Mooney JosephJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise as the member of Parliament for Southland and the Opposition spokesperson for rural communities to speak on the third reading of the Water Services Bill.Look the National Party supported the establishment of a new drinking-water regulator Taumata Arowai which has the power to set and enforce drinking-water regulations. However regrettably the National Party cannot support the Water Services Bill which puts onerous rules regulations and compliance costs on small rural water suppliers. It is not for want of trying. The National Party tried to engage with the Labour Government. It sought to obtain some sensible and pragmatic changes to the bill which would have meant the National Party could have supported it but regrettably the Government chose to push ahead. When it became clear the Government would not engage with us in the Parliament over these changes Barbara Kuriger and Christopher Luxon launched a petition asking that rural water schemes be exempted from the bill. That petition garnered over 15000 signatures in a short period of time showing the level of interest in the community. My colleague Christopher Luxon then produced an amendment Supplementary Order Paper 61 which would have exempted from the bill small water supplies like rural water schemes that supply fewer than 30 endpoint users. Regrettably the Labour Government voted down this amendment.Unfortunately this is reflective of a Labour Government that continues to rain down regulatory reform on rural New Zealand and is simply not listening to rural New Zealand. There are tens of thousands of small rural water schemes in New Zealand estimated between 70000 to 100000. These range from someone letting their neighbour draw water from their bore to water schemes that primarily feed stock and some houses draw water from them to farmers that supply water to their home as well as to their workers' homes to marae as well as holiday home schemes. Under this bill those rural water schemes will be required to meet inappropriate and disproportionate obligations such as: producing drinking water safety plans risk management plans consumer complaints processes and it goes on and on. This is reflective of regulatory reform that this Labour Government is raining down on rural New Zealand which is putting the community under huge stress. I cannot stress that enough. I'm hearing this again and again and again throughout rural New Zealand that they cannot keep up with the pace of change and the regulatory reforms that this Government is requiring and bringing down on them and making them complete more and more and more paperwork to comply with the rules that the Government is bringing in rather than getting on with the job. Let's remember that rural New Zealand comprises approximately 600000 people. That's the biggest population group outside of Auckland. This Labour Government simply isn't listening to them.Last week I asked the Hon Nanaia Mahuta if she would give some more certainty about what was intended by the wording that there would be mechanisms that would enable the regulation of drinking water to be proportionate to the scale complexity and risk profile of each drinking water supply;". I asked that question because the bill does not make it clear what it means. It is a very important question that will need some explanation to provide guidance to Taumata Arowai. It is particularly important for another reason. I asked the Minister last week about whether it was proportionate and appropriate for a small drinking-water supplier such as someone with a bore also supplying their neighbour with water to be subject to a penalty regime exposing them to a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment or a maximum fine of $600000. The Minister replied that there would be a level of responsibility for such a small water supplier who failed to provide safe drinking water. Now I note that the Hon Meka Whaitiri referred to an exception in clause 160 with the liability of volunteers that would mean they would be excluded from prosecution of offence under a specified number of offences in the bill. Unfortunately I note that this only refers to clause 163 which is an offence involving negligence in the supply of unsafe drinking water. It does not involve clause 162 which is an offence involving recklessness in the supply of unsafe drinking water and there's no good reason that I have heard for why that has not been done.Just looking at my time I do note with regret that the Minister referred to a letter from the president of Federated Farmers last week in support of the bill but left out a part that had been written in bold to her noting that "On balance Federated Farmers continues to prefer an exemption for small rural supplies (although we are open on whether the cut off should be 50 or a smaller number) with a focus instead on education and information including developing best practice guidance." We cannot support this bill."