Kedgley Sue: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Kedgley Sue: Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
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SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 George Orwell coined a language that he called doublespeak. It is a language that makes the bad seem good and the inappropriate seem appropriate. But I have never—or seldom—heard so much doublespeak coming from Government and ACT members as in this Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill. We have a bill that they say is all about increasing openness and transparency. Then we read the fine print and we discover that the bill is about gutting the consultation procedures in the local government legislation so that openness and transparency will be reduced or taken away. The bill will remove the requirement that councils have to make the decisions that will significantly affect the capacity of local government. It will remove the requirement to consult the public if councils want to contract out their water or other services. It will remove the requirement to consult the community when councils construct abandon or replace strategic assets. Can members believe it? Government members are saying that this will increase the openness and transparency of local government; the only word to describe it is Orwellian. 
The other thing is that Government members are trying to pretend that allowing a private water company to own water infrastructure and to manage it for 35 years is not water privatisation. What a joke! That is using all the best Orwellian language in the world because the truth is that this bill is all about allowing private water companies to come in and take over our water supplies for 35 years: to own them to manage them and to control them. Water privatisation as I was saying yesterday has a terrible record right around the world. The reason for that is that once private water companies take over a local water supply the whole goal is to maximise profits for the water companies not to protect the public interest. 
How do such companies maximise their profits? They do three things. Immediately they shed the workforce—about 25 percent to 50 percent of the workforce in most cases is immediately shed—and they reduce working conditions. The second thing companies do to increase their profits is increase the price of water and I will refer to what they did in the United Kingdom. The third thing they do is under-invest in the asset; they do not bother to fix the leaks. They do what Fay and Richwhite did to our railway network: they just run it down. Instead of investing in upgrading water infrastructure they siphon off all of that money into the profits of the shareholders. That is what has happened all around the world wherever Governments have allowed the privatisation of water. When the United Kingdom fired 25 percent of staff the price of water increased by 50 percent in the first 4 years and the number of people having their water supply cut off tripled because those people could not afford the price of water. In the meantime the huge bonuses and salaries paid to the management and directors of the water companies and the profits of the water companies soared by 142 percent in the first 8 years. 
Let us be under no illusions: that is what this bill is about. I think the private water corporations must be popping champagne as this bill goes through the House. They must be rubbing their hands together with excitement. They are being booted out of countries all around the world because of water privatisation’s terrible track record. Forty cities and towns in France are booting out private water companies. Paris has just booted out a private water company and put back the city’s water supply into public ownership. In Uruguay in Latin America and all around the world people are so outraged at what has happened to their water supplies under privatisation that they are booting out the water companies. Just across the Tasman in Adelaide the biggest water company in the world Veolia Water—which by the way owns the Wellington and Papakura water supplies—has not had its 15-year contract to run the city’s water supply extended. The water supply is going back into public ownership. 
All around the world the opportunities to take over water supplies are being reduced; private water companies are being booted out of countries around the world because people have seen what has happened under water privatisation. Yet water companies must be rubbing their hands together with glee: just as they are being booted out from everywhere else we are passing legislation yet again under urgency to tell them to come to New Zealand as we are now open for water privatisation. Here we are! 
I just wonder what water companies have had to do to get this water legislation through. Their wildest dreams are being fulfilled by this legislation. I know that when we were discussing alcohol legislation Mr Anderton asked whether liquor companies contributed money to the National Party. It would be interesting to know for the public record—and eventually we will find out—whether water companies have contributed any money to the National Party. The beauty for the water companies is not only that they can get 35-year contracts to own our water supplies but that they will no longer have to consult the public. That will all be able to be sneaked through from now on. Councils will be able to contract out their water supplies for 35 years or give their water infrastructure to a private corporation to own for 35 years and they will not have to bother to tell the public. They will be able to sneak provisions through in the dark of night just as we are doing under urgency here today because with this bill we have removed all of the consultation requirements. 
The ACT Party will also be popping champagne after this bill goes through because today we are seeing the implementation of what I call Rogernomics part 2: the corporatisation and the privatisation of as much of local government as possible. It is all set out in the ACT Party’s local government policy which I have here. The whole idea is that local government will shed its ownership of commercial activities; it will be confined to core activities. Piped water will be supplied on a fully commercial basis and the contracting out of services will be encouraged. That is ACT’s local government policy and it is being implemented today in this bill. The ACT Party as well as all the private water companies around the world will be popping champagne; they will be rubbing their hands together will glee. They will be asking how they could have pulled off this one. Not only will they now be able to take ownership of all the water supplies in New Zealand but they will be able to do it secretly in the dead of night. They will not have to go through messy consultation. They know how New Zealanders feel about water privatisation and they know there might be a lot of opposition so they have managed to do it without allowing for public consultation. 
The Business Roundtable has been lobbying for just that for years. I have all of the papers here by Roger Kerr going back over many years about privatising water supplies. In one he says: “Private companies that build own and operate water systems around the world now have annual revenues of around US$300 billion excluding revenues for the sale of bottled water.” He goes on and talks about how the World Bank is pushing privatisation initiatives. He has been lobbying for 20 years to have happen what is happening today—to allow water privatisation to take place in New Zealand. That is what the Government is doing. It is implementing the objectives of the Business Roundtable of ACT and of the Rogernomics part 2 agenda—and Roger is sitting there. That is what he came back to Parliament to do—to oversee Rogernomics part 2 the gutting and the commercialisation of local government. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Gutting? 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: Someone mentioned the word “gutting”; it is a gutting of the consultation requirements.