Barry Maggie: South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Barry Maggie: South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 05 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7185. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I rise to speak to this bill the South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill. I would like to echo some of the sentiments that were raised by the local member who proposed it. I think Chester Borrows is an excellent local member of Parliament. As he pointed out when he worked through the background to this bill and the history of this bill it has been a long time coming. The people—400 individual people and the 162 connections—have been working on this for about 12 years. There have been bureaucratic changes which the member who just sat down Andrew Little outlined accurately so I will not go into those. There really needed to be a common-sense approach to this and the local member Chester came to this House and had an excellent idea. 
The Greens have opposed it and I wonder whether therein lies the problem—that they do not have local members. They do not have to listen to anyone who does not think the way they do. They do not actually represent a group of people and have to actually take a local cause to a wider arena explain it and argue it through. They just cocoon themselves in their own little mad Green world and say “This is what matters. We think it is right and therefore it is.” 
Metiria Turei 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I take personal offence at that reference and ask that she be made to withdraw and apologise for it. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: In the course of an earlier contribution from a member in the party to the right of the Greens there were very crude assertions made about the motivations of a colleague of ours Shane Ardern implying corruption and other things. I think there does need to be some degree of robustness about points such as those being raised. 
Metiria Turei 
: If the member is taking offence at something that somebody else has said then he is quite entitled to but I have made explicit reference to an explicit statement concerning mental health issues which Maggie Barry has accused the Greens of having. I take personal offence at that and I ask that she be made to withdraw and apologise for her comment. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am just struggling to recall the comment that was made and the context in which it was made. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I can help without being specific Mr Speaker. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Be very careful but helpful. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I will not repeat the comment Mr Speaker but there is no doubt that the member referred to the Greens generally—the parliamentary Greens—as having mental health issues. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Having— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Mental health issues. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Did the member do that? 
MAGGIE BARRY 
: Not at all. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Metiria Turei 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. She knows what she said. She knows the word she used and I am asking that you require that she be made to withdraw and apologise for the use of that word. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am going to ask the member to withdraw the comments—I am going to ask the member to withdraw the comments. 
MAGGIE BARRY 
: I am not wishing to cause any trouble here but I am just not sure which comments— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: No just withdraw the comments. [ 
Interruption 
] I am going to ask the member to withdraw the comments that caused offence. 
MAGGIE BARRY 
: I do not know which comments they were Mr Deputy Speaker. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I have given the member the words. 
MAGGIE BARRY 
: I withdraw the comments that caused the offence. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Thank you. 
MAGGIE BARRY 
: Right. Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. 
Hon Member 
: But how does she know not to say it again? 
MAGGIE BARRY 
: No I do not. So—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! Thank you. 
MAGGIE BARRY 
: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: Stop being so offensive. 
MAGGIE BARRY 
: Yeah? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: She’s had a long lunch and she goes stupid—a long lunch and she goes stupid. 
MAGGIE BARRY 
: Oh thanks very much. So I need the permission of the heckler opposite tonight before I continue? 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! Thank you. Look we were making quite reasonable progress. I have asked one member to withdraw. I could ask the member to withdraw his comments as well; I am not. I am just going to give a general warning. Let us make some progress on this bill. 
MAGGIE BARRY 
: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. I will resume. So as Chester Borrows the local member so eloquently put it earlier why did they want to make this change? Why did the people of Cold Creek some 400 members of them in this connection want to go to all this trouble and fight for 12 years? It is because it is a common-sensible approach. They want to run their own water supply and they should be allowed to do so. It is an excellent idea. 
The other point that Chester made which I think is particularly useful and again it comes back to representing a group of people as opposed to just a broad philosophical negativism is that the farmers had to borrow money to set up that scheme and it was not an inconsiderable amount of money at the time that they put the scheme in motion. So they had made an investment and they felt that they needed to own it. I think that is a point that came through loud and clear in many of the submissions that we received on this particular bill. I think that they have the right to have that sense of ownership and that is why we all support what Chester has said and why we all support this legislation. If these people want to run their own scheme why stop them? 
It is a very good thing I think too that the local iwi Nga Ruahine Rangi have advised that they are not interested in acquiring this asset as any part of any future claim. This is being referred to constantly by the Opposition—that the iwi somehow feel marginalised. According to all the evidence that came before our select committee they were very happy with the arrangement and were not interested in acquiring the asset. They have been consulted perhaps not all of them in every bit of the detail but on the whole there was enough accord to make it seem as if it is an excellent community initiative. I think that this is a piece of legislation that should proceed through the House directly and without opposition and I commend it to the House.