Burns Brendon: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Burns Brendon: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10700] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I am very pleased to speak on the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill and to follow on from the Associate Minister of Local Government John Carter who effectively is the Minister of Local Government. He is the man who was brought in to rescue the Government from the mess that was created by the Minister in charge of this bill in terms of the Auckland super-city amendments. I will comment in particular on the parts of this bill that relate to what effectively is the privatisation of water services. The provision in this bill is that schemes can be operated for 35 years under the Build Own Operate and Transfer (BOOT) process. It is a Clayton’s privatisation because if we calculate what 35 years is we know that it is 11½ terms of Parliament. It means that people aged 30 now will be in retirement age before they once again get a say on who should be running their water schemes or on who should be looking after their interests. What MP in this House has served 11½ terms? The amount of time is 35 years. It is an increase from 15 years which is the current provision for those who wish to operate BOOT schemes. It is privatisation in drag. 
I can recall in a past life in this House that Sir Roger Douglas in his role in a Labour Government—and I acknowledge that it was a Labour Government—argued the case for State-owned enterprises. I for one supported the argument that we needed to see the efficiencies that State-owned enterprises would bring. But I did not appreciate—and I was not a member of this Parliament at that time—and I suspect that most of the Labour caucus did not appreciate that there was an agenda behind the agenda which was to take State-owned enterprises into privatisation. I believe that we are seeing exactly the same with this process. I think that some members of the National caucus will be supporting this bill on the basis that it will deliver some efficiencies in water delivery but I tell them to look very closely at it. Behind it we are seeing a move towards the privatisation of water services. Three and a half decades is in many people’s terms a lifetime. It is certainly a generation and it is too long a period to entrust water services to private enterprise. I will come to some points about why we cannot trust it for that length of time shortly. 
I acknowledge that there are good people in the water industry who are in support of the idea that 35 years under BOOT schemes is a good time frame to allow schemes to be built and operated and to have returns made. The reason I am mostly suspicious about this provision is that a month ago in this House we saw the disembowelling of Environment Canterbury over issues of water. That was at the core of what happened in this Parliament when in 30 hours flat we saw an elected body a democratic body put out of office. There was an agenda behind that in relation to water because the Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament in February this year said that he wanted to see new water schemes and new irrigation schemes in place in Canterbury next year. There is no way on God’s earth that that can be accompanied by new and much-required environmental tools that will allow water to be delivered in a way that does not add further to the detriment of water quality in Canterbury. It is already in such a state that it is not safe to swim in our lowland streams let alone to drink the water. That is why I have this suspicion about this bill and the time frames of 35 years for BOOT schemes. Just a month ago in this House we saw what happened to Environment Canterbury and the very clear agenda behind that. 
I was very pleased on Friday night to see and speak at a rally in Canterbury about those issues when 400 people gathered to make their voices heard— 
Hone Harawira 
: What was your rally’s name? 
BRENDON BURNS 
: Four hundred people gathered at very short notice to make their concerns known but it was galling to see just around the corner the gloating going on at a National Party fundraiser as people celebrated the demolition of democracy in Canterbury. Since the “Environment Canterbury Disembowelling Act” we have heard the Minister of Agriculture issue a very clear warning to other regional councils to look after farmers with water or else. There was a very explicit warning to other regional councils that they are to deliver what this Government wants in respect of water to farmers. I want to make it very clear that I support irrigation in my province of Canterbury and I want to see the greening of the plains but it must be done in a way that does not add further to the— 
Jo Goodhew 
: What’s the evidence of that? 
BRENDON BURNS 
: The member opposite is from an electorate that has no safe lowland streams to swim in. If she wants to take her kids down to a river she will see the diseases that they are likely to risk getting. She cannot take her dog and let it drink from the rivers of Canterbury because of the water quality. The member for Rangitata is doing nothing to improve river water quality—nothing. There is no way the Government can put this in place in the time frame it has allocated for new projects in Canterbury. 
In the House today we heard the Minister for the Environment’s announcements about water metering. I put this question to him: will it mean that those who have surplus water once their water meter is calculating their flows will be able to trade that for windfall profits? He would not answer that question because that is the trade-off for irrigators. They will have to pay $400 a year for the monitoring of the water metering but the pay-off will be that they can trade the water. They will be able to sell it for an uncapped price and that I say is reprehensible. Water is a common good; it belongs to all New Zealanders. It falls from the skies. It does not belong to any person simply because he or she has a deep pipe down into the earth or can suck it out of a river. Water is a common good that belongs to every New Zealander and it is at the heart of this legislation that we are debating today. I acknowledge that there is a case for water metering for farmers who are using millions sometimes billions of litres of water but there is no case whatsoever for farmers to gain windfall profits. I think that that was the softener for the water meter announcements of last weekend. 
I will comment further on the 35-year term. There is no Government responsibility attached to the quality of water delivered and some members last night might have heard comments on Television One from the Minister of Health and me about the issue of drinking water safety. Currently one in six New Zealanders drink water that cannot be deemed safe according to World Health Organization minimum standards. Sometimes the water is measured but does not meet the standard. The Minister cannot give any assurance on that. In fact he is sitting on $80 million of funding that was put aside by the Labour Government to help small communities to improve their water quality. In terms of those issues the responsibilities still rest with the councils. They are not being transferred to those who operate the BOOT schemes; they are still being held by the councils. They will be responsible not the operators of the BOOT system and not the Government as I read the scheme and that is a failure in terms of water quality. I say that there must be some change in terms of regulatory regime and of getting water quality right if we are to have any improvement in water quality. 
I note the article in today’s  
New Zealand Herald  
from Margaret Devlin a very distinguished woman. She is the former chair of Water UK and the managing director of South East Water in Britain. She comments that New Zealand lacks overall national water regulation rules. Regulation as she acknowledges can play an important and very positive role; it is not simply a negative. When we are dealing with something as important as water this bill should be accompanied by some sense that water will be regulated in terms of quality and there is nothing in this bill that mentions what will happen in respect of pricing. In Britain there is Ofwat the Office of Water Services which sets clear performance parameters there is an environment agency that works on environmental protection and there are drinking-water inspectors who ensure that drinking water is up to standard. The Ministry of Health has virtually no staff in charge of drinking-water standards. A tender had to be advertised recently for contractors to come in and provide the services that the Ministry of Health once had so that we could see the drinking-water standards of the World Health Organization monitored and put into effect in this country. We had to go out for tender for that. 
This bill proposes that there should be a move from 15 to 35 years—35 years—in which a BOOT scheme can be operated without any reference to the quality of the water without any requirement that they meet regulations and without any responsibility yet the councils and the ratepayers will have no say for 11½ terms of this Parliament which is 35 years. This represents a generation of passing it across to somebody else who bears no responsibility for the quality of the water being delivered. There is no regulation to accompany this. It is simply a process of effective privatisation. New Zealanders will rue the day that this bill was introduced. It will do nothing to improve water quality and there are huge question marks about what it will deliver.