SpeechHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Thank you Madam Chair. National obviously has privatisation on its mind. Some of the first things that Mr Watts said were that this Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in my name attempted to entrench the privatisation provision. It did not; it sought to embody and embed in the legislation a commitment to public ownership of key public assets. I would like to note that this was about entrenching one clause in the bill not the whole bill as some people writing to me seem to think. It was one clause and it reinforces the Green Party's commitment to public ownership of key three waters assets: the provision of drinking water waste water and stormwater. Water is essential to life. We could not vote without having water so the Greens believe that this is of such importance constitutionally that the public ownership of three waters assets deserves entrenchment. It's certainly not the 75 percent supermajority that you have for matters in the Electoral Act but it is the 60 percent majority. We would have preferred that is wasn't debated under urgency but as members of the National Party well know the committee stage is the only stage when you can table and have amendments voted on. And National Party members should also know that the Standing Orders indeed provide for entrenchment provided the same majority in the House pass the provision the SOP was seeking to entrench. That happened.The Green Party has a long history of supporting assets being managed and operated in public ownership. As a first-term MP back in 2012 I and hundreds of others stood and gathered signatures on the citizens initiated referendum to keep our assets. Hundreds of people all around the motu signed that petition—as many as a thousand people in a day. More than 300000 people signed the petition. We got a citizens initiated referendum; 67 percent of people voting in that referendum—more than 1 million New Zealanders—voted to keep our energy companies to keep Air New Zealand and to keep Solid Energy in public ownership. What did the John Key National Government do? It totally ignored the result.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Order! The member is getting too wide of the mark. The debate today on this SOP relates to the provisions contained in this SOP in the bill and I'd ask the member to confine her comments to that—and anyone else in the Chamber who wants to make a contribution.Hon EUGENIE SAGE: Thank you Madam Chair. In terms of the context though it was because feeling as an MP what was I doing in a Parliament where a simple majority of the Parliament could move to reject the views of such a substantial number of New Zealanders hence the commitment to maintain public ownership of these assets. That's why the SOP—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): No. I've asked the member to confine her comments to the SOP. Now I'm also letting the committee know that that will apply to any other contribution today. So again I'm going to ask the Hon Eugenie Sage—have you stopped the clock? Yup—to confine her comments to this SOP on the Water Services Entities Bill.Hon EUGENIE SAGE: Point of order Madam Chair. It was just that previous speakers have spoken at length about the Electoral Act—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): No no. The member won't dispute my ruling but I do want to be fair to the member. The member has one minute and seven seconds to go. Again I'm going to ask the member to stick to the bill at hand and to the SOP that is being addressed by way of this SOP.Hon EUGENIE SAGE: The Green Party won't be supporting the SOP because a key way to guarantee a water-secure future for our children is to reduce emissions is to protect the climate and is to keep our three waters infrastructure in public ownership. This SOP removes that protection of entrenchment in the bill. It removes the entrenched provision which would require any future Government wanting to amend the Water Services Entities Bill to get a 60 percent majority of the Parliament. The SOP would mean that a Government could just change that obligation in clause 116 to maintain water services to not divest water services by a simple majority. For the Green Party the public ownership and operation of three water services is essential to the way in which we operate as communities and to good environmental outcomes to ensure that our waste water is well managed that discharges are of a high quality and that we protect the sources of our drinking water and ensure that everybody has access to it. In our view entrenching—[Time expired]