts in New Zealand is $1000 it really does I think highlight the fact that this Government has its priorities way out of whack.At the heart of our opposition to the majority of these bills that have passed is the issue of democracy and the lack of transparency. As I said earlier one of the bills alone attracted 88000 submissions—97 percent in opposition. This one to be fair did go through a proper select committee process. They did get 1900-odd submissions but they only heard less than 2 percent of them. That is not allowing the voice of New Zealand to have an input on shaping this legislation. And as we've all observed yet again we're in urgency. The committee of the whole House process has been truncated because we're in urgency. There is still overwhelming opposition to these bills—that makes it undemocratic.We have said on this side of the House multiple times that we support the case for change but we do not believe that this is the solution to it. The National Party has fully intended to overturn this bill if we're in Government in October. We will do it as soon as practicably possible. We will replace it with what we call Local water done well" with our fundamental principle that we return those assets back to local councils to the ownership and management of local councils. And yes where there is a need for some small councils to be supported to maintain their assets there are provisions to enable that to happen. We oppose this bill in its entirety."