Foster Andy; O'Connor GregANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Thank you Mr Speaker. During the committee of the whole House we heard quite a bit about what isn't in this bill and from the Opposition saying You know we want to know the answers to these things." But the clue is in the name. This is the Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. So it's preliminary; there's another one to come. We have a first stage. If we remind you it was the repeal of the previous Government's three waters proposal. Then there's this stage and then there's another one which was quite clearly signalled in this bill and that will come at the end of this year.I just wanted to briefly remind ourselves about that first stage—the repeal of the previous Government's legislation—because I think in this debate there's been a little bit of reinvention of history. We heard a bit of that reinvention of history from the Hon Kieran McAnulty before. There were less than 200 submissions on this bill. There were—how many was it?—86000 87000.Hon Scott Simpson: 87000.ANDY FOSTER: Eighty-seven thousand on Labour's legislation—and that wasn't because people loved it; it was because people didn't like it at all. Look it's been portrayed as a solution that will fix everything overnight. But look the reality is it wasn't—and we've heard from the Hon Kieran McAnulty already that it's in some way to blame for rates going up this year and they're going up across the board. But the reality is that legislation wouldn't have kicked in until—it wouldn't be this year; it would be at least next year if not the year after. So that's not true.Also we've had some people saying that somehow magically there was going to be this magic money tree. And I know that some local body members think that this magic money tree somehow was going to pay for water. Well it wasn't. All that was going to happen is it was going to be transferred from ratepayers to water consumers who by and large are the same people. That would have at least meant renters were paying directly for those services potentially.We've also heard from Kieran McAnulty that 80 percent of the rates goes on water and transport. I can tell you certainly in the urban areas it's nowhere near that. I was looking for the rates bill to see if I could actually find the numbers but I think it wouldn't be a lot more than 50.That legislation also appropriated council assets—appropriated them. They were assets built up by ratepayers over a century and a half and essentially with no meaningful consultation. Remember it started out as something they could opt into—councils could opt into. Then it was like "Uh you're going to have to opt out because we'd really like you all to be in there." And then it's like "You're going in—you're going in." What sort of an approach is that? And some brave councils—and we've already had my friend Cameron Luxton saying you know brave mayors who took on the Government on this and some of them took the Government to court and the court said this was appropriation without compensation. In most cases you would regard that as "theft"—is the word that you would use. And it's another example that sometimes we need protection from our own Governments.It also created the co-governance model. The co-governance model created two different classes of citizens. And I know that some people have said that as a result of that legislation and that other legislation they did not even feel like they were New Zealanders anymore and that is terrible. People have said that to me.It also set up a complex form of governance that couldn't possibly be effective and efficient. And it reached so far down into the small rural communities and said "Look we want to appropriate effectively your small rural scheme." Even at one stage two houses together was a scheme that they wanted to take over.But the other thing was it was always far far too expensive. Right from the beginning it looked like it was a gold-plated scheme. It was a gold-plated scheme. The numbers that have been talked about there—the $180 billion to $185 billion—I'm confident as a result of the three stages that we are going through that it will be well well south of that; much much cheaper to deliver the water services.The other thing I wanted to comment on because it came up also in the committee of the whole House was the concern about the scrapping that's been done of the future for local government review. Remember that? The future for local government review—let's be very very clear. That was an afterthought from the previous Government—an afterthought from the previous Government—only in response to local government only because local government was saying "Hey you're taking the water away. You're taking away the RMA responsibility. So what are we going to be doing?" And so for many local authorities that was an existential threat. So let's just be clear about that.The other thing that review of course did is it focused only on what local government did. And some of us actually asked at the time "Actually could you focus on all forms of public service and say what fits where best? What's best at central regional local or even community level?"So what does this bill do? Well it sorts out the borrowing issues for Watercare in Auckland. It leaves much more control with councils to sort out the structures the financing the service delivery and some of the standards and that matters. We've had some of our communities say that they for example don't want chlorine in their water. Those kinds of things do matter to people. What stormwater levels do they want? You know