Russell Deborah; Brown SimeonHon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Thank you to the Minister the Hon Simeon Brown for that brief but nevertheless useful introduction to this part. It's an interesting part because what it does in some of the clauses is set up alternative requirements for consultation. Now there's a whole lot of consultation requirements embedded in the Local Government Act 2002 and they're designed to be there to make sure that local people do get a say in what's going on locally. They've been around for a long time; they're pretty tried and tested. I guess local governments spend a lot of time consulting and for good reason. But what this part does is actually set out alternative consultation and decision-making requirements.Now part of that is obviously because where you've got two or more existing local government entities joining together in order to provide a water services entity that's going to have a different decision-making structure and there are going to be needs to do that. But the interesting bit to me is the alternative consultation processes. And it begs the question: what is wrong with the existing consultation processes within local government? Why did there need to be an alternative process instead of just the standard process that local bodies are already well versed in using? What's the particular need either to shortcut it—because I notice that in clause 52(2) a territorial authority is only required to take consultation once. So it means that consultation is being reduced for the setting up of the water services entities. That's interesting because that's a reduction in democratic participation. And we know that a lot of what this Government has talked about has been the need for bottom-up organisation and it's been the need for localism—for decisions to be taken at the most local level possible—but this alternative consultation seems to run against that.I'm taking it that there is good reason for doing it this way but I think we owe it to the citizens of New Zealand and to the ratepayers of New Zealand to those who will be having to manage the setting up of these water services entities as to why democratic participation is being reduced. Not at this level; we've had our democratic participation here through the standard parliamentary processes and the select committee processes shortish though they were. But they were still there. What also needs to happen—because we are regulating for local government areas. Why is democratic participation being reduced at that level? It will certainly make things easier for local government entities and it will make things easier as these water services entities are being set up but is that appropriate?So I would like to hear from the Minister not just what this part of the bill does—we know that—I want to know why this bill has been set up in this fashion. I want to hear the Minister's reasons for going down this path of reducing democratic accountability.Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Thank you Mr Chair. The member the Hon Dr Deborah Russell may wish to look at clause 52(3) which says Despite subsection (2) a territorial authority may decide to undertake further consultation before making the decision." There is no limit. We're not putting any limits on what territorial authorities may wish to do.Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Look that's a "may"—that's a "may"—and local government entities may well take that path and they could engage in more consultation. The fact is that by saying consultation is only done once it does reduce local participation. In fact a local government entity could overrule what the people in the area that it administers want. They may want more than one round of consultation but a local government entity could rely on clause 52(2) and say it's only required to do it once and just leave it at that. So it does create a capacity here for democratic participation to be reduced and to be reduced by local government entities. Saying that another clause has a "may" doesn't answer that question as to why reduce the capacity for democratic participation. I would really like the Minister actually to address that issue instead of just brushing it off."