SpeechHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm pleased to take a call on the Water Services Legislation Bill. The Green Party is not supporting this bill and I'll give our reasons in a moment but I would like to join with others in congratulating Ingrid Leary as the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. The public often thinks that Parliament this House is where we argue all the time but in select committees there is a lot of constructive work done and even when we oppose the bill we try to improve it. I thank Ingrid Leary for the very good collaborative way she chaired the committee.We're opposing this bill because of the large level of corporatisation which is involved in the three waters reforms and the limited accountability that the entities will have. We're concerned about the loss of community voice and the limited ability of councils to influence the entities' infrastructure planning their policy and their pricing. Yes there will be relationship agreements but the entities can choose to take heed of those; they don't have to.One of the other major reasons for opposing the bill is that it will be the entities not councils that are responsible for stormwater management. Certainly the committee as Phil Twyford has noted has clarified the issue around responsibilities for streams going over private land but there's a much larger issue at play here in terms of stormwater management. We know that with more intense weather events we are going to get more flooding particularly in our urban areas. One in seven people in Aotearoa live in flood-prone areas. One study has estimated that over 441000 buildings are at risk of flooding most of them in urban areas and they're worth about $218 billion in value.When we've got more intense weather events and spikes in rainfall stormwater management is critical to preventing flooding. It's closely connected with land-use planning with the type the scale and the location of urban development; the provision of open space how roading works; how drainage works on road ways; and you need to have a really strong integration between land-use planning and stormwater management.Drinking water and waste water the other two waters are very different services. They are much more related to pipes they're not as related to natural waterways overland flow paths wetlands and the permeability of rain into the ground. So the arguments for managing waste water and drinking water together are strong and of course Watercare does that. But I think in terms of stormwater the arguments are much stronger for leaving it with councils.The bill provides very directive provisions around stormwater management. They I think are likely to be very challenging to implement because councils have got to determine whether assets that they manage to use primarily for stormwater management or for things like recreation and have other benefits to the community—it's the Minister in the end that the schedules provide has the final decision.The whole process of transferring assets from councils to entities because of all the land involved is going to be expensive and complex. I would really encourage the Minister to consider that whole implementation and if there are major challenges arising to come back—because hopefully Labour and the Greens will be in Government post-election—and really look at that. Certainly focusing on drinking water and waste water that logically does go to the entities. But we need a partnership between local government and central government and if stormwater stayed with local government we think that would reinforce the partnership.There's been a recent report by the Helen Clark Foundation by Kali Mercier and she looks at the whole concept of sponge cities" which was something that was developed at large-scale in China and it involves recognising that the more we harden our cities the more we have concrete asphalt and large roofs then the more we increase the amount of runoff after rain and the more we encourage flooding in urban areas. So in China there's been billions of dollars spent over the last 10 years in nature-based solutions putting more permeability back in their cities and towns using and working with water rather than regarding stormwater as something to defend against by piping it putting in stop banks dams and the like; working with nature and creating new wetlands in the landscape.We heard at the Environment Committee just last week from the Secretary for the Environment highlighting the damage we have done to wetlands. We all know that we've destroyed 90 percent of our wetlands in Aotearoa. They are our first defence against stormwater in urban areas because they clean the water and they allow it to soak into the aquifers.So it's councils which are involved in planning for recreation planning for sports fields ensuring that there are areas of green space that are so important for a more "spongy cities" approach. It is councils that provide the land-use planning requirements about the amount of hard surfaces. If we want to move to more spongy cities we need more porous surfaces more of the concrete pavers which allow water to go through rather than just our continuous asphalt. Councils direct those planning rules not the water services entities so it makes much more sense from a land-use perspective if stormwater stayed with the councils.Our worry in the Greens is that the transfer of stormwater to the entities will see an emphasis and an increase in that traditional approach of defending people against nature using concrete pipes and grey infrastructure rather than green infrastructure of nature-based solutions.The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has estimated that there's been a major decline of about 30 percent in green space in Auckland alone between 1980 and 2016. That has been largely on private land. We have in the Medium Density Residential Standards a requirement that only 20 percent of sites should be outdoor space. If we're going to move to porous spongy cities it's the councils that will drive that through land-use planning currently now through the district and city plans but under the Natural and Built Environment Bill through their regional planning committees which would have territorial authority representatives on them.So this sponge city porous city approach is critical to climate adaptation. But it's not necessarily going to happen when you separate out the land-use planning from the entities that manage stormwater and here's certainly been no consensus across councils that stormwater should be transferred. Both Auckland and Christchurch councils—big metro councils—oppose it because of the severing of this connection to place making. It's been in Christchurch where we've seen major wetlands constructed in south-west Christchurch in the Halswell area. They have stopped flooding in the Ōpāwaho River and they've had major benefits for biodiversity and recreation.There is no incentive for the entity to make those big wetlands because they haven't got the charging mechanism other than averaging charging across the region to actually justify the cobenefits: the recreational and biodiversity benefits the benefits for wildlife and the benefits for activities like walking. So the councils can do that because they can spread the cost through their rates but the entities have got to charge for the water services so I think I think it will be much harder for them to do that.One of the other reasons we oppose the bill is because of the considerable decision-making powers of the Minister of Local Government to amend and decide the asset allocation schedules in the restructuring. We also oppose it because of the provisions in Part 8 new Schedule 6 which allow for small mixed-use rural water supplies to be privatised. As Minister O'Connor said some 75 percent of the mixed-use rural water supplies are likely to transfer to the entities. These schemes are currently managed by councils. They provide both stock water and drinking water. They provide water for agricultural use. So if they are privatised—the euphemism is "giving it to the community". But if they are privatised once again it is leading to—because water is used for agricultural development—water assets being concentrated by agribusiness.So we don't think this is a good part of the bill because it allows schemes which service fewer than 1000 dwellings and where 85 percent or more of the water is used for agricultural or horticultural purposes to be transferred to another operator—i.e. privatised. That's what we saw in the 1980s with schemes that the Crown had invested in through the Ministry of Works being passed to private entities and used largely for irrigation. So we've tried to improve the bill but the Green Party does not support it."