Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I stand on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand this afternoon to commend this bill to the House through its second reading. It touches on two principles or two values which are kind of at the core of the Green Party kaupapa: those being local autonomy and water quality.I just want to acknowledge all of the work that has been put into getting this bill to this place. It is no small feat to get a local bill in front of the House. So along with everybody else who has been acknowledging Chairman Tom" in the gallery today I want to join in sharing those acknowledgements. So too I want to acknowledge the chair of the Governance and Administration Committee Brett Hudson. I would note the Governance and Administration Committee is incredibly fantastic at travelling around the country and making sure that they are accessible to those submitters who are seeking to have their say on pieces of legislation but also the Governance and Administration Committee oversaw my member's bill the Election Access Fund Bill and did their darnedest to make sure that that process was accessible to members of the disability community. So I want to commend that committee for all that they do to make sure that the democratic process is as accessible as it possibly can be.I also want to acknowledge the grassroots community who have worked actively with Mark Patterson in bringing this bill before the House and also the local member—my mate who I used to share the airwaves with as two backbench MPs in Politics 101—Hamish Walker for the work that he has done alongside the chair of the select committee in making sure that members of the Governance and Administration Committee got down there to sample those cheese rolls and of course hear from the local community.I would say that the history has been well-canvassed—as was stated by the speaker just before me Brett Hudson. It was in the 1970s that this piece of infrastructure was built by the local community—that capital that time was invested and it has been maintained by them subsequently. Therefore we think that in dealing with the issues of water quality and the issues of local autonomy it absolutely makes sense that there is that opportunity through that referendum for the community to have their say on their ability to continue that maintenance and that sense of control.This bill appears to be a practical solution to an issue presented by the Local Government Act 2002 under which there is actually a provision for local councils to transfer small water services to another entity but it seems to be—I'm not quite sure whether it is a meaningful threshold or somewhat potentially arbitrary because we had to hit a figure somewhere along the line in setting it as we so often do in legislation. That small service is defined as servicing 200 or fewer persons. It so happens that the community that's being serviced here is 23 people over at 223.So it is worth acknowledging that that may simply for virtue of this debate be somewhat of a technicality but ultimately we don't think that those issues of water quality or local autonomy are mutually exclusive. But we do think that it is important as was raised by other Government members at the Governance and Administration Committee that this work is undertaken alongside the Three Waters review because fundamentally as has come to the forefront of mind for many New Zealanders over the past decade the quality of our water is of integral importance. But bearing in mind all of the work that's been by the local Gore folks and those in Ōtama I think that they definitely have demonstrated a huge amount of responsibility and pride so I therefore commend this bill to the House on its second reading."