Leary IngridINGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you Mr Speaker. I think the last speech by Simon Court is a really good example of how the other side of the House are minimising and diminishing the extent the curliness of this water issue that was so clearly articulated by Eugenie Sage when she showed the amount of work and thinking that has gone into what really is a wicked problem. Simon Court basically when I heard him said Let the councils fix the problem." Well that's fine for now—some councils will be able to. Some won't because they haven't been able to fix the problem in the past and it's become overwhelming and they certainly won't be able to fix it in the future. They simply don't have the ratepayer funding to do so. So there doesn't seem to be an understanding of the scale of the problem.What is really hypocritical is the assertion about this being divisive by our side of the House because the main thing that has been divisive is the deliberately divisive narrative peddled by the right side of the House—the other benches—and that has been to lead people away from doing the serious work of grappling with this wicked problem and understanding the challenges—what the opportunities are and how we're going to fix it—and instead becoming swayed into a divisive narrative that basically has racist undertones political meddling and unfounded counterfactuals. And this was actually articulated really clearly by Bryan Cadogan who is the mayor of a rural area in my electorate of Clutha. He's been a mayor for four terms. He's the chair of the Rural Supplies Technical Working Group and he knows what he's talking about. He has said that when we drill down into this issue what we really need to come to terms with is the need for alternative funding streams and the need to get Government support. He refers to the rate increases in one the townships in his electorate. Prior to him coming in as mayor it had had a 292 percent increase in rates. So he has had his ideas around three waters. He has gone into it with his eyes open. He has worked with us and I really commend him for doing that. This week they've come up with a report—it's the report of the Rural Supplies Technical Working Group—that has 30 recommendations. Those recommendations would not be able to be made and we would not be able listen to them as a Government if they had not continued to engage with us. In an article earlier this year Bryan Cadogan spoke about the difference between the urban issues of water and the rural. For the urban issues if you stop the three waters reform process you open yourself up to a world of financial pain. For the rural sector continuity of supply is the key issue. So a nuanced approach has to be taken. It is not as simple as simply dreaming up something quickly at the last minute as ACT is proposing to do. This is the culmination of years and years of work.On Tuesday 2 February 2021some Otago residents were told they couldn't drink water from their taps and the Dunedin City Council issued a "Do not drink" notice. That was in Waikouaiti Karitane and Hawksbury Village and that was when they found intermittent elevated lead levels in some of their water sampling. So those water notices were basically telling people not to drink water not to use water in food preparation and not to use ice. They had to get their water from a tanker trucks and that was between February and August—Simon Court: Point of order Mr Speaker. The member's suggested that the ACT infrastructure plan was devised at the last minute. I seek leave to table the letter which I sent to the mayors—including Bryan Cadogan whom she referred to—with evidence that ACT's water infrastructure plan was in fact proposed in August 2021.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (IanMcKelvie): Leave is requested for that letter to be tabled. Is there any objection? There is no objection. Leave is granted.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.INGRID LEARY: I think I have a difference in opinion about what "last minute" means because 2021 is certainly a lot later in the piece than the work that has been done by our Minister for many years on this issue.But the point about what happened in Dunedin was actually no fault of the council. It turned out that the contamination levels in the water after extensive examination looked to be out of the private side of the water supply—it was out of tapware in the houses. But it did cause a huge issue and a huge disruption in the lives of those people. And that was a council that had mainly done everything right had invested carefully and planned carefully in terms of infrastructure. So it was a really big imposition. What would happen where a council has not done that? We know there are many throughout New Zealand who simply have not done the planning have not had the ratepayer base to do the planning and have been essentially kicking the can down the road on this issue which is what the National Party is suggesting we do unless of course Matt Doocey is sincere in his statement in the House today that they will invest what will need to $185 billion into water infrastructure. That's what I heard him say—that they do plan to tackle it—but I didn't hear what his plan was.We do have cracked old defective underground pipes and in the year prior to the Dunedin example I mentioned more than 5750 people in 25 areas were affected by permanent boil-water notices and many of those have been in place for years. It's not just drinking water; it's also waste water and stormwater. Newsroom did a piece earlier this year in March which spoke of the previous years of Water New Zealand's national performance talking about the many and various ways our water infrastructure is failing: stuffed pipes huge losses through leaks unmonitored sewage overflows massive unpunished non-compliance at waste water treatment plants significant skills shortages and historical underspending on water infrastructure by almost all the councils in the country. The article went on to say that a year later—when this report was published its own report—almost nothing had changed.In the Finance and Expenditure Committee just two days ago we heard from Treasury in its own report He Puna Hao Pātiki: 2022 Investment Statement that there is an infrastructure gap. It looked at the Water Industry Commission for Scotland's assessment in terms of the needs for three waters. It talked about the need for up to $185 billion over 30 years due to network growth increased service levels the need for asset replacement and refurbishment and potential efficiency gains. Yes there is a variance depending on the methodology and assumptions and I have had arguments with councillors at the Dunedin City Council about that. However the Treasury report goes on to say that even taking into account the differences in the variances and methodologies there is an infrastructure gap in New Zealand and high-profile water network failures provide anecdotal evidence that supports quantitative measures of a gap. All of this points to a likely potential need for additional infrastructure investment to maximise the contribution that infrastructure provides to productivity and wellbeing outcomes.It's not just the safety issue around water. It is also the unfairness about where we live in New Zealand as to how safe our water will be and how much we will pay towards the services. There's another article in Newsroom that talks about reinventing the wheel 67 times. It's simply not efficient and it's not fair. The average New Zealand property paid $960 for water and waste water services in the 2020-21 fiscal year but the highest charge was $2237. The same goes for the waste-water component. The highest regional waste-water charge was $1205; the lowest was $140. So there is a massive disparity there. It's just not fair to be expecting different people to pay different amounts towards the same services. This is a wicked problem as I've tried to show this House and there are two options available. One is to do nothing which is what successive Governments have done for years and which is what the National Party has suggested they will do since they want to start again and kick the can down the road. There is "do something at the last minute" like the ACT plan which I think was devised about a year ago. It is very last minute in terms of wicked problems like this. Or there is taking a really strategic approach and I commend the Minister because this bill and the series of changes futureproofs water. It is a solution that maintains local ownership. It is in line with te Tiriti principles and it ensures the equitable and efficient access to and use of water and it is strategic. It took a huge amount of bravery for Minister Mahuta to take this on and I am quite horrified actually by the narrative and some of the undertones that have been levelled against the Minister when what she is doing is in the best interests of all New Zealanders not only for our generation but for future generations who would otherwise pay the price. I commend this bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): I call Nicola Grigg—five minutes."