O'Connor Greg; Watts SimonWATER SERVICES ENTITIES AMENDMENT BILLIn CommitteePart 1 Amendments to Water Services Entities Act 2022CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Members the House is in committee on the Water Services Entities Amendment Bill. We come first to Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 3 to 27 and Schedules 1 and 2 Amendments to Water Services Entities Act 2022". The question is that Part 1 stand part.SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much Mr Chair. I'm looking forward to a good evening this evening in regards to the committee of the whole House stage on the Water Services Entities Amendment Bill. For those at home getting ready to settle down for what will be two hours of some of the best political debate you have seen in a long time get some popcorn get some chippies and maybe a little Diet Coke and settle in because we've got a little bit to talk about this evening.Todd Muller: We need a West Coast perspective.SIMON WATTS: It's good to have you here Todd Muller. Thank you very much for that. I'm looking forward to your contribution soon.So let's start with clause 16 eh? Let's do that. Clause 16. I've actually got a Supplementary Order Paper on the Table here in regards to this. This is a topic of which will come as no surprise but a topic of which has raised significant controversy across this bill.Don't forget this is the "back-down bill" right? This is the bill in which the Government did their big master reset plan remember? The policy bonfire—remember the policy bonfire?Nicola Grigg: Damien didn't burn anything.SIMON WATTS: No only some of them did the bonfire. Anyway the policy bonfire resulted in this change in the water services entities and this is the bill that's going to take it from four mega-bureaucratic co-governed entities to 10 mega-co-governed bureaucratic entities.But clause 16 of which my Supplementary Order Paper 407 is on relates to the proposal around these proposed community priorities statements. Remember those Te Mana o te Wai statements that the Government put into the legislation which said that say if you've got a stream that runs through your farm—I don't know if you've got a farm in Canterbury maybe I don't know anyway somewhere like that maybe the Waikato—that makes sense farmer owns the farm. In order to make some recommendations in regards to that stream that runs through the farm well you'd sort of expect the farmer who owns the farm and owns the land would be able to input and make some comment on that. Well originally that wasn't the case; it was only iwi who were able to make comment on that stream even though it was stream that ran through private land. But irrespective the Government recognised that was a bit of a gap and they put in place these community priority statements.The community priority statements—the challenge with these and the legislation as it stands is that the governance groups that need to consider these the wording in clause 16 in the heading under new section 145C—and for those watching at home this is going to be quite hard to follow because this bill is amending a bill that's just got passed in only a short amount of time before this new amendment bill came in.Anyway it amends the wording to say—at the moment they say they "may be considered". Well there is a difference between the words "must be considered" and "may be considered" right? Te Mana o te Wai statements must be considered right? So that's pretty clear. But the community priority statements—remember the farmer that I referred to who owns a farm and the stream runs through the farm the statements and the contributions that that individual makes are only "may be considered" right? So there's a hierarchy—a lower hierarchy—even though that person owns the land and the stream runs through the farm and actually by all accounts cares deeply about the environmental impact of that water stream that passes through or whatever going on.But my Supplementary Order Paper says actually we should be replacing the word "may" with the word "must" because we're into simplicity here aren't we? We want to keep it simple. We're just going to change one word right? Easy as that. Simple as.I appreciate that we haven't got too many more days of this House sitting here but I think maybe tonight the Minister may see the logic of this and go "You know what? What a great idea. There is one thing that I want to do before I finish up my role as Minister and that will be to actually say 'This is a sensible Supplementary Order Paper. We're going to change the word from 'may' to 'must'.' " That means that places everyone on a level playing field.Why should farmers in the Wairarapa sit at a lower tier than iwi in the Wairarapa? Why is that? Is that fair to anyone? Well currently under the Minister's bill there's a hierarchy and the farmer sits below iwi. Well we don't think that's right. That's not fair. That's not sensible. We should have all stakeholders that have an interest in regards to those water flows be having the same ability—an equal ability—to be able to contribute and inputting feedback in terms of that. That's not unreasonable; that's just basic fairness. So hence we're really encouraging the Minister to consider clause 16 and the modifications in regards to that portion.The second aspect that I'm keen for the Minister to have a consideration around is in regards to clause 5 which is around the establishment dates. Don't forget that this piece of legislation originally was all going to be all on all happening by mid-2024. Remember the good old days of those? Remember that? Well before the policy bonfire—before the petrol got thrown on the fire—that was the plan.Hon Scott Simpson: Who was Prime Minister then?SIMON WATTS: Well I can't remember. There's so many changes haven't there the Hon Scott Simpson?Hon Scott Simpson: Who was the Minister?SIMON WATTS: I can't even recall. Jeez nearly lost count on that as well. Crikey! You're putting me under the pressure but I'm not in the seat.So the point around the establishment date is that—so this bill is now changing the date from mid-2024 to sort of a sequenced drop date right out to mid-2026. Well that's kicking it for touch for another give or take three years from now. You can imagine the bureaucracy and the spending and the consultants the gravy train the conga line of consultants that are lining up behind this—the "three waters conga line" just heads in the trough. Plenty of money going to consultants and high-paid contractors meanwhile it's all funded out of the back pocket of hard-working Kiwis. So around the establishment date in clause 5 I'm keen to get a little bit of feedback from the Minister around why we are wasting so much time doing more bureaucracy. Look if they really want to do this and they've got the parliamentary majority they could do this tomorrow if they wanted to right? But they haven't; they've just sort of kicked it around and dragged it out. Why are we kicking it to touch to mid-2026?But actually if you look at new section 6A inserted by clause 5 on page 8—I'll just give you some page numbers Mr Chair because it's quite hard to follow some of those—the Auckland Northland entity actually kicks in in July 2024. Well it's interesting right? I'll tell you what do you think the Auckland Council are in behind these reforms? Do you think Mayor Brown thinks this is a good idea? Gee I tell you what: the Government is spending a lot of capital up there having teas and coffees and meetings trying to negotiate on that. But I'll cut to the chase: don't waste your time having teas and coffees; he thinks this is a dumb idea—he thinks this is a really dumb idea.But yet the legislation—they had the chance to make an amendment to kick this for touch but they've actually brought this forward and according to new section 6A it's 1 July 2024. Well that's not listening to the feedback of local government because that's what we've heard in the narrative all through this bill haven't we? "Oh we've been listening. We've done a lot of listening." Don't forget they read the bill on 22 June and it reported back on 27 July. That's not really a long process of feedback. But anyway.So I'm interested in the Minister's comments in regards to the Auckland Northland date. Can the Minister clarify that actually pretty much every mayor in Auckland and in Northland don't support these reforms right? Well what a great place to start—what a great place to start in terms of "Let's all work together. Let's listen to local government. We all want to do this." Well guess what! Every mayor in the entity A—of which is going to be first off the rank which is going to be the sort of poster child of these reforms—is strongly opposed to the reform. This is a failure from the start. Why is the Minister not listening to the feedback from local government and going "Well actually everyone thinks this is a dumb idea but no let's keep trucking on head down no listening."? The only ones that think this is a good idea are probably only the Minister and definitely not those people and those residents within those entities.So a little bit of feedback on clause 5 on the establishment date and a little bit of feedback on new section 6A in regards to the Auckland Northland date. We'll have a look at the actual phasing of all the other dates for all the other entities. Just in regards to the Northland and Auckland Water Services Entity—actually the names of the entities are in Schedule 1 on page 48 so we've got the Far North District Council Kaipara Whangarei and Auckland Councils. Those are the ones that I'm referring to when I'm talking about new section 6A around the establishment date of 1 July 2024. Thank you."