Leary IngridINGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): The one thing that is really certain about the lack of plan that the Government has over its water reforms is that there will be rates hikes. I could almost feel smug about saying that if it wasn't so devastating for the people that it will affect which are ratepayers but actually also renters because those costs will be passed on to renters. It really continues the assault that this Government has on vulnerable members of our community. Here I'm thinking about the people in my electorate of Taieri: pensioners who at the moment are paying $1 in $8 to their council rates who over the next 10 years face the prospect of $1 in $4 according to the maths done by Clutha mayor Bryan Cadogan. I'm thinking about families who have maybe just managed to purchase their first home who are now dealing with the cost of living who are thinking about insurance who are thinking about transport costs and who will suddenly be facing these huge rates hikes. And they will happen. In Clutha they're projected to be 20 percent not just for this year—and I heard the Minister of Local Government say in the House that this is about the short term. This is over the next 10 to 12 years. There will be a succession of rates hikes.In Dunedin we've had councillors on the front page of the Otago Daily Times urging people to brace saying that the rates hikes won't be pretty that we cannot afford the infrastructure costs—the flood of costs pardon the pun—that will be coming our way. This is why southern mayors have been pleading for the affordable water reforms to stay. It's because what is needed is scale and efficiency and what the Government has said to date provides neither of those. When we think back to what the reason was for the affordable water reforms it was not only Havelock North but actually what played out really significantly and devastatingly a year ago this week around stormwater damage in Auckland.Now when we sat on the Finance and Expenditure Committee which I had the privilege of chairing we put a lot of thought into changing some of the gaps that existed in the previous law not just in the way that the legislation that came to us was formulated to make sure that there was fairness in the way that stormwater systems were managed. It was a lot of the mismanagement of stormwater and the regulatory gaps that led to a lot of the devastation last year. So I'm looking forward to the committee stage to ask the Minister what he is going to do about managing stormwater now that he is pulling back those reforms and those suggestions that we as a committee made.In Gore 13000 residents face $435 million worth of infrastructure costs with the peel back of the affordable water. That's according to the mayor Ben Bell. Tim Cadogan Central Otago mayor has described the rates hikes they will face as eye-watering. They'll need to raise $100 million over the next three years from a ratepayer base of just 26000 people. Three waters is a mess. The Government's solution does not respond to the question of who is going to pay and what the Minister has said is that there will be some kind of regulatory solution. That is a wholly inadequate answer. I'm looking forward to asking him with these council-controlled organisations how he is going to make them happen. What about debt-heavy councils? How will they raise more funds? What funding role will central government have? What is the most cost-effective way to raise funds? What are they going to do to deal with stormwater?I was really surprised to hear Andrew Bayly talk about consumer protections because he was very invested in the select committee process in ensuring that there were good and straightforward and streamlined consumer protections which we managed to get through in that particular bill. To hear him now saying that he wants to go back to the drawing board is surprising and I heard no plan from him about what he plans to do for consumer protection under these reforms. What we can see is that there is no plan coming from this Government. It is trying to stick to its coalition agreement to pull back the affordable water reforms. It doesn't have a plan. It is trying to distance itself from councils.I feel sorry for the mayors who are sitting in the gallery today because I don't think they'll be around very long once they have to implement the rates hikes that they will be implementing in their councils. This is an assault on homeowners it's an assault on ratepayers it's an assault on renters who will have costs passed on to them and it doesn't do anything to assure people that this Government has a plan for affordable water.