Wagner Nicky: South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Wagner Nicky: South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8509. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I rise also to support this bill the South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill at its third reading. As we finish this reading I want to thank the Hon Chester Borrows for his work. He is a very hard-working and effective local MP. I also want to thank the Local Government and Environment Committee. It debated this in full. The committee went through all the details with a fine-tooth comb. Finally I thank the submitters for being involved in the process. 
But I want to just clarify that this bill is not about transferring the Cold Creek rural water supply scheme to Cold Creek Community Water Supply Ltd. It is about establishing a process that must be followed—a process for the South Taranaki District Council to make that transfer. This transfer is from the council to the local people who built the scheme in the late 1980s with a taxpayer subsidy and these people are the ones who still use the scheme. It was a community collaboration to provide quality water and the community has managed it and paid for its operation since 2001. 
This bill prescribes the process required to make the transfer. It requires that before any transfer is made the council must consult with the medical officer of health for Taranaki and every iwi authority whose rohe comes within the scheme’s distribution area and make their views publicly available. Then a transfer plan must be prepared by the company and this must include analysis of the contractual arrangements with the council and an estimate of likely future capital and operating costs of the company. It also has to make an assessment of the company’s ability to maintain and operate the scheme for all residents—even if those properties change hands or they are leased to others in the future—how much it is going to cost and its ability to maintain and operate the scheme for the next 30 years. As well as that the company must agree to provide water to the Opunake residents in certain emergencies. Finally it has to prepare a protocol that provides for the appropriate consultation by the company with every iwi authority in the scheme’s distribution area. 
Then they have to have a referendum. That referendum covers eligible voters who are residents in the properties that are serviced by the scheme or capable of being serviced by the scheme or within the scheme distribution area. Then the transfer can occur only if 50 percent of those people vote in the referendum to support that transfer. This is a case of local people committing to their community of local people working collaboratively for nearly 30 years to create a community asset. The bill provides a process requiring significant local consultation and a community referendum so that the voters can have their say about their community. I commend the bill to the House.