Watts SimonSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much Madam Chair. Look it's hard to go past the contribution from the last member Eugenie Sage when in the prior part of the bill a Supplementary Order Paper was put up to remove stormwater and it was declined by the Government and yet still voted for the bill. So where do we stand? Is it you know going from two waters to three waters—are we just going to fold on that? I think that's part of the challenge we've got.But I want to talk about clause 166 so a clause that we haven't spoken about today. It is a clause that has been a big issue right from the start. I'll set a little bit of the context and then get into the questions. This is the concept that on this side of the Chamber we've referred to as token ownership. It is basically the basis of this bill under clause 166(1)(a) that in effect territorial authorities or councils technically own the asset. I say technically" like they might own the house but they don't have the keys to the front door and they don't decide where the furniture goes in the house; it is token ownership. Clause 166(1)(a) says that these entities have and I quote "no right title or interest … in the assets security debts or liabilities of a water services entity".One doesn't have to be a forensic accountant or a specialist in any of that aspect to work out that when you use a word such as "ownership" where you will have a shareholding in these entities—I think it would be common in plain language to expect that that would infer some rights over those assets or liabilities quite simply. But this clause makes it absolutely categoric that that is not the case.So my question to the Minister of Local Government is as follows: why is this aspect of the clause within the bill? Why have we got a clause such as this which in effect strips all of those rights and interests from debts and liabilities and assets from the territorial authorities—which don't forget have funded those assets over decades and decades by ratepayers—and is in effect having them confiscated wholesale by central government into these mega-entities? The central government are saying "Well on paper yep you've got ownership and rights and shareholdings." but this absolutely defeats that statement—and again more political spin. This rules out that they are going to have any obligation in that. So you technically own the house but you don't have the key to the front door. I'm wanting to know why it is that the Government do not trust our territorial authorities to have that degree of ownership of their asset.One of the fundamental Opposition points around this bill—and also solutions that are included with alternative models that have been tabled and peer reviewed that the Government have failed to listen to—is that councils and territorial authorities and groupings around that want the ability to retain the assets in local ownership and are willing to work together with other like-minded councils and form council-controlled organisations—heck some already do it. Watercare in Auckland is already a great example of a council-controlled organisation entity that is working. Could there be improvements around funding and financing? Yes. Do we need to put them into one of these mega-entities and put fifty-fifty co-governance and centralisation to make Watercare better? No; we just need to deal with the problem on the table which is around how do we get more effective funding and financing. Well here's an idea: maybe we should just fix that. But no the answer is actually "We're going to try and centralise Auckland in with Northland create a mega-entity create 350 more bureaucrats in a swanky office in Freemans Bay and that will be that. We know that's going to work."So I'm interested in the comments around that clause and as the Minister will note I have got a tabled amendment in regards to this clause and I would appreciate if the Minister could consider that and if not which I expect will be the case provide some pretty robust rationale around why the Minister deems that this is so essential in terms of the underpinning of this bill."