Kuriger Barbara; Parker DavidPart 5 Amendments to Water Services Act 2021 and consequential amendments CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members we now come to Part 5. This is the debate on clauses 100 to 103 Amendments to Water Services Act 2021 and consequential amendments" and Schedule 2. The question is that Part 5 stand part.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I know something about the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management and I can't understand this provision. The National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management essentially says that as a country we should be setting some targets for our water bodies that are degraded that are science-based and that we should then over a long period of time head towards achieving those targets. Those targets are set by regional councils in consultation with their communities having regard to various attributes that have to be taken into account—like turbidity the E. coli concentrations nutrient concentrations that if you get too much nutrient cause slime to grow in your rivers and the like. I think the attributes are pretty much agreed across society. The rural communities were particularly concerned that we were going to have too tough a nutrient attribute but we didn't go for a specific dissolved or inorganic nitrogen attribute and there was considerable flexibility left in the instrument for regional councils to determine how they should over time improve the quality of degraded waterways. I thought that we as a country agreed that we should—and being blessed as we are with such beautiful water resources—look after them pretty well.Now one of the overarching provisions in the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management is that at a high level the way in which you should be managing your water is to first look after the water body and then the next priority is to attend to human needs like sewage discharge or water tanks for drinking—both of those are obviously human uses—and then thirdly commercial uses. Now none of these are absolutes. No one has been pretending that we're going to all of a sudden have absolutely pristine waterways and it's not a trade-off between cost and cleanliness particularly where you have a degraded waterway. But I don't understand. So I would like the Minister of Local Government to explain to me why it is that there is the need for this change. What is wrong in the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Managaement particularly in relation to the hierarchy of obligations which is referred to in clause 101 of this bill which inserts a new section 138(3A) which says "When making wastewater environmental performance standards under this section Taumata Arowai must not have regard to the hierarchy of obligations in clause 1.3(5) of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management."? I don't understand the driver for that. I don't understand what the need is for that revocation of that principle because my understanding based on when I was the Minister was that it wasn't something that would prevent councils from getting resource consents for what they currently do or want to do in the future. Yes over time if they are polluting a waterway we want them not to make it worse but there is no regulation that says there wasn't some flexibility as to how they improve things over time or some unrealistic standard to which they were being—and I do remember that there were other parties at the time the Māori Party with respect I thought were unrealistic; they thought things should be cleaned up to a drinkable standard which I thought was an impossible ideal much though we would love that. But the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management didn't do that.So I would like the Minister to explain to us why it is that this provision is necessary."