Watts SimonSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much Mr Chair and it's a pleasure to rise and have a discussion on Part 6 and ask some questions in regards to this. The clauses that are particularly of interest within Part 6 relate to in effect the review provisions that are in the Water Services Entities Bill which basically in terms of Subpart 1 enable detailed reviews to be conducted by the Minister on various components of the Act at the fifth anniversary of the commencement date and in particular that the review will also review Crown commissioners if appointed at that point and the general function of the system as a whole. So that's interesting in itself but the questions that I have for the Minister the Hon Nanaia Mahuta are as follows: the first aspect is in regards to the duration in terms of the anniversary time. Why does the Minister feel that five years is appropriate? Geez I must say it's been a long five years hasn't it? Andrew Bayly: Long five years.SIMON WATTS: I didn't want to raise it but I thought—Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Mr Bayly could you sit down? Mr Bayly this is not a public house. Please don't come in here from the floor and start screaming whatever you've been doing at dinnertime. Sit down and be quiet please and be quiet for the rest of the evening. Mr Watts I'll make up the time.SIMON WATTS: Thank you very much Mr Chair. I was so deeply in thought on this clause that I missed that whole—CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): We won't do a rerun!SIMON WATTS: Ha ha! We won't do a rerun—absolutely not. Good to have you here Mr Bayly. Right anyway so where was I? I'm getting a little bit lost. Five long years I think I was talking about. The question to the Minister is: why the duration of five years? What's the basis on which you deem that that's an appropriate point?The second aspect in regards to this is around what the Minister deems to be a review of the general function of the system as a whole. That sounds pretty generic in the context of—you couldn't make it much more generic than that. So is the Minister actually expecting a full-scale review in terms of the overall system around what has been intended? I'm sure part of that review will be listening back to the Hansard of this evening and asking Well what was the expectation of what these entities and these water services entities would deliver? And what have we actually been able to achieve in five years?" What is the scope of that review and how far does the Minister envisage that will go in reality? I guess as a result of that what is going to be done? Because a review is one thing but I'm interested to see if there is an expectation around any change to follow that.The third aspect is in regards to the mechanism in terms of feeding into that review process and in particular what is the mechanism that will exist that allows for councils to provide feedback back to the reviewers as part of that process—and particularly I guess as councils are probably best placed to be able to understand the issues that their community has. What is the mechanism under Part 6 Subpart 1 in regards to clauses 197 and 198 "Reviewer's power to request information"? What is the mechanism that we envisage for that feedback process to happen across the 67 councils? And how do we ensure that actually we do get a genuine assessment in terms of feedback in regards to the success or not in regards to these waters services entities and that it's not just a consultation for consultation's sake or a review for review's sake? I think it would be fair to say that hopefully in five years' time from now Kiwis will be a bit more confident and have a higher degree of trust in the Government of the day but the reality is that this reform process has left a pretty sour taste in the mouth of many Kiwis in regards to whether that consultation process has been authentic or not.The last aspect is in regards to how in terms of the review process the public themselves will be able to engage and interface with these mega entities. I know we haven't necessarily touched on it this evening around the consumer engagement. Clauses 203 to 205 of Subpart 1 of Part 6 are in regards to that. I'd like the Minister to provide an overview of how she envisages that consumer forum aspect to work in practice. How is it actually going to be effective in the context of making sure that we get widespread representation across our communities around the country and particularly I think about rural and provincial New Zealand? We have a number of members in the Chamber here representing those communities this evening. How are we going to ensure that that aspect is fed in appropriately? But more importantly how are we actually going to make sure that that feedback is again not just token feedback—that it's actually feedback in an authentic process? Actually Kiwis generally feel that if I'm going to give feedback it's going to get listened to and if it's going to get listened to that there's actually going to be some change as a result.So some confidence around that consumer forum—not that it's just a consumer forum off to the side and I think of consumer forums in the Pharmac context. I know it's a different aspect to the bill but the reality is that those consumer forums are literally tokenistic in terms of the role they genuinely play in terms of their ability to feed back—or actually for the entities—and in that regard while different an independent entity actually takes on board that feedback and makes policy changes as a result. So I think it would be fair to say that Kiwis would be right to have a low degree of trust that actually these consumer forums are actually going to lead to effective change and so the ability to provide confidence and comfort around the fact that it is going to do what it's meant to do would be appreciated. Look I'll leave it there in terms of the first round and then we'll come back a little bit later on."