Court SimonSIMON COURT (Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister for Infrastructure): ACT supports the Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. I just want to clear up some of the misinformation that has been shared by members of the Opposition not least that member Lan Pham from Te Pāti Kākāriki who has just resumed her seat.The problem that this bill seeks to solve is that many if not most local government entities councils around New Zealand have failed to fulfil their obligations to maintain and renew their existing water waste-water and stormwater assets in a way that meets community expectations and they've failed to provide for growth in the cities and towns that need it.Some cities like Dunedin failed to detect that lead solder in pipe joints was poisoning people in suburbs like Karitane. They absolutely failed their communities and they failed their most basic obligations to provide for assets that support the necessities of life. Local government was only created because it was a problem when people kept tipping sewage—buckets of sewage—from their windows into the street. It was suggested that maybe if property owners get together and form organisations which became local councils we could put pipes in the ground and we could get all of that waste away from the places where we walked and shopped.Now out of that councils have then through successive Government reforms taken it upon themselves to think they can do just about anything just that anything didn't include maintaining and operating their assets and providing for housing growth.Look they collected the money which they supposedly attributed to depreciation of these assets. They collected development contributions from people wanting to build a new home or develop a section but no one actually checked if they were maintaining their assets and developing them. What that has meant is that not only are we left with a significant deficit in infrastructure quality which necessitates a very significant investment—and I'll get to that amount shortly. It means if you want to buy a new home or buy a home in Auckland now in 2024 the cost of that home relative to your income is now 10 times your income on average for the average home and the average income earner.In the 1980s when I was a kid growing up in Auckland it was about three times the average income notwithstanding changes in interest rates. Three times in the 1980s ten times average income now—unaffordable. A large part of that unaffordability is the fact that over many many decades councils have failed to provision the infrastructure to enable land to be serviced and that serviced land to be used for housing. This Government is going to fix that not just with this Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill but through our Going for Housing Growth programme our urgent reforms to the existing Resource Management Act and our replacement of the Resource Management Act with a new resource management system based on enjoyment of property so people can actually get on and enjoy building and living and developing their property. Most importantly of all in order to enable these things we are reforming the infrastructure funding and financing system so that it is easier for local government and developers and anyone else who wants to build infrastructure to get access to the finance and importantly that the funding stream that will pay off all of that debt through user charges and other mechanisms will also be significantly simplified.So why is this bill so good? Well firstly it gets rid of co-governance which was that awful divisive race-based solution to everything that the previous Labour Government tried to impose—who knew?—on concrete pipes and manholes and sewage treatment plants. I mean who in their right minds in any iwi organisation would want to be responsible for sewage treatment plants? That's how wonky the previous Labour Government was.Instead of actually addressing specific rights and interests conferred by Treaty settlements they went all wonky and they said Oh well. We're going to stand up these co-governance entities and we're going to create these massive bureaucracies and somehow that's going to discharge the Crown's obligations to specific iwi and hapū in terms of the Treaty of Waitangi." What a load of rubbish. How wrong they were. Not only that for the $1.2 billion the previous Government spent—most of it on consultants and navel-gazing so much of it on developing IT systems for asset management.I mean who knew a spreadsheet that tells us where the manhole is in which street how deep it is what it's made out of and so on—who knew a spreadsheet could be a very simple asset register? No the previous Labour Government want to spend hundreds of millions and they're well on track to spend half a billion dollars on the ultimate spreadsheet. That's one of the reasons why they got voted out because not only does no one trust them to deliver anything not only do New Zealanders reject out of hand crazy co-governance of things like water assets also if you look at what they spent and what they got off you go to the Opposition benches for a very very very very very very very long time.So what will we do? Well this Government's delivering on what ACT campaigned on and on what the coalition Government agreed on. Councils get to keep their assets. They can form council-controlled organisations voluntarily. Do you hear that Labour over there? Not taking the assets forcing all of these what you call arranged marriages basically trafficking all of these councils into the basement and forcing them all to hold hands. No we will let them form these arrangements voluntarily.Councils will however be accountable for service delivery providing for growth and linking rates and user charges to investment in water waste water and stormwater assets. This is not just a trust model though. No not like any previous Government's policy—we just blow money out the door and you know we all hold hands and maybe we say a prayer and we really really hope the money that we signed away turns into something good. No this is a trust and check model. This Government's setting up an economic regulator which is under development with the Minister of Commerce which will also include a regulatory backstop power should councils or these water service providers fail to meet their obligations to maintain and operate their assets and provide for growth.This bill also requires councils to deliver water services plans within 12 months. Now we've heard some bleating from councils echoed by the Opposition—they will echo and amplify any complaint about what this Government might be doing around water and infrastructure and the environment. But of course imagine a council complaining that they had to table an asset management plan within 12 months. If they don't already have one they should be sacked. The voters should vote them out. I mean for goodness' sakes a water services plan is simply an asset management plan that says what pipes have we got what manholes have we got how many people live here how much water will we have to supply how much waste water will we have to take away. If councils don't have this now they are in dereliction of their duty and that's another reason why this Government's water reforms are so desperately needed.This bill sets the scene for the next two years where this Government will be setting clear rules and objectives for delivery of infrastructure how it's to be funded and financed making a lot more tools available but also making it very clear that we do not accept that different parts of Government whether they're public sector agencies or local government can just stand back and say "Crikey we hope that somebody from Government comes along and solves our problems." Or if you're an agency "Crikey I hope we get more money in next year's budget." We're actually going to hold them to account for solving the problems that those agencies and those parts of Government are tasked to solve; in this case local government. Make sure that the pipes aren't leaking. Make sure you've got sufficient capacity to allow for growth. Make sure that when your waste-water treatment plant comes up for consent renewal you've actually got a design in the back pocket that's ready to go. And by the way if people are telling you "Oh geez you know we've got to think about the cultural impacts of where we put the waste water." well in places like Singapore the waste water from buildings with 5000 apartments and 5000 people living in apartments can get turned back into drinking water.So if we can't treat our waste water to drinking-water standard and put it into a river put it into a stream put it into the harbour because of some kind of cultural constraint this country's never going to succeed. We have to solve that too and that's why we're changing the hierarchy of the national policy statement for fresh water and we're going to make sure that it's going to be cost-effective and simple to deliver these solutions for Kiwis."