Foster AndyANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Thank you Mr Speaker. Look I'm delighted to speak to this and support the repeal of Labour's three-headed taniwha of three waters legislation. Look there's no question that there are real issues with water infrastructure around our country; but actually that's true of many other aspects of infrastructure many of them run by central government of course. But Labour's centralisation We know best" was not the right way of doing it.The last Government as we know spent $1.2 billion—if you're going to be more efficient about doing something spending $1.2 billion without even having it set up doesn't strike as being efficient. But trying to bulldoze that through against what they knew was significant opposition around the country—certainly from councils who owned the assets but also from the public as a whole. And that $1.2 billion of course does not include the costs to other parties such as councils.It was Chris Hipkins who acknowledged that "We didn't take the people with us"—"We didn't take the people with us". And no they didn't take the people with them. In fact they built up more and more opposition. I suspect had they not done what they'd done they may not be where they are now—on that side of the House.I also want to acknowledge as some others have—some of my friends and mayors up in the gallery there—I want to acknowledge you for your brave courageous and steadfast fight for what you believe was right on behalf of your communities to say that we as communities want to be able to have a say over and control the direction of the assets which have been built up for generations and generations of ratepayers and water consumers in your area. So congratulations to you all. Three waters was mis-sold. We can all remember the wonderful advertising campaigns that the last Government put out. They basically blamed local government—there were dying fish all over the place—for poor asset management. It started off as a voluntary opt-in scheme so councils would be able to choose to opt in if they wanted to. Then it changed to be an opt-out scheme. Then of course it became compulsory. That's really good-faith bargaining! And that's one of the things that is wrong with this.Secondly when the pressure came on around co-governance there was all sorts of dissembling about saying "Oh it's not about co-governance. This is not a problem at all because look at co-governance of various rivers various mountains." This is completely different. This is co-governance of services which serve every single New Zealander. Those New Zealanders have built those assets up and yet the Government wanted to expropriate them essentially without compensation.And then we kept hearing about Havelock North being the reason for all this massive change right across the country. Well with all due respect if that was the problem it was a massive overreaction. So what was wrong with it?Chlöe Swarbrick: People died.ANDY FOSTER: Well if that was the problem then we close our roads down tomorrow but we don't do that either do we. It was ideological centralisation one-size-fits-all the establishment for of all of four entities and then 10 big entities. And we heard the Hon Kieran McAnulty talk about all the savings that were going to be made. Well the reality was that if you put in massive gains in efficiency into one model but you don't put them into any other of course you're going to make it look as though it's cheaper. But I think that was mythical. We've already seen as I said $1.2 billion spent on going essentially nowhere.It was also based on massive borrowing: $180 billion—$180 billion—and you think that's free? Where's the money going to come from? Well it certainly wasn't going to be from some magic money tree. It was going to replace ratepayers with somebody—either ratepayers or water consumers; that hadn't been decided. Quite clearly councils were still going to have to keep on charging for it regardless until that had been worked out. Who was going to pay? Probably water consumers in the end probably through water metering. By and large those are exactly the same people as were paying for it already: the ratepayers. So there was nothing free. There is nothing free in this life and there wasn't there.Then it was a massive asset grab essentially—as I said—without compensation. The High Court actually recognised this. Again I pay tribute to some of the councils who brought a case against the Government and the High Court said "Yes this was expropriation." Of course it's for Parliament to decide whether there was any compensation paid but the High Court said "Yes this is expropriation." and I think this is a real concern: that a Government can just reach into and say "Well just because it's local government we can take your assets away because we feel like it." That to me is wrong and the High Court effectively said it was wrong as well.So I'm delighted to see this legislation passed through here. It is the repeal of some very very poor legislation. And I look forward to having a much more locally responsive way of making sure that we deliver good three waters for our communities up and down the country. Thank you."