Sage Eugenie: South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sage Eugenie: South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 05 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7178. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on the South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill. I am particularly pleased because some of the statements from Government members indicate that the Government is very worried about a Labour-Green Government in 2014. I look forward to being part of that Government. I think the one thing I do agree with Dr Nick Smith about is that this bill brings to bear some of the issues of principle which is one of the reasons we are opposing this Government because it is all about a privatisation agenda. 
It is fascinating being in the Local Government and Environment Committee and having what seems like a small local bill come along that throws into relief these big issues of principle about privatisation of community assets especially essential community assets around water. So I certainly congratulate Chester Borrows for his very good work as a local member on bringing the bill to the committee. The Green Party supported it at the first reading in accordance with the convention to support local bills but it has been the further information that has come through the select committee process through public submissions that means the Green Party will not be supporting the bill at this reading and subsequent readings. 
This bill is needed—those wanting the bill need it—in order to transfer ownership of the small-scale water-supply scheme that was built in the 1980s to rural landholders in the area. There are about 160 dwellings and about 400 people. The water supply is used primarily for farming purposes. One of the reasons we oppose it is because the Local Government Act 2002—and one of the areas that the Government has not amended thankfully—contains quite explicit provisions that restrict local councils from disposing of infrastructure necessary for providing water services in their districts. So without this local bill the council could not divest itself of the scheme because the number of households that the scheme serves exceeds the threshold in the Local Government Act. 
As other speakers such as Annette King have mentioned this desire by the scheme users to divest the scheme goes back to the early 1990s. Then they were very concerned that future councils would corporatise or franchise the scheme. Those fears have not been realised so we do not see why there is a need to privatise the scheme. That is because there has been quite significant public funding of the scheme. There was a 1984 Crown grant of $1.28 million which met half of the construction costs. Also I understood from the submissions presented by the South Taranaki District Council that there had been an effective ratepayer subsidy for some of the scheme’s operation costs as well. 
But one of the major reasons the Green Party is now opposing the bill is because of the strong submissions by iwi and the potential injustice that the privatisation would result in. There was a submission from Paraninihi ki Waitotara Inc. It was very concerned about the privatisation affecting the value and the potential rental return from its leases in perpetuity over Maori reserve land in the scheme area because the scheme infrastructure the head works and the reticulation network are all improvements. So in terms of privatising the scheme the value of those improvements is not reflected in the rental value of the land that is on this perpetual lease. 
It is also concerned—and this concern is even more serious—that there would be quite a lot of uncertainty over whether water from the scheme would be available to its lands in future. As the incorporation noted a number of waterways in Taranaki are already under pressure in dry periods during the summer and many rivers and streams are fully allocated. Some of the leaseholders who are leasing land from the incorporation on a perpetual lease also own blocks of freehold land. The incorporation was concerned that the current water permits issued by the Taranaki Regional Council might be transferred from the leasehold land to these freehold blocks and so the incorporation’s land would potentially in future no longer have a certain access to water through the water permits issued by the council. 
The incorporation made some suggestions about how the legislation could be amended to provide certainty that Maori reserve lands would have the certainty of access to water. The select committee did not accept those amendments. Given that the land was first confiscated then given as Maori reserve land for perpetual leases there is potentially a major second injustice caused by this legislation if there is any risk of Maori reserve land being denied water permits in future. So that is one of the reasons we are opposing it. 
Dr Nick Smith as is often a characteristic of Dr Nick Smith promoted a lot of misinformation about the other reason we are opposing the bill and that is in relation to the referendum. We have never proposed that there be a referendum over the whole of New Zealand as to whether the scheme be divested. It is a referendum over the whole of the South Taranaki District that we propose. The bill as it was amended in the select committee provides for a referendum over only the scheme area—an area that could be served by the scheme. So it is over a very small part of the district not over the whole of the district which is what the Green Party supported. We want given the public money that has gone into this scheme all of the district to be involved in that referendum. But it is typical of the National Party—and we have seen that too in the changes to the Local Government Act 2002 and the withdrawal of the mandatory referendum on any reorganisation proposals—that it wants to restrict the number of people who have an ability to vote. 
So for those reasons firstly the very narrow area that the referendum would be conducted over; secondly the fact that there is a potential second injustice to Maori landholders from the proposal; and thirdly that substantial public money has gone into constructing the scheme—it has been subsidised by ratepayer funds— 
Maggie Barry 
: Taxpayer. 
EUGENIE SAGE 
: —and it had a major investment of taxpayer revenue of $1.8 million thank you Ms Barry—the scheme should stay in council ownership. The council is quite capable of administering it and managing the scheme for the benefit of the users not privatising it and seeing those users get potentially quite significant private benefits given the enormous value of water particularly in summer dry periods. So for those reasons the Green Party will be opposing the bill.