Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to be talking on this Water Services Bill. As many speakers have traversed it's a long time coming to get to this point today where we have the introduction of a new bill which essentially puts in place a new regulatory regime. It's interesting when you go around the world and I've been involved in water projects around the world New Zealand has been a bit of an outlier in the sense that we do not and have not had in place good sets of regulations or even independent oversight of our water system. I think in New Zealand we've relied principally on the fact that territorial local councils or authorities or councils in the main do a pretty good job managing water supplies. But unfortunately that Havelock North example showed that that is not always the case.I think this piece of legislation brings New Zealand into the main with what we see internationally and perhaps we should have had it earlier. For those who were affected by Havelock I certainly express my best wishes for them and for those who lost their lives. It's truly a tragic event. But this piece of legislation obviously is sort of a step towards in terms of the continuum of the different types of models we could put in place. It's reasonably prescriptive in terms of what it sets out and I think many people have gone through the various aspects of what the new authority will have power and oversight of—principally about making sure approving and overseeing the types of plans that have been prepared. But also it puts an obligation on councils particularly and for regional councils to publish the results. I think that's all good stuff and I think what we'll see over time is making sure—particularly amongst our 64 councils where we've got some that are more financially constrained—that the requirement to provide a certain level of quality of water is absolutely paramount in the decision making. That will stop the deferring of essential investment in upgrading not only our water but our stormwater and our waste-water assets because that requirement to meet a safety requirement a health requirement will be now a paramount objective for them. I think that will force in some ways expenditure in these smaller councils many of whom at this stage are financially constrained—so it gives rise to a much wider issue about how they're going to fund that and how they're going to meet their requirements.But that is a different issue. What this is principally about is a health issue. I think that's an excellent point to start and a great way to drive organisational change if we are to see much better levels of quality of water across all of New Zealand. I think there are areas of debate within the bill and no doubt the Health Committee will be looking at it. But I think the first one is the level of reporting that the councils have to do and the management plans. Whilst it's good in principle and it's great that it's set out in legislation—and I'm not saying that that's not appropriate—what I am suggesting is there will need to be care around making sure that we strike the right balance between what is necessary and what over time we get: scope creep. I think we just need to make sure the scope creep is—people want to make sure that they get every piece of information which may not always be relevant but we do not want to end up imposing on local authorities particularly an undue burden that doesn't actually deliver a better outcome. So I'm being careful there is a balance. We certainly need the right information but we need to make sure that we don't end up in a situation where we overexpose councils to unnecessary requirements. The other thing I think—and I know my colleague beside me traversed this issue slightly—is the issue around those who supply less than 500 people. We do need to make sure that those small communities—and Hon Michael Woodhouse was talking about that before—are in a situation where they have good arrangements. In many cases they would have been in place for maybe 100 years or whatever and we want to make sure that we don't again start overlying sort of an Auckland-Wellington solution to something that is very local and actually the community is very happy with. I think that again is the next level of balancing act we need to make sure.The last one and this is one that particularly affects my electorate of Port Waikato is the issue around supply at a very small level. Where on farm supply the definition of a building—obviously an apartment is ruled out under these arrangements and therefore would be captured. But where people grow up on farms and there are businesses located on those farms which may not just be related to normal ordinary course of business but it might be a processing plant or whatever or in many cases farms have multiple houses and dwellings. Again I just think we need to be very mindful about again ending up with regulations—actually in the legislation but it will be captured in the regulations as well—that are not fit for purpose. We want to make sure that our horticultural industries—even large farms and large parts of my electorate who have multiple dwellings—do not end up being unnecessarily caught out. Because after all the people that own the farms in many cases are living on the farms and they have as much incentive to make sure the water quality is up to standard to meet their own family needs as well as the people that might be working with them on those properties. So I think again I'd just say to the committee be careful be prudent and be focused on making sure we end up with legislation and regulations that are very appropriate and over time serve the community well in terms of delivering a much better delivery of outcomes over the longer term. I think that's about all I want to cover. The Resource Management Act aspect is another one that is talking about actual and potential effects. I've heard a couple of people speak about that I don't quite know what that means but I'm sure the committee will take the opportunity to explore what that means. Is that to give priority to? I don't know. I don't know what the wording means. I've had a bit of a look here but I think that's another sort of aspect. But in the main I've got to say I think the bill certainly looks like it's heading in the right direction and it would be interesting to see it progress through not only the select committee process but through the House. Thank you very much.