Webb Duncan; Pham Lan; Brown SimeonHon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you Mr Chair. I think I have only a short point but it's in respect of joint plans which have been touched on and the Hon Dr Megan Woods has identified the problem of orphans. But I want to identify a different problem that I'm actually just genuinely not clear what the legislation anticipates and that is the islands problem—that is to say non-contiguous territorial authorities clubbing together for a joint plan. Now I say this because it was raised personally with me that there are territorial authorities that are essentially going shopping for partners and you might have somewhere like Hurunui which is relatively sparsely populated—Hon Dr Megan Woods: That's in the South Island FYI.Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —small rating base and difficult to service. And then you've got Blenheim city to the north of it and Amberley and Waimakariri to the south. Now what would happen if Waimakariri and Blenheim clubbed together but left Hurunui out in the cold? Now the problem I have is that you've got a definition of joint service area" which kind of implies that you're intending it to be contiguous and then in clause 9 in Part 2 you say that territorial authorities may submit a joint plan where they propose delivering water services through a joint arrangement. Now is that joint arrangement? Is it enough if that joint arrangement is the engineering and accounting departments sitting in one set of offices but there being absolutely no shared services whatsoever there being two entirely separate water networks. It strikes me that that hasn't been contemplated. It strikes me that in the back of our mind is contiguous areas clubbing together to have geographical and economic efficiencies. And that's a good thing right that that was always part of the plan? Whereas a joint plan which cherry picks well-managed well-capitalised councils is kind of undermining that entirely. But it's not clearly prohibited. And if it's not prohibited it's allowed. And I know that there are—and they're only doing their job but there are councils out there looking for the best advantage they can get in this framework for their people as they should. And that may mean that there's essentially a highly inefficient delivery of water networks with islands of well-capitalised councils cooperating with a sea of undercapitalised councils around them. And I'd be really interested if you could address whether that's in or out.LAN PHAM (Green): Thank you Mr Chairman. Still picking up on Part 2 Subpart 1 I have another separate amendment that relates to this really important issue of time frames and this is amendment 67 and it's to do specifically with clause 16. Now what this seeks to do—and I'd really be interested to hear whether the Minister would consider amending this to the bill tonight because it's so important to the actual delivery and success or failure of this bill. So it's about extending the deadline for local authorities to actually deliver these water service delivery plans. And this is an acknowledgment of the fact that actually every single council that did submit on this bill asked for this extended time frame. Local Government New Zealand asked for it; Taituarā asked for it. And it's really in recognition that the development of these water service development plans will take time. It'll take specialist skills and councils really need to hear from Government here that we're listening in terms of granting them that pragmatic time frame.Now I want to pick up on this because the water service delivery plans themselves require information on the current state of councils' water services. But they not only want councils to sit that out; they want to see included in them a strategy for how councils will deliver that financial sustainability that we've covered in previous areas and how they will actually meet regulatory standards and the information that will actually lay the groundwork for the economic regulation of the water services. So this is really extensive stuff. And what we heard really clearly from submissions on this is—and this is a quote from Taituarā: The decisions that local authorities are likely to make will have significant impacts on lands and waters and these decisions could give rise to a breach of the Crown's Treaty of Waitangi obligations." Now this is a concern when it comes to time frames because they elaborate in saying "We are unconvinced that genuine processes with iwi Māori can be run against a clock and we submit that any reform process for three waters must result in arrangements that are enduring. In that spirit surely Parliament would want these processes to be done right rather than done quickly." And I think that's definitely the sentiment that we're hearing from the Minister. There is some urgency round it because of our infrastructure deficit but we want it to be done right. We don't want this back-and-forth that we've seen with the previous Government and then this Government in place.Now I want to also pick up on the Public Health Communication Centre because they spelt out really clearly the importance of extending these time frames. They talked about their research which demonstrated that New Zealand's water infrastructure has a really low resilience when it comes to climate change impacts and they said "For this reason we also suggest that 12 months is an insufficient time frame for the development of these water service development plans. These are long-term complex and vital infrastructure investments and they should be rigorously developed."Now the amendment that I'm proposing is simply to change the 12-month period to two years. Now I'm noting that in the bill there is the ability for councils to ask for an extension but what councils are saying is this is going to be such a collaborative effort and they want to be able to map it out properly they want to be able to fund it properly and by doing that with really clear set time frames that actually helps them in their decision making.I also wanted to hear from the Minister because there was this quite interesting part of the regulatory impact statement that estimated that preparing the water service development plans would only require one full-time equivalent working 40 hours for a small council and up to 100 hours for a larger council. And I wanted to hear from the Minister whether you've actually revised those time frames and expectations given that in the submissions we heard so clearly from local government that it's going to take so much resource and that they want to do it properly and that they're really asking for that pragmatic extension in time frames. Thank you Mr Chair.Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Thank you Mr Chair and thank you members for the questions. In relation to the issue around joint plans "Territory authorities"—as it says here; I mean the legislation is quite clear—"can prepare a joint plan in relation to delivering water services in the joint service area covered by a joint arrangement." and ultimately councils will decide and have those conversations and make those decisions. There are obviously some backstop powers in here as well in relation to the role that Government may have but ultimately councils are required to put forward their water service delivery plans and make those arrangements as this legislation requires.In relation to Lan Pham's questions here in terms of the issue around time frames and I understand the point that she's making in relation to one year and two years and that is the reason why that we have clause 17 to allow for there to be an extension granted by the Minister following an application. The reality here though is we've got a tension between the infrastructure challenges and the need for a clear plan from councils to ensure that we can deliver this infrastructure for New Zealanders which is the Government's priority and the urgency that we're applying to this issue and the member's suggestion around wanting to take longer to grapple through those issues. And I put it to her that if we provide two years for all councils most councils will utilise two years. And actually we need to provide a level of urgency in terms of actually requiring councils to put forward these plans in an efficient manner so that decisions can then be made and that can then be executed so we can get from the planning stage to the delivery stage which is critically important for New Zealand's water infrastructure. Twelve months is an adequate time for preparing it. There is an exceptions process in place which we think is adequate if an extension is required.And there's been a couple of other tabled amendments put on the Table. Rachel Boyack has put forward an Amendment Paper in relation to clause 11—inserting after clause 11 the time frame of how the anticipated or proposed model arrangements provided were made compliant. This is the same as the member's—the time frame is set by the time frame of the plans. It's up to councils how long their plans cover. So effectively I've already answered that question in relation to—the legislation does allow for plans to be up to 30 years. The point is to allow a view of investment that falls outside of 10 years if they wish.In relation to the other Amendment Paper made by Lan Pham in terms of clause 8A around replacing "Wellington Regional Council" with "regional councils"—we won't be supporting the Amendment Paper—the reason for this reference to include "Wellington Regional Council" is that only the Wellington Regional Council provides water services. They are the bulk water supplier for the region. No other regional councils are directly involved in water services delivery. Hence why we did that. So I thought I'd just answer that there's specific reason for having that in this legislation."