Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. Well I have to say that this is the most despicable the most dishonest and the most dishonourable piece of legislation I have had the misfortune to speak to in this House. This is a deplorable way of stealing assets off communities—assets that have been bought and paid for over generations.I'd like to start my contribution by saying that the National Party actually did support the first part of these reforms which established the water regulator. So that was back in March 2021 and the reason we did that was because we recognised that there needed to be some authority to ensure that councils acted on their management plans.So just for a bit of context around that: councils have their 10-year plans their project plans for the next 10 years. They report in those plans on the condition of their three-water assets. So they're planning ahead 10 years at least for repairs replacements and renewals of those assets and the Audit Office will come along and it will assess those reports but it has no authority to make those councils commit to that work. In some cases there were councils over many years who used the excuse of keeping rates down not to invest in that infrastructure. That's why we supported the first part of these reforms because it's recognised that there did need to be some authority to ensure that communities were not short cut in terms of the investment that was happening.But to say that the Government has been working on these reforms for five years is not what is understood by the sector. If the Government had been working on these reforms for five years they had an obligation to go out to the communities in the 2020 election and get the mandate from the voters to proceed with their plan—this grand plan that we've been hearing about all day.But they did not. They did not ask the voters then so we've gone through this farce of a consultation process in the creation of this piece of legislation—as we've heard 88000 submissions. They may have disregarded some of those form submissions but 227 oral submissions were heard when 1600 of those submitters requested to be heard. Now we've done that with other legislation—we have given the voice to those people who wanted to be heard. But for some reason this Government uses its absolute majority to run roughshod over the democratic process and be selective about the people that it will hear and I find that absolutely despicable.But then we go on to the cost of this thing. If I talk to my colleague and friend Simon Watts he can't tell us what this is going to cost because the Government hasn't zoned in on the exact cost. But they can't even tell us what the value of the assets across all of the local councils in New Zealand are actually worth. So they come along with $2.5 billion which is a no worse off fund"—which is code for here's a bribe to come on board in exchange for mega-billions of dollars' worth of assets that we haven't got a figure for yet—and everybody is meant to be happy and go home and sing "la-di-da".Well I'm telling you that actually the communities in this country aren't stupid. They are taking that money and they're doing things like paying down debt and building recreational facilities. It is not going into core infrastructure like three-water assets so it's an absolute waste of money—$2.5 billion. How far would that have gone to fixing the problem that the Government thinks it needs to set out to fix?So we've got the "no worse off" funding but the biggest waste of money—and if you think about the position this country is in today with the cost of living crisis the health crisis the education crisis and then they go out and spend $3.5 million on a media campaign to convince the country that we need these reforms. If you remember the cartoons with the slime coming out of the tap? Crikey dick! Nobody could relate to that. It quickly disappeared but not before $3.5 million had been wasted on an advertising campaign trying to convince people who didn't need to be convinced that their water was in terrible shape.So I think the Government has lost its way in all of this. We've heard some comments today that—in fact Helen White brought it up in her contribution—we don't want to have councils that have "no swimming" notices up at their beaches as they do in Auckland. Well I think the Government has missed a trick here because Auckland Council actually recognised that themselves and they set up Watercare. So Watercare has gone and spent ratepayers' money to fix the problem the Government says it needs to fix but it's already under way. So what is the point?I still don't understand why this Government thinks it's the only entity in this country that knows how to do things because—Hon Michael Woodhouse: Socialism.MAUREEN PUGH: It is socialism Michael Woodhouse—absolutely. Absolutely. But the cost of this whole exercise to date has been about $34 million. This is a complete insult to the hard-working taxpayers of this country—an absolute sham.But I want to turn the rest of my contribution to why I think this is dishonest because this legislation contains two things that I want to raise tonight. One is about the exclusive ability for the iwi representatives to propose statements. Now these statements are binding on those entities and we've heard about some of the caution that we have around that because it is extending out into fresh water it's extending out into the ocean.I just want to read a part out of the Cabinet paper that Nanaia Mahuta had in June 2021. This wasn't made available to the public by the way. "I see the [Te Mana o te Wai] statements as being holistic enabling Māori to express a broad wellbeing approach consistent with a Te Ao Māori approach to such measures including economic cultural social and environmental expectations." She goes on to say "Such statements could contain economic aspirations with respect to Māori enterprise and job creation particularly—but not exclusively—in areas related to mātauranga Māori expertise." So basically what they are saying is that whatever the 1200 iwi and hapū consider in their best interests and are deemed to be consistent with the view of mātauranga Māori they will be locked into those entities and those statements are binding and those for water services entities have to obey them.But there's another little hidden part of this piece of legislation that needs a bit of airtime and that is that not only are they going to seize the councils' bought and paid for infrastructure—three-waters infrastructure—but they're now also going after parks and reserves.Anna Lorck: No we're not—no we're not. You've got that wrong.MAUREEN PUGH: So the parks and reserves—if they're in this Anna Lorck they will be seized. So New Zealand has been duped into thinking that this has been all about clean water when in fact we were between second and ninth in the world for top-quality water in this country and again this is this typical Labour Government saying they've got a solution and they're now looking for a problem. But this is dishonest and they have not had the gumption to be open with the people of New Zealand. All those backbenchers over there have been reading the bill notes. They haven't been involved in these Cabinet papers and these discussions going on behind closed doors. If they had have been—if they had have been—they had an obligation to outline it to the communities when they went out to consult. This is despicable and I want to say that the people of this country deserve better. They will get better when National repeals this legislation next year and then we will see some action in terms of investment in infrastructure."