Mooney JosephJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I rise for a brief call on the Water Services Economic Efficiency and Consumer Protection Bill. It's not one that I have been on the Finance and Expenditure Committee for but I will make some comments—Hon Rachel Brooking: Oh you've missed out.JOSEPH MOONEY: —in respect of this. I've missed out" I've heard from the other side from my colleague Rachel Brooking I think. But look the National Party does not support this bill. The National Party will repeal and replace three waters including this one. We do believe in sound economic and commercial regulation including economic regulation and consumer protection but for the right water services entities and local councils that own the waters. It's an important point: the local councils that own the waters not three waters not these mega-entities that are going to be part of this proposal.It's interesting if you're reading the departmental disclosure statement which notes that the three waters service delivery reforms will result in significant changes for the water sector with the creation of four water service entities that will serve as 85 percent of New Zealanders that it does say "We anticipate that there will be some uncertainty for the entities about what the new water service entities will inherit. They will inherit various systems and processes and water service assets in varying conditions. We therefore expect that the water service entities will need time to gain comfort with the new structure of the sector their own internal processes their assets and their regulatory requirements. It is also possible that this uncertainty could lead to some water service entities acting too cautiously focusing on compliance with little regard to efficiency in an effort to avoid any risk contrary to the provisions of the Act."I'll just pause on that point to note that this is one of a trilogy of different bills that are quite significant in and of themselves and have had significant changes over the course of the last year or so as the Labour Government has pushed through this three waters proposal that they are now enacting into law shortly before an election. Unfortunately one of the problems with this very significant piece of work is that it has pushed this through the select committee in shortened time frames which has given little opportunity for many of the affected communities and parties to actually make substantive submissions and to iron out the significant and substantial difficulties that have been identified with these bills. Frankly it is not good lawmaking to push through such a significant piece of work without getting sufficient feedback from the communities who will be affected by this. The fundamental challenge and problem is that this is shifting the assets from those communities who have built them up over many generations into a completely new model and then expecting that there's going to be an economic benefit from it. I note this point which I started with in the departmental disclosure statement that the uncertainty about these new processes may lead or could lead as was identified here to some water services acting cautiously focusing on compliance with little regard to efficiency. Obviously one of the main points that has been used to push this through is that it supposedly will be more efficient and therefore will be less costly. However that appears to be unlikely as this is likely to be more complex and more costly and that is unfortunately the last thing that New Zealanders need right now in a cost of living crisis.So this is one of a number of actually very complex pieces of legislation that is going to take a huge amount of work for people to try and get their heads around. But I will say that there is an election coming up very shortly and there will be an opportunity for New Zealanders to vote for a new Government and I can say that if it's a National-led Government this will be repealed."