Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. This Water Services Entities Bill has been a debacle for the Government from start to finish. I want to make very clear for the House that the National Party will campaign at the next election in a year or so's time on repealing and replacing this legislation and if we win the election we will consider ourselves to have a mandate to repeal and replace and we will do so forthwith. Because the Government's position is that it's their way or the highway; that there's a problem with water infrastructure in New Zealand and they've got the solution. And right the way through they have been unwilling to listen to the voices of communities around the country the voices of local councils the voices of local authorities the voices of local ratepayers who've said Yep we acknowledge there's a problem we're up for a solution we just don't like what you as a Government are proposing." There's no dispute that we need to upgrade water infrastructure in this country. There's no disagreement about that. What there is a disagreement about is this legislated all-in solution that confiscates local assets and puts them into four unaccountable mega-entities with 50:50 co-governance that gives extraordinary powers to mana whenua through Te Mana o te Wai statements to control those entities.And right from the start the Government has been unwilling to buckle on its bottom lines. They've been unwilling to change their minds about the four mega-entities they've been unwilling to change their minds about the 50:50 co-governance proposals and they've been unwilling to change their mind about local accountably. Because this is the tragedy of the whole situation—there's a third way through here. It does not need to be the Government's dumb solution. There is a pathway here. There are people of good faith in local communities around the country people of good conscience and good faith who want to do the right thing for New Zealand. And actually I believe there's a consensus in the Parliament around that. But the Government has used its arrogant absolute majority gifted to them in the 2020 election to ram this through. Let's run through the stuff-up. First of all the media campaign right from the start—what a shemozzle. The Government spent all its time telling local councils they were useless. That led to an upsurge of anger in local communities. Then we had the voluntary option: councils thought they were going to be able to come to some sort of consensus with the Government. In fact some still hold that hope and we had to go through the charade of the Government saying "Yep we're open to that" and as it turned out they had already agreed as my colleague Simon Watts found out and demonstrated to the House—in October 2021 the Government said "No no it has to be mandatory. We have to legislate. We have to go all in". Councils felt betrayed. Communities felt betrayed because they thought they were dealing with a Government that was open to change and open to some form of consensus. Turns out they weren't. Then we had the refusal to listen: 88000 people submitted to the select committee process. Just 227 submissions were heard—Maureen Pugh: Selected.CHRIS BISHOP: Selected to be heard. Now I sat on the Justice Committee when we did the euthanasia legislation the End of Life Choice Bill—equally highly contentious. We went up and down the country. I went to Gisborne—oh not Gisborne sorry I went to Napier I went to Blenheim I went to Whanganui I went all over the show and we went around the country to try and listen to people let them ventilate their concerns. And I actually think that helped navigate the Parliament through a very contentious process. But no no no the Finance and Expenditure Committee did not do that. I think that was a mistake. And then we get to the entrenchment debacle of last week of which no more need be said. But what a shambles. What are the five objectionable bits in this legislation? First of all is the confiscation of local assets and the Government scoffs and says "Oh no no no" but that is just the reality. There is no getting around that. It's in the legislation. The legislation takes assets that have been built up by ratepayers over many years takes them off local council hands and gives them to these new four water service entities which are a new creation. The legislation creates these new bodies. These are bodies that have not been seen in legislation before. They are created by the bill. They're a completely new corporate entity—and I use corporate in its most general sense—created by the legislation. These are new entities and they will own the water assets; that is as simple as that. And the traditional rights of ownership—as has been extensively ventilated in the public commentary and in this House—do not go with local councils. It is a Claytons form of ownership: it is not ownership. So it is a confiscation and that is how local councils and local communities see it and they are right.The second point: the accountability of these new entities these new water service entities four of them—just four—around the country they will be less accountable than what we have now. And again it is very difficult to dispute this because the Auditor-General—who doesn't have a dog in this fight; he's the independent officer of Parliament whose job it is to examine these things turned up at the committee and gave a scathing submission to the Water Services Entities Bill about how they will be unaccountable. And the select committee has made no substantive changes to fix that lack of accountability and again communities around the country know this. Thirdly 50:50 co-governance. The community has made it clear what they think about this and they have rejected it. But the Government refuses to buckle. Now—Hon Peeni Henare: Māori are part of the community.CHRIS BISHOP: Māori of course are part of the community and I'm just about to say the Hon Peeni Henare do Māori have rights and interests in water? Absolutely they do. The Crown accepted that in the Supreme Court case that led to the mixed-ownership model. There was a judicial review there was a court case to try and stymie that and the Crown accepted and it's in accordance with longstanding policy that Māori have rights and interests in water. That was the position of the last National Government 10 years ago and it remains the position of the National Party today. But does the acceptance that Māori have rights and interests in water—legitimate rights and interests—mean that we have to have a 50:50 co-governance proposal? It does not. Does it mean that only mana whenua can issue Te Mana o te Wai statements that the water services entities have to give effect to? In our considered view that is not what that acceptance of Māori rights and interests requires. Our view is that it will lead to discord and disharmony and you are seeing that in communities around the country. So that's the third objectionable proposal and the fourth is the exclusivity of Te Mana o te Wai statements. Now let's be really clear: the legislation obliges the new water services entities to give effect to these statements. These are broad and unbridled statements. The breadth of what these statements can contain is enormous. The entities will have to pay mana whenua to participate in this process to give effect to them. There is nothing in the bill around how these statements will be reconciled. If there are different iwi and different groupings that put these Te Mana o te Wai statements to the water services entities bill there is nothing in the legislation—we've had no guidance from the Government so far—about how they will be reconciled. We may well end up in a situation where there are differing statements that have completely irreconcilable objectives and there are according to Te Puni Kōkiri 1200 iwi around the country who could potentially issue these statements to these new water services entities. So the potential for chaos is very very real. Fifth point: the "five waters" not the "three". Because this is not actually the three waters bill any more; the water services is now five and the select committee extended the scope of the bill out to geothermal water and coastal water. And we are yet to hear an adequate explanation from the Government as to why that is the case and what exactly the rationale for that is. I finish by dealing with this privatisation furphy that the Government insists on talking about. The only people talking about privatisation of water assets are the Labour Party and the Green Party. They're the only people talking about it. What the Government is doing is taking assets off councils and giving them to water services entities—so in other words outside of local council control and then using the private debt markets through balance-sheet separation to fund them. So who's the people dealing with private money and private capital and private ownership here? It's certainly not the National Party. So we need to put this furphy of privatisation to bed. National opposes this legislation. We will repeal and replace it."