Andersen Ginny; Penk ChrisHon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): I've got a question for the Minister in relation to new section 38A which specifically relates to commercially sensitive information. This is a particularly sensitive issue because many of our councils around New Zealand probably don't know the full extent of some of the investment required to get water infrastructure up to the standard needed to even last over the next few years. And so of course there's going to be numerous instances where there is potentially quite commercially sensitive information. So I'm quite interested in understanding how that balance is made between enabling ratepayers to have all of the information they need to know what's happening balanced with whatever is perceived as being commercially sensitive. Councils have made numerous decisions over the years and some of those have been incredibly difficult. When I think back to in my own area in the Hutt Valley you know significant money was spent on a new event centre and redoing the town hall and even subsidising a local business owner to build a hotel in the centre of Lower Hutt. You know people could argue that those ratepayers' funds probably could have been better spent in securing that we didn't have sewage pouring up in people's backyards and that we had adequate infrastructure in place to serve the new builds that were going on across the Hutt Valley.So when we go into this and open up the books my question is: how will we determine what is commercially sensitive? Because some of that might just be politically sensitive and ratepayers might have a very good cause and reason to understand how those decisions were made. So because this is a new section and the Commission has the power to exempt disclosure of commercially sensitive information it would be very useful to understand how that weighing up of interests occurs and also if the Commission—which also has the power to revoke that exemption. So if a determination has been made that information is commercially sensitive and not made available then what is the cause for a local interest group or other people who are lobbying to then go to the Commission and request for that exemption to be revoked? I'd be really interested to hear the Minister's views on that.Hon CHRIS PENK (Minister for Building and Construction): Thank you Madam Chair. Taking the last point first from the Hon Ginny Andersen the question around commercially sensitive information. I think the member identifies what is always a weighing exercise between the imperatives of commercially sensitive information being protected in the interests of encouraging enterprise in a way that's you know appropriate while at the same time recognising the public interest in the disclosure of information. And to argue against an exemption or to appeal against it I imagine that usual avenues would be available for that purpose.As for the question of stormwater and competition asked by the Hon Rachel Brooking it seems to me that with the exercise of information disclosure we have the opportunity to have maximum transparency including for the purpose of ensuring that the maximum—the efficient systems are in place which include you know therefore incentivising the innovation and investment in the improving of efficiency of delivery of stormwater services. So competition in a pretty broad sense I suppose but nevertheless one that leads inexorably to the most efficient outcome in the way that we understand competition well in some manner of market.As for the powers of the Commerce Commission combining points made by Arena Williams but also again the Hon Rachel Brooking I point out that the penalties—that Rachel Brooking has identified a maximum penalty. So it wouldn't be necessarily that the full weight of that dollar amount would be brought to bear against a territorial authority having not met its obligations. We think that that maximum amount is set at the appropriate level because of course the penalties go to conduct. So it's their relevance to incentivise right behaviour perhaps in more of a stick than a carrot kind of way but nevertheless incentivising the behaviour of the entity rather than the nature of the entity being public or private that is relevant. In terms of whether those powers are additional to those in the Commerce Act as Arena Williams notes; they are and we think that's appropriate because you know we want to provide maximum ability for the mechanisms in the Act to be enforceable and we think it's appropriate for the provision of water services on behalf of the ratepayers and citizens of the country.