Watts Simon; Rurawhe AdrianSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): I rise on behalf of the National Party as the member of Parliament for North Shore and their local government spokesperson at the third reading of the Water Services Entities Bill. National strongly opposes this bill. National will repeal and replace this bill if elected in 2023.The bill gives effect to the Government's three-waters reforms and establishes the four-entities model for water services management. This is part of a series of bills of which we will see economic regulation and asset transfer bills follow through and introduced in 2023. Be under no illusion: this is not the last time you will hear of three waters. Today the Government unless they make a mistake will use its majority to pass this bill one of the most controversial aspects of public policy in this term of Government—controversial because over 88000 people made a submission on this bill the majority in opposition. This overwhelming opposition is further evidenced by multiple public polls. The latest published poll just a few weeks ago said 60 percent of Kiwis are opposed while less than one in five—just 19 percent—supports it.It is important to acknowledge that most mayors and councils across this country support the need for reform to improve water infrastructure but strongly oppose this bill as a means to achieve those ends. National believes alongside our local communities that water services in New Zealand should be safe resilient reliable and customer responsive at least cost. This will lead to and we need to focus on fixing problems where they exist. This is what a National-led Government will do and deliver for New Zealanders. The National Party has developed an alternative solution and will continue to develop this New Zealand water infrastructure solution. It will replace this bill. Our solution will achieve the desired outcomes for our communities without the loss of control and complexity that this Labour water services entities model brings.The Government has engaged in a deceptive media campaign that has blamed local councils for the issues with New Zealand's water quality spending millions of dollars of taxpayer funds on spin and nothing on delivery. Water assets should remain in local community control and ownership and governed by democratically accountable individuals. This is a bottom line for National. Under these reforms communities will no longer own their assets. As detailed in clause 166 territorial authorities possess none of their usual rights and responsibilities associated with ownership of assets. This lack of ownership is particularly concerning for communities that have paid for their assets over generations and generations and prefer the ownership to be vested in democratically accountable authorities.Water assets should also not be subject to 50:50 co-governance. Removal of co-governance from public services is a bottom line for National. The bill contains co-governance at every level of representation—both representative boards and regional authority groups—which have equal sets of mana whenua and territorial authorities around the table. The National Party believes that co-governance of public services like water does not improve service delivery and cannot be justified otherwise. National recognises the role of mana whenua as a group alongside others with views on water and with some interests in cultural assets previously expressed in the Treaty settlement process.Submitters provided a number of viable alternative models. Communities 4 Local Democracy a group that represents over 30 councils presented an independently reviewed alternative model. The mayors of Auckland Christchurch and Waimakariri have presented an alternative model. Auckland has the Watercare council-controlled organisation (CCO) model and some councils including Hawke's Bay have tabled alternative CCO models. These models show you can match the capital expenditure of Labour's reforms and keep assets in local ownership without raising water prices and council debt limits. Still the Government has ignored and continues to ignore this and says that no alternative options or models exist. This is simply not accurate. The shape of the bill and the bottom lines of this Government which restricted it to four co-governed mega entities have meant that consideration of alternative models has not been possible during the committee stage.This bill now also includes five waters—geothermal and coastal waters—for the purpose of Te Mana o te Wai giving iwi binding powers over these waters through the water services entities; iwi alone. This was a late amendment and was not part of the select committee process in which public submissions could have been received on that aspect. That is another example of this Government ramming through amendments at a late stage and not listening to New Zealanders. The National Party had tabled an amendment to have these provisions for Te Mana o te Wai extended to all New Zealanders yet these were voted down by Labour in the committee of the whole House stage.And in the last week Labour was caught red-handed trying to entrench part of the bill which has forced them as a party into an embarrassing backtrack. This was supported by Labour and the Minister the Hon Nanaia Mahuta despite Cabinet agreeing on 30 May that no part of the bill would be entrenched and knowing this amendment would be a novel approach" and not meeting—and I quote—"constitutional thresholds". This action has given insight into the inner thinking of parts of the Labour caucus: a willingness to dangerously try to change our democracy for their own means. National has called for the Prime Minister to remove her local government Minister for this deliberate violation of the Cabinet Manual. "Who is running the Labour Cabinet?" you may ask. The Prime Minister refused to go into how this has happened. That leaves her and the Government wide open to accusations that this was a deliberate move—that they wanted to undertake this entrenchment that they got found out and that this mistake was not a policy mistake it was a political one.The three waters reform assumes that the new mega entities will be able to achieve 62 percent operational efficiency without any reduction in headcount and a 50 percent capital spend efficiency compared to existing systems. This is not possible. Independent assessments have noted the economies of scale and capital spend are not available in New Zealand water services. There are issues with water infrastructure management that this bill has said it is going to try to attempt. Given the existence of Taumata Arowai as the water quality regulator which has already been established it is our belief that a number of issues around water quality will be resolved through this governance model—in addition with appropriately targeted funding and financing mechanisms. Three waters has attracted a storm of controversy because this bill right from the start was dead in the water. Before it even started this Government set out right from the outset with bottom lines within this reform that they did not have a willingness to change.I want to speak directly to all those people who work in local government across this country who are involved with the delivery of water infrastructure. The next 12 months will be unsettling and challenging but be forewarned: National will repeal this bill undo the other statutory amendments and dissolve any obligations created by this bill in regards to employment funding and financing. National will work with you not against you to implement a sustainable water model—SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired."