Little AndrewHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you for the members who've made their contributions; I'll address each of them seriatim.I'll start with Matt Doocey's contribution who apart from quoting the Hon Nanaia Mahuta several times asked the question Why not allow councils to opt out?" I think even Mr Doocey acknowledged that there is a range and a mix of views across local authorities in New Zealand.In the end this is about a coherent regime that allows us as a country to manage the extraordinary challenges that we face with underground water infrastructure and to make sure we have water infrastructure that meets the needs of a healthy future. That is to say good water reticulation where that is required and good discharge and disposal of waste water and most importantly right around the country is effective management of stormwater because that is a growing challenge right now and has been the victim of massive under-investment for many years. In order to achieve that we need a coherent cohesive regime and that's what this bill sets up.Mr Doocey also made claims about the Treaty "trumping democracy" or the Treaty trumping ratepayer-owned assets. I'll just make this point: the Treaty is a product of democracy. The Treaty has been incorporated into the democratic constitution of New Zealand not just by its mere existence but by now recognition and acceptance by the courts exercising their common law jurisdiction and now of course by this Parliament through successive legislation principally starting in 1975 but pretty much since then.The Treaty is not some sort of adjunct; it is infused with the obligations of the Crown and for that matter this Parliament. When it is making laws and it is regulating in this case natural resources or regulating communities there is no "trumping" of anything; it is a foundation on which we must legislate.Mr Doocey then also referred to a proposed amendment a Supplementary Order Paper for clause 27(2) about the number of local government representatives. Clause 27(2) says "Each regional representative group consists of a number of regional representatives that is provided for in the constitution"—that's set out in section 91 of the bill and is 12 regional representatives or—"any greater number of regional representatives." That's the end of it so there is flexibility in representatives at that sort of level that I think addresses what I think was the implied concern from Mr Doocey's submissions just now.To Andrew Bayly he asked I think "What would Wayne Brown do?" The one thing I know Wayne Brown would do is to comply with the law; that I think can be said without a shadow of a doubt. He asked about the parameters of prioritisation.I think—the members I'm mixing up—of course there is a deep political interest in what happens with urban provincial and other infrastructure particularly of the infrastructure that this legislation will cover. There are political concerns about it but in the end what we need to be sure of is that there is a coherent way of managing those extraordinary challenges of the future. So we do have people who are focused on the long term—the long-term investments that are 50- 100-plus year investments that we have to be thinking about. Because with all due respect to local government and its history in this country it simply has not been possible to have a local government cohort that has been capable of thinking 50- to 100- to 150-years ahead when it comes to these vital investments.And finally to Simon Court who asks "Can under clause 15 of the bill balance sheet truly be separated from the Crown?" Yes it can be. It's tied to these entities. There's transfer of debt from local government to the new entities. The new entities will just as we do with other local government entities and other Crown entities we'll also back them with Crown liquidity facilities to enable them to do their job. But the job of those boards discharging their performance and governance management duties will be to ensure that long-term decisions of amenities ensure their financial survival."