Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you Madam Speaker. I was waiting for the explanation of this—how many pages is this bill? I'm just waiting—217-page bill. I thought that the Labour member might have just spent a little bit of time going through it—Joseph Mooney: Sixty seconds. Gone in 60 seconds.ANDREW BAYLY: —but gee 60 seconds was it? Sixty-seven seconds. And nuts and bolts: why don't you just miss out the bolts bit and start off with nuts because that's what this bill is. As my good colleague Simon Watts highlighted yes this is stage 2 but wait for it. Do not disappear because after this one we've got stage 3 coming up which hopefully—oh I don't know whether we're going to get to that tonight. But if you're listening at home tune in at about 9 o'clock tomorrow morning because we'll be into the third instalment of this beautiful cascade of water bills!Now I just don't think my colleagues are taking this seriously enough because what I see in this bill is quite serious actually. But I do find it amazing as my good colleague mentioned this bill has added 275—I'll just repeat that 275—new clauses that were introduced immediately following the passage of the last bill. And here we are; we're back in the debating chamber—and I've just worked it out; I got my phone out—131 hours after we debated the last bill to go through this and look at how we address the first bill. That is outrageous.Nicola Grigg: Shoddy.ANDREW BAYLY: That is shoddy workmanship not only by the Minister but I think also by many of the officials I've got to say.This is the type of detail that in the select committee—and I look across the House at members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee—we have been seeking this advice so we had a context for the first bill. And without it it was pretty hard to understand how it was all going to work. But this bill—131 hours later here we are in the House we're going to have a chat. And I do find all the issues around compliance absolutely staggering. I was just checking and there are five or six pages all about compliance. So as my good colleague highlighted if you dig a hole—and I think the Government is digging a really big hole—that's $100000 if you happen to put it in the wrong spot near a stormwater asset; $20000 for breaking a sprinkler water ban. But the other things are—there's just pages of them; honestly there are pages of them. I've been looking at them.Compliance starts at clause 380. And if you just roll over to clause 397(1) A person commits an offence if the person negligently engages in conduct relating to a wastewater network that causes a specified serious risk." Well I'm not quite sure—I don't think specified serious risk is defined. But if you do I don't know who determines that but you are also up for a fine of $100000; and for a body corporate $600000. Discharging trade waste up to $500000 and $3 million. And I heard the Minister talking about I think it was 275 trade waste claims or allegations. And I've just got a note that there was 535000 small businesses in New Zealand about 350000 operating. So as a percentage it's a pretty low percentage but gee don't get caught out. And Mr McKelvie on your farm for God's sake don't do something wrong because you'll be up for as an individual well it's hard to determine but it might be personally—Ian McKelvie: I'm very worried that a cow might break a trough. ANDREW BAYLY: Yes a cow does break a trough. But look this bill has some significant issues around compliance. The other thing is the ownership that this bill clearly sets out. One of the big things is around the so-called perception that the councils still own these water assets even though the assets and liabilities have been transferred to a new Crown entity of some sort. I've got to say to you this is a legal point and for some reason it's never really been debated properly. But it is clear that the councils first of all will have no right to appoint the directors. They can only do it through a regional representative group and that group is the one charged with ultimately appointing the board. So there's no direct right to appoint a director and that's normally the first thing—the first thing—in terms of determining ownership.The second one is that there is no right for councils to exercise a direct vote. So that's the second point about ownership. The third thing is there is no right for a council to receive a dividend and that is the third element of ownership. The fourth issue is there's no right of the council or the owners—so-called owners—to provide financing to the water companies. They're precluded under the legislation. That is the fourth element of ownership. And the fifth one: there's no right to set the direction of the business. Normally owners set the direction of the business.So on five counts the councils will have no direct ability to influence it appoint the directors vote provide funding or in fact receive a dividend. My view all along is that whilst the Minister and the Labour Government have claimed that the councils will continue to own the shares of these assets in legal terms that cannot be the case because the councils simply do not have the specific rights of ownership that are understood well in law. I think this is one of the big misnomers about this whole thing that there's going to be continued ownership by councils.But the final point I'm going to raise is around the question of rates and the so-called minimisation of costs and of course against the backdrop of the $180 billion that was assessed by the Scottish adviser that was required. Of course there is a huge amount of dispute about it including from reputable economic commentators or analysts like Castalia who are well known for standing up in the courts of the High Court and Supreme Court and debating economic issues which was written off within a matter of minutes by both the Government and the advisers as being discreditable advice.The issue about this is if you are taking the assets away from the councils which is clearly going to happen the funding for that will disappear out of councils but it will end up in the new entities but already we've seen some of the increased cost coming through with the new head office announced in Auckland the ripple effect of that going through the cost of delivery of water to New Zealand consumers. Mums and dads living in places like Eketāhuna Kaitāia and Pukekohe will all be in a situation where over time their cost of water delivery will go up their cost for waste-water delivery and services will go up and ultimately we will see some substantial decrease in what it means for the rights of consumers to be able to influence how these water entities operate because simply they will be unaccountable. They'll be four head offices and they will not be accountable to the general public of New Zealand.That is why these reforms are so flawed and the reason why National stands and opposes these reforms as we will be doing shortly with the third element of this triumvirate number of bills that we're debating on this issue. This is a bad piece of legislation."