Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. Minister Mahuta appears to feel no contrition at all for being the first Minister in 168 years of Parliament to try and entrench her own Government's policies creating a constitutional crisis in the process. For a moment it was also the greatest win the Green Party had ever had in this Parliament having failed to achieve anything else practical around transport or the environment but it turns out that it was just another pyrrhic victory—like declaring a climate emergency. In 168 years with all that has happened in New Zealand politics no Government has been arrogant enough to think that its own politics its own policies are so important that they should survive and endure longer than the next Parliament which has the right to change the laws of New Zealand. Even if it's true that the Minister says that she was not aware or she didn't realise what would be the consequences of this particular amendment to the bill—it was tabled during the committee stage—the Minister should still take responsibility for what has been a constitutional disaster which New Zealand had avoided for 168 years until Labour and the Greens teamed up to deliver this outrage.Now as ACT said in our reply to the letter that the Minister sent to ACT this is a shallow political stunt Minister this entrenchment provision and this claim that it was only intended to protect these water assets from privatisation. ACT's been clear throughout the entire three waters process that our position is to return the assets to local government control. It's the Government that is transferring assets out of local democratic control into new statutory corporations that it is allocating governance—50 percent of the governance—to unelected appointed iwi Māori elites who will have the ability—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Order! Order! Order! Order! I'm going to say it again: the member is straying into matters provided for in other parts of the Water Services Entities Bill. I'm going to ask him to confine his comments to the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) which is in front of him.SIMON COURT: Thank you Madam Chair. So for 168 years every Parliament has been sovereign which means that New Zealanders can vote out the Government which doesn't deliver and replace the members in the House with new members and a new Government which will deliver for them. ACT fully intends to be part of that new Government. But I just want to come back to the provisions which most likely will be repealed at the end of this committee stage which are around the entrenchment of provisions against privatisation in the Act. So the section that's being repealed requires an obligation to maintain ownership and control of water services and significant assets and it goes on to say that the reserved provision cannot be repealed or amended unless the proposal is passed by a majority of 60 percent of all of the members of the House of Representatives or under a referendum.Now I do have a question for the Minister: what does the Minister understand privatisation to mean? Is this the partial sale Minister of a share in assets or a sale of assets such as the Government's enabling legislation which will allow Kiwibank to be floated—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): No. No. No. Sorry.SIMON COURT: Madam Chair?CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): No. No. The member is to confine himself to the very narrow question of what is contained in the SOP and I'm speaking to the whole committee again and I'm warning the member that he has strayed several times now. This is a very very targeted and confined debate.SIMON COURT: Just to be clear I will confine myself to discussion of the clauses which are to be amended and the purpose of this proposed amendment.So if we look at Subpart 4A the Reserved provision" 206AA the restrictions on amendment or repeal of certain provisions as they relate to ownership and control of water services and significant assets. The Minister will be aware that when I come to the House to ask questions it is not in the pursuit of some flippant political objective. As a civil and environmental engineer I speak for many people around New Zealand who are really genuinely interested in reforming the way water services are delivered so that we have better outcomes. So I wanted to ask the Minister: what does the Minister understand privatisation to mean? And I just wanted to give the Minister—with your grace Madam Chair—a couple of examples around the mixed-ownership model such as Air New Zealand or the big power generators like Genesis which have 50 percent or less Government shareholding in what are otherwise—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): No. No. Sorry. Again. Again the member still has six seconds left which I will preserve for him but I've already ruled that another member may not stray as far as that member is attempting to stray. So in his remaining six seconds I invite Simon Court to stick to the SOP in front of him.SIMON COURT: The ACT Party will support this amendment on the basis that it restores constitutional—[Time expired]"