Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Mr Chair. For the sake of the people who are at home we are in urgency. The normal procedures of the Parliament have been set to one side so the Government can push through its legislative agenda of which this Water Services Entities Amendment Bill is just one bill in a very long list that will keep the Parliament occupied probably right through till the end of the week. Now what's interesting about this bill and particularly about Part 1 is that it represents everything that is wrong with this current Government in terms of the schmozzle and bamboozled approach to not only water services but the whole water issue. Here we are in the dying days of this current Labour Government amending a piece of legislation that was only passed towards the end of last year. The principal Act that we are amending is the Water Services Entity Act 2022. Here we are in August 2023 already amending it to make changes that will be superficial at best and complicated confusing and costly at worst but driven by ideology. So I want to turn to—as an example of that—clause 4A in Part 1 of this bill; it's on page 6 of the bill that's sitting on the Table. At 4A(4) it says that After section 3(2)(d) insert: … [the words] providing a locally led process enabling them to merge if their regional representative groups decide to do so". Therein lies the rub. This is warm fuzzy words that actually mean very little in terms of local democracy local accountability or electoral accountability. This is the sort of wording that lies at the very root of the criticism that has been so loudly voiced up and down the nation across the countryside by not only local government representatives of every colour and hue but by ratepayers all over the country.The words "providing a locally led process enabling them to merge if their regional representative groups decide to do so" is the epitome of what is wrong with this legislation. The whole concept behind the current Government's three waters proposals that created the four mega-entities soon to be replaced by this piece of legislation that turns those four mega-entities into 10 mega-entities was little more—and has been little more—than State-sanctioned theft. That's been the criticism up and down the countryside. So my question to the Minister in the chair is: why can't his Government listen more closely to ratepayers have a better regard for their views and a better regard for democratic processes that have underpinned local government in this country since local government was established? Why has the current Government got such disregard for the views of ratepayers and indeed those elected local government representatives? "Providing a locally led process enabling them to merge if their regional representative groups decide to do so"—well you couldn't get anything more waffly than that. We've got a range of other questions that we will proceed to ask the Minister through the course of this debate on Part 1. That's my starting contribution. I know my colleagues on this side of the committee will be wanting to speak to the various Supplementary Order Papers. Simon Watts my colleague has just referred to his Supplementary Order Paper that amends clause 16 and that's a good piece. I know that my colleagues in the ACT Party—Simon Court—have a number of Supplementary Order Papers on the Table as well. Thank you Mr Chair."