Curran ClareCLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): My comments on Part 2 relate to clause 25 with regard to the changes around easements and with regard to the submission that was given by Watercare Services. Clause 25(1) makes the change of replacing section 62(1) with: The body corporate may after a special resolution to do so grant an easement or enter into a covenant over the whole or any part of the common property." Just to put this into some context around the body corporate and the size of the sector that we are dealing with I note that the residential apartment sector is growing it is growing quite fast and it is obviously going to continue to grow. It is now worth something like $40 billion in New Zealand. These improvements that are being suggested in this bill are welcome but it seems as though—and this is another submission that I am going to be talking about that is making a sensible suggestion but which seems to be described as being out of scope and it sort of begs the question as to what is the point of this legislation if it is not dealing with some of the issues that are really quite pressing right now.The bill extends the power of a body corporate in respect of easements and covenants over the common property. In particular the body corporate is given power "after a special resolution to do so [to] grant an easement or enter into a covenant over the whole or any part of the common property." So at the present time the owner of a unit with the consent of the body corporate may grant an easement or enter into a covenant over their own unit but is limited to easements and covenants for the benefit of other land. They can grant an easement over their unit but it cannot be extended out. So what this clause means is that it can happen after a special resolution.Watercare Services in its submission on the bill supported the bill and in particular the changes made in respect of easements and covenants—clauses 25 and 26—which "will enable [it] to acquire sufficient rights … for construction operation and maintenance of its water and wastewater pipelines." So when you think about it that is quite important—Watercare Services being able to make changes without going through a huge rigmarole is actually quite important. It also asked for an additional change to ensure that when a unit plan is cancelled any easements in gross granted over units—these are the wider easements and covenants over one unit—are not also cancelled.I think that is actually quite a reasonable request and I ask the Minister in the chair the Hon Michael Woodhouse to give a response as to why the officials said that it was out of scope. What the officials said was that "The additional change proposed is not within the scope of this Bill and should not be included. It is not minor and technical in nature but a larger policy change. This change would fall more within the scope of the wider review." and the officials invited Watercare Services to make a submission on the wider review. I am not sure why it is such a big deal to include that in the bill and why it is considered to be so fundamental and a policy issue. Does it come down to some sort of property rights issue that we are not aware of? Can I ask the Minister to give some explanation to the Committee as to why that particular request by Watercare Services is out of scope?"