Watts SimonSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much Mr Chair and I acknowledge the Minister has run out of steam already but that's not a problem at all. We will maximise this opportunity just to remind the Minister in regards to potentially some of the areas that he can ponder over answers. But it is clear that a number of these questions won't have answers because a number of the decisions have been made in circumstances which sort of beggar a little bit of belief. But I want to firstly question the Minister in regards to the three waters reform and in particular ask whether he stands by the degree of consulting and contractor spend that has been undertaken on what has been without doubt a woeful example of a Government reform programme. I acknowledge that the Minister has had a hospital pass from the prior Minister of Local Government the Hon Nanaia Mahuta and there is an element that potentially I feel sorry for him in that circumstance. But the degree of consultancy expenditure is in the region of around $30 million with $600000 spent on PR from Senate Communications. If we remember back on those failed ads that had green slime coming out of the taps and that expenditure nearly $3 million was spent on an advertising company FCB in order to put together that advertising campaign that had green slime coming out of water taps—hard-earned taxpayers' money. The question to the Minister is: does he believe that that was appropriate Government expenditure and not wasteful spending taking into account that that communication programme—as the prior Minister of Local Government articulated—was a failed campaign in regards to information that did not convey the reality for many communities across this country? What about the $1.27 million that was spent on the Scottish water authority to provide advisory into the numbers which underpin this Government's three waters reform programme? Remember that number that the Prime Minister refers to—the $185 billion of capital? Well those numbers have been debunked by a large number of people across this country including mayors and councillors who with respect I think would know more about their local government infrastructure than a couple of bureaucrats out of Scotland. Again $1.27 million of Government expenditure was thrown up against that water agency for consultancy spend as part of that. My second area of questioning is in regards to the forecasted nearly $3 billion—$3 billion—of establishment costs for this three waters reform. Don't forget that that's up $1 billion from what was originally forecast at nearly $280000 per day—$280000 per day—of establishment costs for a reform which none of the local government bodies from the outset thought was actually going to really deliver fundamental change and improvements. What an absolute waste of money. I appreciate that the Minister is out of time but he's probably lucky that he's out of time with respect because trying to come up with an answer that is all credible for why that is not wasteful spending is beyond us. We appreciate that a number of bills still proceeding through this House relate to the changing of the number of entities remembering that this was set out when we went through the first three waters reform programme. We said that absolutely this could not be done with no less than four mega-bureaucratic entities—remember that? Remember that Minister Mahuta came up and said No way we've done all the analysis; no way this will ever work without dropping it down to four." Well what happened? After the grand reset by this Government—Hon Scott Simpson: The policy bonfire. SIMON WATTS: The policy bonfire and what a bonfire—I think there was a bit too much petrol thrown on the bonfire and a few people on the other side got their fingers burnt didn't they through throwing a little too much dry kindling on to that fire. But that policy bonfire came up with "Oh no let's change four to 10 entities." but they didn't change any of the underlying structural elements around the fact that they were still co-governed mega-bureaucratic entities that are not based on democratically elected principles. So I want to give the Minister the opportunity to potentially just say "Hey actually do you know what? With only three sitting weeks left of this Parliament maybe we made a mistake." Here's an opportunity right? Here's an opportunity because the problem with this election is that this topic will be—there's a very clear difference between the two political parties on this. So in effect the outcome of the election will be a mandate from the New Zealand public in regards to this. So my third question to the Minister is in regards to whether the new proposal of 10 entities is still something that the Minister believes is going to be appropriate. The other area of questioning that we went through as part of the reviews was in regards to the IT expenditure projects. I tell you for anyone who has looked at Government IT programmes they generally don't go too well do they? But in order to ensure that this Government's IT programme in regards to three waters is as credible as it could be it decided to not undertake a proper procurement process of course—right? So what better way to provide integrity and assurance would you have than if you didn't undertake a proper procurement process and that would be OK if the numbers were potentially reasonably immaterial but guess what? Guess how much the numbers were in regards to the IT programme? I don't know—throw some numbers out. Hon Scott Simpson: I bet they're big. SIMON WATTS: How much—big numbers yeah. I mean a couple of hundred million maybe—maybe that. Maybe $530 million or maybe half a billion dollars of expenditure on the ICT programme? It was $530 million for this ICT investment programme. So I'm asking the Minister clearly: does he stand by the fact that the officials have undertaken a procurement programme for ICT relating to three waters that did not go through a proper procurement programme for $530 million of taxpayer money? No competitive process no looking at options internationally no looking at different systems and no looking at alternative ways in which we should spend that money. No just choosing a single supplier signing a deal and going ahead. Interestingly that product that was selected is the same product that is used by one of the largest water companies in the country and I'm sure that all of the process was appropriate but the Minister needs to articulate that there was integrity in regards to that. The other aspect while we've got a little bit of time is for the Minister to provide a little bit of comment around the chief executive officer roles that were appointed to manage these entities. Remember we had four entities originally and we hired the CEOs. It's come out that these CEOs are on salaries in the region of $600000 to around about $800000 per annum per person. Well let's talk about a cost of living crisis right? Let's talk about a cost of living crisis. But the Minister has obviously been quite comfortable that we've got initially four CEOs on that but of course with the change from four entities to 10 one doesn't have to be too au fait on the mathematics to work out that that potentially is going to mean that we might have up to 10 of these CEOs across the country on between $600000 and $800000 per annum. So I want the Minister to articulate and provide assurance to this committee—and to Kiwis out there watching this—whether this is value for money. What are going to be the additional outcomes in value that this will create by paying chief executive officers for 10 entities across this country and all of the peripheral—Hon Scott Simpson: There'll be welcoming parties. SIMON WATTS: There probably will be welcoming parties I say to the Hon Scott Simpson. I wonder if they will spend around $40000 on welcoming parties for each of them because that would be another $400k that would go on top of that as well. Maybe the Minister could give us a little bit of an answer on whether he's going to rule that out and say that there won't be any welcoming parties for these 10 CEOs when they assume their positions. Of course the legislation doesn't kick in until mid-2026. Just for the record we're in 2023 right now so that's a little way into the future. But interestingly these CEOs are already on those salaries and they haven't even started. They don't start work for three years but they're already getting paid that accrual as money. So again can the Minister articulate whether that is value for money? The last aspect is in retrospect in regards to all the challenges that local government faces across this country—the workforce shortages the critical pressure that our local communities and local government are under—is it still appropriate that the Government is pushing through such wide-scale reform and ripping the heart out of local government by confiscating their assets and putting them into undemocratically elected entities? I ask whether that is still appropriate or actually should we just restore local ownership and control of water assets and ensure that our local communities are empowered to do what they should do in regards to three waters?"