Williams Andrew: South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williams Andrew: South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8504. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I take a call on the South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill. It is very timely that this bill is in the House today discussing water supply when on the front page of the  
Dominion Post  
today we see that the capital city has about 20 days of water in reserve in the dams in the catchment areas of the Wellington area and that they will have to start drawing on the water from the Hutt River in order to supply the capital should the dams reduce in volume much more in the coming weeks with the ongoing drought conditions. It is a timely reminder of the importance to every community of their water supplies and of the importance of maintaining the integrity of their water supplies and ensuring that there are contingencies in place for that important supply of the most basic human need: water. 
In this respect the Cold Creek rural water supply is there to supply in particular rural properties and farms in the Cold Creek area of South Taranaki. It goes back historically several decades to when it was put in under the old Egmont County Council in conjunction with the local farmers and people of the district and it did receive a sizable grant from the Government in the order of $1.3 million to help install the water supply system. Therefore public money has been expended to help that particular district council both to provide for its rural water and also to supply the township of Edgecumbe in terms of—I think it is Edgecumbe. Was it Edgecumbe? 
Aaron Gilmore 
: Wrong side of the island mate. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: No? Well it provides one of the small towns nearby with its emergency water supplies. A small town nearby also depends on it as an emergency backup for water in the event that its own supplies run out. Therefore although this whole scheme has been put forward by the Government and by the member Chester Borrows in terms of being particularly a scheme by the farmers for the farmers on behalf of the farmers and for the sole benefit of the farmers it does supply an emergency benefit to that local urban community as well in times of need. That need—you do not know—could well be in the near future because we are experiencing increasing drought conditions in this country. 
New Zealand First also has a problem with this bill in that originally we were of the understanding that there would be a referendum in the bill to make sure that it was kosher and stood up with the community only to find when the bill actually came through its full paces that the referendum was going to be for only those local people in that catchment area affected by the water supply. So it is almost like asking for turkeys to vote in favour of Christmas. You have got a slightly vested interest by asking the very people who are attached to the water supply: “Do you want to control the water supply yourselves? And do you want it in your own ownership under your own company?”. Therefore it was not seen by New Zealand First as being a true and genuine referendum of all the people who had a vested interest in it. 
Because there has been taxpayer money go into this over the years—there has been support from the district council in terms of technical support in terms of administrative support in terms of resources from the local district council and in terms of making sure that the water supply in that particular catchment supply did continue to operate—there has been a local interest involved. We believe it should be the greater South Taranaki District that has a referendum to say: “Do you want this to remain in public ownership”—in the hands of the South Taranaki District Council—“or do you feel that this particular area of Cold Creek rural water supply should be handed over to those particular farms and particular people in that locality?”. 
Again we have heard other speakers this evening ask: “Well what is the Government really worried about?”. It seems that every time the Government is faced with a question about democracy it shies away from it. We have seen that it does not want to face democracy in Canterbury with the regional council down there. It did not want to face democracy when it came to the question of creating the super-city in Auckland where that was railroaded through without any democratic vote by the people of Auckland on whether they wanted it or not. It just seems to be that every time something comes up where there is a question of: “Well let’s ask the people what they think.” this Government always seems to just take the attitude: “We don’t want to know what the people think. We don’t want to know what their opinion is. We will just do it how we want to do it and blow the opinions of the local people.” 
Maggie Barry 
: We win elections though don’t we? 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: National thinks that by winning an election with a very very very slim margin—and where its margin is in place because it holds on to the reins only because it has the likes of the ACT Party propped up the United Future party propped up and the Maori Party sort of in there hanging around the edges propped up—it has a mandate to do this along with the sale of State assets as well when in actual fact a huge huge number of New Zealanders are saying: “We’re not that happy about this. We’re not that happy about our democratic rights in this country being undermined.” 
It is undermining the rights of the people to have a say in what is determined for them—to have their vote. Therefore New Zealand First cannot support this local bill as it stands because it simply is depriving the people in that area of the right to say: “Should this water be under our control or should we take it out and privatise it?”. That is a slippery slope in this country. If this goes through without the input of the local democratic rights of people there there is a slippery slope as to what will be the next scheme. What will be the next scheme in New Zealand where a similar thing is brought to this House and it is going to be put through by the slimmest of mandates the slimmest of majorities and the people will be told: “Well that’s the next scheme that we’re going to privatise.”? 
In that respect I think it is time that National started listening to the people out there because increasingly people are saying this is an arrogant Government. It is a Government that is not listening to the people. This week it is being deserted by its business mates in Auckland and Wellington who are crying and screaming blue murder about their company car-parks having a fringe benefit tax imposed on them and quite frankly this Government is starting to run out of friends. It is starting to run out of friends. When even the likes of its business mates are saying that these are dumb decisions poor decisions and clueless decisions then you do start to wonder whether it truly has a mandate to put through bills such as this. 
So New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill. We implore the Government to look seriously at changing this bill and to have a wider referendum—ask the people stop being afraid of the people stop being afraid of hearing the opinions of the people of New Zealand and let true democracy reign in this country.