Yule LawrenceLAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): It's my pleasure to speak to this bill and I congratulate the Hon Shane Jones on getting it to this point and to the committee of the whole. The National Party as we've heard is a promoter of this and is happy to support this bill. Personally I'm also a promoter of this and in my experience in local government I saw lots of things that could have been done better.Hon Chris Hipkins: How'd the water go?LAWRENCE YULE: The water was good thank you—many years ago. Now everything's sorted. But I think the real issue here is it's more in the detail and we'll come to that later on in other parts. But effectively I want to challenge some of the commentary that's been given particularly by the previous speaker actually the Hon Phil Twyford when he was in the Chamber where he talked about community expectations because community expectations vary. If I go and ask some people in my own electorate they are interested in four-lane highways and getting freight from A to B. The businesses want to get freight to the port. They want to get freight to the port. And actually in my own electorate I would argue that the local roads are in good shape: they've been well looked after and invested in properly. So there are always priorities. There are priorities whether you spend money under the ground in water and waste water on the ground in roads in information technology broadband—those types of things. Every community will have a different priority. So when it talks in here under Part 1 clause 3(a) about means the expectations of [a community]" that's the community expectations. And then it goes on to include in clause 3(b) "expectations in relation to—(i) benefits and other outcomes that result from the infrastructure and services;". Once again that's a bit of a moving feast and it depends on who you ask. So the importance of this Infrastructure Commission really is to provide whatever Government's in power with some independent advice on a long-term basis. But we shouldn't kid ourselves that this is going to stop political priorities from one party to the next but it should be able to give us some independent advice.It then goes on to talk about how the services are delivered. And later on we're going to look at the Local Government Act in another bill that's coming before this House and we'll look at some changes that are going to be made here. CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): You're not meant to be talking to bills that haven't arrived yet.LAWRENCE YULE: My apologies—other bills that are in consideration. But anyway we'll get to that later. So what I'm trying to say here is this bill is good in principle. But what we're going to get to in the next parts of the bill from Part 2 on does need some polishing or some refining and I hope that the Minister will allow us or indulge us to at least have a reasonable attempt at doing so. I do acknowledge that the Minister has travelled widely to look at this. In my previous speech on the same topic I said I've been to the UK to Hong Kong and other places and I've looked myself. There is absolute merit in doing this. In Australia it has transformed some of the infrastructure. But I do want to challenge some members in this committee who believe this will solve everything. It won't. But if we do it properly it will provide us with an independent set of analysis. We will have to make decisions on the quality of service because the quality of service is fundamentally influenced by how much money you spend. So everybody wants the best. In my experience when I was the mayor everybody wanted asphalt cement on their roads—black smooth really quiet looks great—but it was three times the price. It was three times the price of normal chip seal. So you actually have to balance these things up and I don't think this Infrastructure Commission should be expected to fix all that. Then it goes on to how the infrastructure is built and maintained. And for me a lot of conversations in New Zealand are stymied by the fact that we think the public sector needs to build everything. The public sector doesn't need to build everything. There are lots of other contracts and available options where companies can build things they can provide really good services and I want the Infrastructure Commission to look at that. In closing I make one observation—last one. When I went to London recently I looked at the Battersea Power Station development. The council and Government had tried to build that failed twice and a Malaysian company with Hong Kong infrastructure providers have now got it sorted and it's moving. The houses are built—first-class infrastructure. We shouldn't be afraid. CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Before I call Tamati Coffey I want to encourage members of the committee to actually speak to Part 1 of this bill. If we can't contribute to Part 1 maybe we should have the vote and go on Part 2 because most of what I've heard is about Part 2. Tamati Coffey."