White Helen; Pugh MaureenHELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you Madam Chair. I would like to ask the Minister of Local Government something from really the opposite perspective one of a big city because this proposal in Part 1 is to disestablish the Auckland and Northland water entity. In a place like Mt Albert we've had real issues with flooding and we've had real issues with the kind of infrastructure just being antiquated. It's stopping us being able to build up instead of out but it's also stopping us building out. So even if that's the preference it's making it really difficult.Now the last Government put a lot of money into infrastructure which wasn't being done because the councils just couldn't afford to do it. So when we were building thousands of houses we were producing money out of the bank balance of the whole country to make sure that we could build there. It wasn't being done within the current status quo because Auckland just simply couldn't afford it. I've got a memory of the flooding. Where I live there's a park and in the park the whole area flooded and it flooded right down and through what was there in the sewage system and into the park so there was a lot of sewage flooding into the park. People were swimming in that water. I was really worried about typhoid. That water then goes on right down into the zoo area and it goes underground and then it was actually flooding the zoo so it was a real issue for the zoo. Then it goes through Meola Reef. So all those areas were particularly affected. We have a real issue when we combine this with climate change. One of the concerns I have here—and I'd like an answer to this question—is the proposal that we had and the law we had was supposed to create balance sheet separation. So it was supposed to put the entity at arm's length enough that it could finance infrastructure builds for the long term. It was going to be cheaper in terms of financing it but it was also going to be done by an entity that was really solely focused on the Auckland and Northland region. Have you had an assurance that any proposal that you have to go back to the old structure is going to give you balance sheet separation? Because it certainly hasn't been the case until now. It hasn't had that magic effect. Have you had that assurance from your officials—and I'd love your guarantee on this—that under whatever you plan to do here you absolutely will have the kind of balance sheet separation that means that this infrastructure can actually be provided at lower cost by the entity? I can't see for the life of me how you could but I'd like to know whether you have. My understanding of the test in these situations is really whether the council is backing the entity. So if it fell over the council would come in and have to support it because it's actually not at arm's length; it's really part of it. My own understanding of that situation is that can't be assured in this case. So can I know from you in a place like Auckland—that desperately needs to grow up and needs more housing and we desperately have old infrastructure that needs to be replaced—am I getting your guarantee that when I come back here in a year you're going to say things are better that actually there is going to be balance sheet separation and there will be a way that the old entity can actually finance this or is it in fact going to be a situation where the only option that the council have with the regulator breathing down their neck is to actually put up the rates? I know that Mayor Brown said he doesn't want to but it just seems to me for the life of me that's the only thing you could do; you could only put up the rates and you'd have to put them up a lot. It wouldn't be a little bit. So are the voters and the constituents of Mt Albert looking at rate increases that are exponential as a result of what you're doing today? And can you give me an assurance that's not going to happen because you've already taken away the petrol tax you've taken away all sorts of other props that the council has—CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The member's time has expired.