Russell DeborahHon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): We'd really only just started on this part of the bill before the dinner break. I'm aware you will have been watching.CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I have. It's not a big part though I have to say.Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: But it is a very significant part. And it's a very significant part because it concerns the water services for a third of the population of the country and the biggest city in the country. It concerns quite a unique structure in the country around Watercare Services. I think we need to understand from the Minister the nature of the deal that has been struck with Auckland Council because we know that a special deal was struck with Auckland Council. Auckland-based as I am I think it's important for people in the rest of the country to understand why Watercare is getting some special treatment here. I think there are some particularly important issues around what is to be done with water in Northland. Northland has been left isolated by this treatment for Watercare.CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I believe I heard when I was listening earlier the question come up about Northland and the Minister in the chair at the time did answer that.Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: It wasn't a particularly satisfactory answer Madam Chair I take it but as I was saying we've got all these sets of issues that matter in this part of the bill. So what I am particularly concerned about is—it's right up in the purposes part of the bill and it's in clause 59A(2)(b). So we want to promote outcomes that would be similar to those in competitive markets so that Watercare shares with consumers the benefits of efficiency gains in supplying water services including through lower prices;". However interestingly in the advice that was given to the Minister around this bill and Auckland Council there was a finding from Standard & Poor's that in fact the debt servicing costs for Watercare would go up under this arrangement and that in fact the cost to run Watercare would increase. Now this was reported obviously in the advice of the Minister but it was also reported—I think I read it in The Post—in July. It was an article by Thomas Manch. So it's well recorded that one of the impacts is that in fact some of the costs associated with Watercare are going to increase under this arrangement. And in actual fact we know that water rates in Auckland will actually go up. I think the projection is by about 8 percent. I've just lost that detail. So it is quite interesting then that this particular part of this bill around Watercare Services says that one of the objectives is to share "with consumers the benefits of efficiency gains" including sharing those benefits "through lower prices". Yet we know the costs associated with Watercare are going to go up. So I don't understand how the arrangements that the Minister is putting in place can possibly achieve this part of the purpose and I would like the Minister to speak to the costs that are going to be incurred by Watercare.And some of those costs are quite substantial. Now we've had a major project going on in Auckland for as long as I've lived there the construction of the central interceptor a huge underground project to improve the waste-water and the stormwater discharge so that when it rains we do not get faeces in the harbours anymore. In terms of providing water services that are quality we know that the population of Auckland is on the increase and we know that there is increasing pressure on the water infrastructure services. I want to understand how in the long term this arrangement is going to ensure that one-third of the country—the 1.5 million of us projected to grow to 2 million of us—who live in Auckland can be sure that this arrangement will guarantee us water of the quality we want and we deserve and that we get the waste-water disposal in a way that does not pollute our harbours. How is this arrangement going to be any better? So I want to understand that from the Minister. This is speaking really to these two purpose parts of the bill. How does this serve ordinary people in Auckland who want to know when they turn on the tap that the water is safe to drink; who want to know when it rains that their harbours will not be polluted; and who want to know that they are going to get water services of the quality they deserve? So I'm challenging the Minister to move and tell us how this serves Auckland."