Coffey TamatiTAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I'm happy to take a call on this particular bill the Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill. Just a wee reminder to the House and to all those that are listening that actually this here is maybe a little bit unprecedented in terms of our party actually supporting this as the Hon Dr Nick Smith and the Hon Nathan Guy also alluded to. They were quite surprised that we were supporting this bill but in fact this here is us as a Government upholding our commitments.You see in April it was announced by Ministers Grant Robertson and Damien O'Connor that the Government would be winding down all public subsidies for large-scale irrigation projects and that is in line with our coalition and our confidence and supply agreements. But we also did this: we also agreed to honour the previous commitments to existing schemes and the three in the works including this particular one the Waimea project. The other two projects in completion that we talked about were the completion of the $200 million Central Plains Water stage two in Canterbury and constructing the Kurow Duntroon scheme in South Canterbury. Minister Robertson indicated in April this year that the three developments could be met within the current appropriations. So I have heard we have absolutely pleased the other side of the House we've pleased the mayor Richard Kempthorne; we've pleased those people that were supporting the Waimea scheme and we've also pleased those who voted for this Government and expected us to follow through on what we stood for and that's exactly what we've gone and done.Let's just take a moment to point out that the Waimea scheme itself doesn't require parliamentary approval but what this bill does is it enables Crown land to be accessed for this scheme—1.35 hectares of Crown riverbed on which the dam will be built. It also frees up the right to inundate 9.67 hectares of conservation land about 1.6 kilometres in a direct line upstream from the dam through an easement.As our previous speakers have been talking about this bill I've been wondering where iwi fit in this whole scheme of things. I had a little look into it and I'm reassured when I see that iwi were consulted on this particular bill. I just wanted to point out this bit: the Tasman District Council has advised that all eight iwi with an interest in the bill have been consulted on it with no opposition being expressed or expected. This includes Ngāti Kōata as an iwi with a particular interest being fully supportive of the bill Te Atiawa and Ngāti Tama having confirmed their acceptance of it and Ngāti Rārua are believed to be in support of it as well. To the extent that conservation land does not inundate it at any time the public will have the same level of access as it does to the adjoining conservation land.So despite this bill having quite a rocky road to get to this point I'm happy to stand here and commend it to the House. It's something that has been a long time coming and probably with the incoming Government I'm sure the locals were probably a bit nervous about where the Waimea scheme was going to fit in with the future direction of this Government but everybody that lives in the Tasman District should also know that we are supporting them on this particular project. This is a commitment from our Government. We're following through with it.I would like to point out that our confidence and supply partners over here the Green Party of Aotearoa / New Zealand are absolutely within their rights to oppose it at this stage. I think that they've raised some really important points which as the bill moves forward we actually need to be answering. So I mihi to our partners over there the Green Party of Aotearoa / New Zealand and I encourage the select committee as this bill moves through the select committee process to actually look into what the Greens are saying help to mitigate by finding some answers to the problems that they've raised and help it move through unopposed. But for here and now I commend this bill to the House.