Grigg Nicola; Dean JacquiNICOLA GRIGG (National—Selwyn): Thank you Madam Speaker. I must commend Tāmati Coffey for that heroic effort in trying to rewrite history and for very very diligently trying to avoid the words asset grab" but at the end of the day the whole principle of this legislation the whole principle of these reforms is to remove the three waters assets from the ownership of local territorial authorities. That is an asset grab. Ratepayers will no longer own the three waters assets that they have paid for and that have been administered by the councillors that they have voted into public office.The National Party is continuing to oppose the Water Services Entities Amendment Bill at this third and final reading. We find it deeply sad—I suppose that's the best word—that where there could have been a collaborative process where parties on this side of the House have put up fully costed robust alternate proposals to improve the delivery of water services in New Zealand they have been roundly ignored. But not only have our proposals been ignored the will of the New Zealand public has been ignored.We heard in the prior bill that came before this piece of legislation that over 80000 submitters voiced their opposition to this. This time around 1900 submitters have voiced their opposition. Barely 2 percent of those submitters were even heard by the select committee because the select committee process was truncated from six months down to just over a month. That is anti-democratic.The reason we oppose this bill so much is because the fundamental principle is not being achieved. It is not going to improve the delivery of water services in this country. And I look to my own patch and to the example of what will now be called Entity I where there will be an amalgamation and a merger of the water assets owned by the Canterbury councils on the East Coast of the main divide and the West Coast councils on the West Coast of the main divide. That's about 14 different territorial authorities.On the East Coast you've got large large councils like the Christchurch City Council which represents about 650000 people and then in my patch the Selwyn District Council which is about 85000 people rapidly heading towards 100000 people. We're going to be merged in with West Coast councils who have far smaller rate bases and far smaller asset and balance sheets. The Government members will argue that that's the point—that there are councils that need to be subsidised. But it is not the job of the councils with large rate bases with large asset holdings to subsidise other councils.And the reason I'm so convinced of this is that it's actually been the mayors and councillors across the Canterbury and West Coast regions who have been the most vocal opponents of this. And I have to shout out to the likes of Nigel Bowen in Timaru and Neil Brown in Ashburton Phil Mauger in Christchurch and Dan Gordon in the "Waimak" and the councillors on the Selwyn District Council like Grant Miller who have put forward not only vocal opposition to it but fully costed reasonable alternative proposals which have been ignored. And that will be the greatest folly of this Government—it has ignored the voice of the ratepayers the elected representatives. It has ignored the ideas that have come from the grassroots up and one of the largest causes for concern with this particular bill is that baked-in co-governance.This will be a folly of the Government. It has not had the obligation to explain to New Zealand why it sees the necessity for the equal representation of the elected members and the mana whenua across an entity. I for example—we have 14 of each. Nobody on that side of the House has explained to the people of New Zealand why this is necessary.We also deeply oppose the priority placement of the Te Mana o te Wai statements over the community priority statements. It is fundamentally unfair and fundamentally anti-democratic. We will continue to oppose this bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Helen White—I assume it's a five-minute call.Helen White: Yes it is.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you. Helen White."