Mahuta NanaiaHon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): Much to the goading of the Opposition I won't get involved in a race-led debate because it's the wrong debate to be having. And in the context of including Treaty obligations and Te Mana o te Wai in this legislation as I said one of the key factors that the Government considered was upholding the Crown's Treaty obligations. It wouldn't matter what hue of Government is in place. The National Party and the Labour Party have supported a Treaty settlement process and falling from that Treaty settlement process are existing obligations that occur with councils in relation to the natural environment. And when we're starting to craft an approach towards water reform we could not ignore those existing obligations. Many councils themselves said these good working relationships that we have that are working for us as a council for our community—we don't want those things to be lost. The other thing is that if we lift up those obligations within the context of this reform Te Mana o te Wai speaks for everybody but most importantly it speaks for the environment ensuring that we're looking after water as a sacred resource now going forward into the future.The principles underpinning Te Mana o te Wai were established in 2014 under Nick Smith and it included a number of stakeholder groups—the rural community; yes Federated Farmers; it included industry users; it included horticulturalists as well as iwi—to try and figure out what was it about Te Mana o te Wai that worked for everybody but more importantly what is it about Te Mana o te Wai that must work for the environment. And that is why it has been brought into this legislation because it makes sense to treat water as a whole system not one water not two waters not even just three—water as a whole system from source protection to its use in its varied forms back into discharging into our rivers lakes streams and beaches. And that is what we have here within the context of the reform.I want to come specifically to the points that that member raised in relation to co-chairs and elements of that and how does that add to improved governance. Actually what the legislation provides for through the constitution is regional representative groups to decide for themselves whether or not they want co-chairs. It isn't mandatory. And if you read the legislation it provides that opportunity but it does not obligate or necessitate that that is a consequence of the establishment of the regional representative group. And that is as it should be because what we need is for these groups to talk to each other not position themselves and then take a vote.I mean I should also say that there was an inaccurate statement raised by a member on that side of the Chamber who said that iwi / mana whenua representatives could by virtue of a 75 percent vote stop things from happening. That is not the case. That is only the case if the regional representative group or if a matter of divestment or privatisation came up it is required that 75 percent of a regional representative group made up of all members on that group would have to vote in favour of privatisation. Now we know that is a difficult threshold to meet and we certainly know that by having iwi / mana whenua at the table alongside councils they absolutely won't go to that because they do not want foreign interests involved in core infrastructure such as the delivery of waters. And that's a total sum benefit for many New Zealanders who also don't want privatisation.We need to look to the legislation the bill because I think many of the concerns that the member may legitimately have can be alleviated through the protections that much of the form and function in the way that the regional representative group and the regional advisory panels are set out in the legislation but there is the opportunity for variance through the constitution. And the reason why that is there is because we heard through the design process and also through the submissions process that each entity's slightly different; they've got slightly different characteristics and motivations and things like that. But the common aspirations are set out in the legislation and we just wanted to make sure that we weren't being so prescriptive that those unique positive factors and characteristics of how an entity wanted to reflect itself in its water service delivery objectives—that that could be achieved through the constitution.