Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): In respect of the point the member the Hon Nathan Guy made about urban streams he's quite correct. Some of our most polluted streams are in urban areas. Without diminishing the importance of that the length of stream in those urban areas is probably less than 1 percent of the total waterways—so 1 percent would be urban; 99 percent would be in rural areas. That's no excuse for urban waterways to be degraded and the member is quite correct that some of the worst of those are actually in Auckland City where their infrastructure has not kept up with urban intensification and the overflow of storm water into the sewerage system accordingly has worse outcomes because there's more sewage in the sewerage system following urban intensification. So when you have a big rain event and it overflows into the sewerage system there's more sewage that gets washed into the streams and from the streams actually out on to the beaches.The good news on that front is that the proposed national policy statement (NPS) applies the same standards to both urban and rural streams because it was a legitimate complaint of rural people that they felt picked on and that the same standards should apply in urban areas. The time frames for bringing all waterways up to the standards that will be in that NPS is essentially within a generation. We haven't defined that but you could say roughly 25 30 years—Hon Nathan Guy: Yeah about 30 probably.Hon DAVID PARKER: Probably about 30 years. But I think New Zealanders once we get this on the right trajectory will accept that. They just don't like things getting worse in the meantime in either urban areas or rural areas.Some other good news in Auckland is that Auckland City has brought forward—well initially it was over a billion dollars' worth of expenditure for what's called the Central Interceptor project which is a great big tunnel that's currently under construction that runs when it's completed from Western Springs all the way out to Māngere. It's an enormous tunnel. It's not much smaller than the Waterview Tunnel—well it is actually smaller than the Waterview Tunnel but it's longer. In addition to that million dollars of expenditure my understanding is that there's at least $600 million of committed expenditure to have more tunnels that connect to that from different parts that were not going to be within the initial reach of the Central Interceptor project. So at the end of this very large piece of expenditure the intrusions of sewage into the water system following rain events will be reduced by well over 90 percent. So that particular source of pollution in Auckland waterways will largely be remedied which is an enormous project and you'll be left then with some of the more difficult issues to solve like copper brake pad residues that are on roads and get washed into streams which are even more difficult to fix.In respect of the cost issues of the process the cost of the freshwater planning process will be charged to the regional council for the panel but the Government pays for the Chief Freshwater Commissioner because that person's acting like a judge would in the Environment Court. Overall the cost should be reduced because there won't be appeals to the Environment Court. The only appeals remaining will be on matters of law and both regional councils and submitters overall will face lower costs than would be the case in a two-step process.