McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm happy to take a call on the third reading of the Water Services Bill. Whilst the National Party aren't supporting this bill there are parts of this and in fact the wider water reforms that we do support. Clearly the Havelock North inquiry was instigated some time ago with a view to reviewing how water was supplied regulated and managed in New Zealand. I obviously from my background have had experience in this sector for quite some time and I'm very pleased to see the establishment of Taumata Arowai because under the old Ministry of Health command there was very little regulation. It's been stated already in the course of this debate that in fact they really abdicated their responsibility to it. I came into local government in 2002. It was extremely topical at that time and some very onerous measures were put in place which clearly a lot of councils couldn't afford to or communities couldn't afford to and didn't want to meet. That consequently led to some relaxation of I guess improvements that were required and some other issues that happened within the water sector. And here we are today as a result of the Havelock North water inquiry. We in the National Party accept and in fact firmly believe that everyone should have access to clean and healthy drinking water. I think that should be a given right of all New Zealanders; in fact it should be a given right of all people in the world. It's not of course. So we support any measures that are going to make that fact easier. The Minister in the committee stage tried to reassure us that our small water schemes would be catered for differently in this bill; in fact we've heard a number of speakers say the same thing. Of course many of us in this House have had experience of a number of bills going through the House before this one on other topics where we were assured the small users and the small operators and the little people in the country—that costs wouldn't impact on them like they do on the big ones. Well we've never yet in my experience seen a bill that's actually taken any different approach to costs than lump the same costs on everyone. Of course unfortunately the Wellington bureaucracy—and I'm not criticising it at all because effectively they're Wellington people. They live in Wellington and they drink the water that comes through their tap and they turn the tap on and they expect it to be there. Now many of us don't have that experience. We turn the tap on and quite often there isn't any there. And of course when you do that you've then got to go and find it. So I think that to lump us all together and think that the country can operate as one in this respect I think is naive and I think to think that the costs will fall equitably across the sectors in this country is also naive. We've seen that with numerous pieces of legislation most notably I think the power reforms of the 1980s which effectively cost the small users and the users that are more isolated a whole lot more money than it costs someone who lives on Lambton Quay—they don't live on Lambton Quay do they—or they might but people who live in the city and on a street that's very heavily populated. So nothing that you think's going to happen through legislation in this House actually happens and it always turns out differently than we anticipate. The reason for the National Party being opposed to this particular bill was actually quite well outlined by the Māori Party speaker a moment ago who said this bill has been rushed in some respects. Now I absolutely accept and give the Government credit for the fact that they've spent quite a bit of time looking at the Havelock North inquiry and then coming up with some response to that. The problem is as I see it they haven't adequately dealt with provincial and rural New Zealand the small water schemes the fact that that many farms—many many farms in New Zealand—are going to be impacted by this piece of legislation simply because they have water supplies in place that in some cases for generations have been delivering perfectly safe drinking water to houses and all of a sudden we're subject to regulation and a couple of inspectors from Wellington turning up to see how we're getting on. We could tell them without them turning up of course but they'll still turn up and they'll then charge us for the privilege of turning up to do it. That's the reason that we're opposed to this piece of legislation because that's what happens when you put legislation in place. We've seen it with the food safety Act. We've seen it with the power reforms as I said. We've seen it with the anti - money-laundering legislation where it costs as much to deal with a massive great amount of money as a little wee amount of money. That's just not equitable and it's very difficult to manage. So that's one of the reasons. Now the second thing I want to just deal with quickly because the Minister did in the course of her third reading speech was the relationship between this and the three waters proposal. Clearly you've got to have a regulator and as I said earlier we accept the need for a regulator. The problem is that the Government has then turned its attention I guess to establishing the three waters proposal which this organisation Taumata Arowai will regulate and it will regulate everything that happens within the proposed three waters structure. I absolutely support the comments of Eugenie Sage—something I don't always do but I absolutely support the comments she made about this proposal which has clearly not been thought out logically. In fact in my case we're discharging water into the Rangitīkei River we're taking water out of the Rangitīkei River and we're governing the river itself half from Hamilton and half from Wellington. I don't know how that's going to work. So there's a whole lot of things I think that whilst the intention on both of these things is good—and I don't think there's any doubt that from a local government perspective the water situation needs to be reviewed—the problem is the three waters proposition as it's been put to the communities doesn't account for what effectively will be a whole lot of costs imposed on council as a result of them having their assets and the asset base and the operation of it taken away from them. And also it doesn't account for what happens to the debt that's left behind as a result of that. I think it looks to me like it's completely inequitable. So there's a whole lot of challenges that come out of this water reform. As I said earlier there's really only one piece of this Water Services Bill that we specifically don't support and that is the fact that it's not clear how it's going to regulate those smaller water supplies. And it's all very well for the Minister to stand there and say that the bill enables different treatment and it does allow exemptions and it does allow for different treatment but will that in fact be the case? I very much doubt it. So there's a whole lot of challenges I think coming out of that and I'm not comfortable with it at all. I was very interested to see that the ability to enter a marae unsolicited has been withdrawn—I just hope that applies to my marae as well—because I do think that we take a lot of liberty with the way we enable organisations and Government officials to enter people's private lives. This is one of those cases that in fact that's exactly what's happening. The other thing that concerns me and I accept the fact that the Minister has extended the inclusion of the small water schemes to seven years given them seven years to comply—I think what will happen in a lot of cases is we may well see an adverse reaction to that and we may well see a lot of those water schemes that we think are going to be included in it dismantle themselves to an extent that it no longer applies to them and consequently they get out of it. That may or may not be a good thing but you'd have to suspect that it'll lead to a whole lot more suspect water supplies throughout New Zealand.So I think it's quite sad that we can't support this bill because I do think that as I said earlier Taumata Arowai—having a water regulator in place like that is very useful from a New Zealand perspective and it would have helped councils. But of course councils won't be in charge of their own destiny now because that ability's been taken off them and been taken off local communities so no longer will we be in control of what goes on in our local communities. So that's the reasons that we can't support this bill. And as I said I think it's sad we can't support it because I think the intention of it was good. That's my lot Mr Speaker. Thank you.