Kuriger Barbara; Edmonds BarbaraLOCAL GOVERNMENT (WATER SERVICES PRELIMINARY ARRANGEMENTS) BILLIn CommitteePart 1 Preliminary provisionsCHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members the House is in Committee on the Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. Members we come first to Part 1 and Part 1 of the debate on clauses 3 to 7 Preliminary Provisions and Schedule 1. The question is that Part 1 stand part.Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Madam Chair?CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The Hon Barbara Edmonds. I just about took a vote then so members need to know to be on their feet quickly but the Hon Barbara Edmonds. Hon BARBARA EDMONDS: Thank you Madam Chair. I also want to acknowledge the Minister in the chair who is not the Minister for Local Government but I understand that she is more than capable—Hon Member: Better.Hon BARBARA EDMONDS: —of being able to answer questions—and yes better and I learnt that from experience so I do want to acknowledge you Minister. Actually my general question is first: Part 1 of this particular bill contains the preliminary provisions of the bill such as the Purpose the Overview Interpretation. I'm going to have a couple of questions as we go through but to the Minister and I'll ask the question now in case officials can provide some advice and that's in relation to the regulatory impact statement in particular because the Minister is the Attorney-General as well and would understand this particular area of law quite well which is the Official Information Act. This particular regulatory impact statement was drafted on 14 March 2024 so it's been a number of months and as I travailed through the regulatory impact statements there were a number of parts of the regulatory impact statement which refer to the purpose of the course because it sets out the root causes of the problem which is why we've gotten to the point that we have today which is the bill. It sets out various parts of analysis and what I notice is during parts of those analysis there have actually been parts that have been redacted under the Official Information Act under 9 (2)(a) (b) subclause 12 subsection 1. So for members of the House who are not aware that particular part of the Official Information Act advises that you can refuse the release of information if for any particular reason it has some sort of commercial sensitivity or other sort of sensitivity which is why officials have taken that particular position to redact it. My quick question to the Minister and then I can go back and continue the speech while the Minister gets some advice is that there are particular elements in relation to paragraphs—the end of paragraph 98 99 100 101 paragraph 102 103 and obviously other footnotes—which have all been redacted under that particular provision of the Official Information Act. My question is: has there been a revisiting of this particular advice whether officials are able to release some of that information because we have had additional time since March when it was first drafted. The reason why I'm pointing to that particular information is because it goes to the root cause as to why we have got in to this bill in the first place which is around funding constraints. The funding constraints of local government are well known and understood. I was really hoping the Attorney-General could answer my question—so the Minister of Local Government the question I had is just whether officials or yourself have revisited a number of the redacted clauses within the regulatory impact statement because it does go to the funding constraints. For members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee the funding constraints for local authorities was very much a pivotal reason as to how we got to the affordable water reforms in the first place which have now been repealed by Local Water Done Well. The funding constraints are the reason why councils up and down the country are having double-digit rate rises and the double-digit rate rises have come from the funding constraints that councils have been put in because the Government decided to remove affordable water reforms. I will go into asking the Minister a few more questions about some comparisons in relation to that because that does go to the purpose of this particular bill. So the funding constraints those paragraphs on pages 27 and 28 of the bill set out some of the growing debt ratios and caps and also talk about the increasing number of councils that receive credit downgrades and a reliance on rates or user charges to increase the revenue required to support their networks. I think in the fullness of time given it has been a number of months since this regulatory impact statement was first drafted it would be really good to understand whether the Minister—if we are able to have a bit more information about what has been withheld as part of that regulatory impact statement particularly around the funding constraints so that the members across the whole House are able to have a bit more of a debate around those funding constraints because I understand why officials and why the Minister has to keep that commercially sensitive however we are now in a position where the Government has introduced a bill which requires local authorities within the next 12 months to provide a plan as to how they're going to deliver water in their area and then how that plan basically needs to be also part of the public record. So I just want to finish this last bit of this speech because I know the time has gone out but it's just to check with the Minister—CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The member's time has expired.