Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm pleased to take a call on the Water Services Entities Bill. There was quite a spectacular thunderstorm at lunchtime with some of the loudest peals of thunder I've heard. I was reminded of that because there's a lot of sound and thunder coming from the Opposition at the moment but not a great deal of light.This bill is the result of a phenomenal amount of work led by the local government Minister Minister Mahuta. There's a huge analysis—the regulatory impact statement alone is this thick [Holds up regulatory impact statement]—and a lot of reports on the Department of Internal Affairs website and yet all National can do is oppose it. I encourage the National Opposition to take a much more constructive approach—as they did on the Water Services Bill which established Taumata Arowai—of looking at how the bill can be improved looking at the issues that have to be dealt with rather than just making these bland statements in strong terms though that they will repeal it. That doesn't help anyone when there has been a comprehensive investigation of some of the issues in the management of three waters and the huge infrastructure deficit. Our three waters are some of the most important infrastructure we have in Aotearoa. They're worth $55 billion in terms of their replacement value but study after study has shown that the 67 local authorities which are largely responsible for providing three waters have for a long time been under-investing in maintaining and improving the infrastructure particularly with the rapid population growth we're having in Aotearoa New Zealand. So there is a big gap. It's been shown there's about $120 billion investment required—$120 billion to $180 billion—and yet at the moment in their long-term plans local authorities are proposing to invest between $42 billion and $81 billion over the next 30-year period. How that gap is to be filled is one of the reasons why we've got this bill because it's been a decision by Labour that there needs to be larger scale entities which enable the three waters assets to be taken off council balance sheets so that they are freed up from the constraints on borrowing that apply to councils and that will enable the entities to borrow more to invest more to smooth the costs of maintaining and upgrading infrastructure over future generations as well. The Green Party has got concerns with some of the provisions in the bill and I'll talk about that in a minute. So we are certainly supporting it to select committee and looking to play a constructive role there because this reform is happening. It would be a huge waste of time energy and resources and all of the mahi that the Minister has led in terms of engagement with iwi Māori engagement with local authorities engagement with communities on developing the legislation if that was just overturned and we stuck with the status quo. Sticking with the status quo doesn't recognise that we need change. Mr Greg O'Connor talked about people on boil-water notices. There are over 40000 people throughout Aotearoa who are under permanent boil-water notices. We don't have the drinking water infrastructure that is appropriate for a country in the 21st century which says it is a developed country. I'd really like to acknowledge as well as the work of officials the work of parliamentary counsel. This bill is a very clear readable bill and it's easier to actually read the legislation to find the structure than it is sometimes to go through all of the background reports. So these four water service entities will take over the responsibilities of territorial authorities from 1 July 2024. The regional representative groups that the bill provides for are a key part of ensuring that there is community representation and real input into the management and delivery of three waters services. Now these groups will have about 12 to 14 members an equal number of territorial authority and mana whenua representatives and the opportunity that the bill provides for genuine co-governance is something that the Green Party thinks we should embrace as a country because it better implements Te Tiriti and because there are a number of other provisions in the bill which ensure that the entities actually have the capability the systems and the processes in place to implement the principles of Te Tiriti and to implement te mana o te wai.So equally divided between territorial authority representatives and mana whenua representatives the regional representative groups will appoint the committee which appoints the board of the water services entity. Those boards are to be competency based. Those competencies include mātauranga Māori tikanga Māori and an understanding of Te Ao Māori. It's the regional representative groups which set the strategic direction and the performance expectations for the entity in their delivery area and it's the regional representative groups which actually review the entity's performance. So they've got to issue a statement of strategic and performance expectations and their priorities for how the entity will operate. The entity itself has got to provide the regional representative group with a statement of intent an asset management plan a funding and pricing plan and an infrastructure strategy.So the regional representative group in providing comment on these must take account of the diversity of the community and it's able to set up regional advisory panels within subregions to actually help provide that community perspective. So that is a strong sort of governance regime that's set out in the bill and the boards are to be six to 10 members for each of the entities. They've got to really have that knowledge of performance monitoring of governance and they're really accountable as an entity to the regional representative group. And as the Minister noted the consumer forums that the entity has to establish and the boards must hold at least two public meetings a year. As the Minister noted too there's been a lot of concern about asset ownership and that's why the assets that are currently owned and managed by territorial authorities those local authorities will have a proportional share based on their population and that shareholding interest will help ensure that the community can see that the assets continue to be owned by the community. So the benefits of these large-scale entities are—like Watercare has shown in Auckland—that it is about having the scale to actually significantly upgrade infrastructure. Water services are not about relationships as Mr Doocey suggested potentially in some of those smaller local authorities but it's about infrastructure. For a lot of our big councils—the metropolitan councils—the drinking-water pipes are anything between 50 and 60 years old. We saw the result of that in Dunedin with problems there. The waste-water pipes are 40 to 50 years old; there's a huge need to upgrade and maintain those. So the concerns that the Green Party has are with the scale of the entities. A lot of the contracts that are currently operated or contracted out by councils to smaller contractors within their communities—there's no protection for that. There's a potential for some of the larger engineering companies to take on contracts because the divestment provisions certainly apply to where assets are divested which would prevent the entity delivering three waters services but that's a very high threshold. There's nothing to prevent the entity contracting out quite large parts of its operations. We'd like to see some protection for the more than 1000 local contractors and businesses that are involved in three waters management. We still in the Greens have a very big question over whether stormwater should go immediately to the entities. Stormwater management relates very much to the land use planning that local authorities do in their district plans in their resource consents for land use. Councils like Christchurch City Council are making an enormous difference in terms of reducing flood hazards in the Ōpāwaho / Heathcote River through large retention basins which they are putting in which provide for recreational opportunities for walking for mountain biking and a lot of riparian planting so they've got biodiversity benefits and they're really essential in stormwater management. So I really hope that the select committee looks at this whole issue of stormwater management.The other issue is entrenchment. With the Opposition having failed to support the Minister's suggestions for 75 percent entrenchment we hope that the select committee looks at a mechanism for potentially 60 percent entrenchment representing those parties that are prepared to support the bill. But I look forward to constructive consideration of the bill at select committee. Thank you.