are we looking at a one-in-20-year flood a one-in-100-year flood a one-in-500-year flood? Those things matter. What about the receding water quality in waterways? Those things matter as well.During the committee of the whole House it also makes it easier to set up council-controlled organisations alone or together. And during the committee of the whole House we heard concerns about that being only one consultation process rather than two. And all I would say is just make it authentic. That's the key bit—to make it an authentic process—because I've seen a lot of tick-box consultation in the past and that does nothing for anybody. It doesn't matter whether you do it once twice or 10 times; it is still a waste of time.Then it requires a water service delivery plan. Have a look at what's in the bill because what is not to like about those things? A description of the current state of the water services network—sounds sensible. A description of the current levels of water services provided—that sounds very sensible as well. I'm not going to go through all of them. The financial projections a description of the asset management approach—boy that's one I like; I like asset management. An explanation of how the revenue from and delivery of water services will be separated—all of those things are really really important. It gives a lot more transparency than we've got at the moment because at the moment we don't have that level of transparency.I want to come back to those water standards. The bill also includes—and we've already had that reference—the removing of Te Mana o te Wai. Now Te Mana o te Wai sounded really really good because you want to look after the water. You want a high quality water. I had a regional councillor—not from this region but a regional councillor—tell me the other day that they're aiming for drinking water quality standard in all of their rivers. I'd just like you to understand that thinking and whether that's even possible—whether that's even possible—and if you did what you would have to do. That seemed just completely nuts. So there are concerns there. The problem with Te Mana o te Wai is you've got three levels there and what I've seen in resource management processes is that it's only the top one that counts. For many decision makers it's only the top one that counts. And so the ones behind it—the health needs of people and then the ability of people and communities to provide for our social economic and cultural wellbeing—those things are subjugated to Te Mana o te Wai. So that's why that has come out.Now I've talked about asset management. Some people argue that councils haven't done a good job of managing assets and actually I think it's fair—I think it's fair. But I think that central government needs to be very careful that it is not in a glasshouse when it is throwing stones because for many parts of the central government asset portfolio if you like there is no asset management plan. And we lurch from crisis to crisis saying "Oh goodness me! There's a hospital that needs fixing because it's got mould all over the place." There are schools which are falling down—you know those things. And how do we do it? We cash fund them. So I think central government should not be the pot calling the kettle black and needs to get its own house in order of that and that's something which we ought to be thinking very carefully about.Now if there was a real concern about underfunding—that thing of renewals versus depreciation—I ask a question: that was going on for years in every council around the country and I know I was a part of a council that was doing it as well. And I asked a question at the Governance and Administration Committee saying to the Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) "Well how many big red flags did you raise?" Crickets—not many. And so I would say to the OAG in this process and also to ComCom in this process be waving big big red flags if you think there is a concern about the asset management the way in which those important assets are being looked after.Just to finish off with this bill to me makes water delivery and investment much much more transparent than it has ever been before and that is a really good thing. It puts greater oversight there. So the Commerce Commission will be involved and I think that's something that will be very interesting for councils to be exposed to. It allows the Government appointed assistance in developing water plans when necessary. And can I just actually also add one other thing? Because we had a lot about the cost of delivery. Now obviously the changes around Te Mana o te Wai are going to make a difference there. The other one is the changes that are made outside of the water system to things like temporary traffic management. And you might go "What the heck's that going to do with it?" I've had chief executives of councils saying that 40 percent—I've said this in the House before—of the cost of every piece of work on the roads is traffic management. If you can halve that you can go back and have a bit of a think about that and say "Well that's going to really reduce the cost of delivering our water services." So those things are really really important.So look I am really confident that the reform through this bill and the forthcoming legislation will make the delivery of the three waters more reliable more robust. It will still give us good quality systems. It will be done locally and it will be done for much much less than the previous Government system and I commend this bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): This is a five-minute split call."