Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National): Thank you Madam Chair. I'm interested in the Minister of Local Government's last answer there and the starting answer to clause 166 previously where she said that governance was the reason why 166 was there. So that was her initial reason for it; and then when my colleague Penny Simmonds asked the question for clarification the Minister said that that enables basically councils to have the ability to increase their rating capacity in other areas and to get more income flows because they're basically capitalised out—neither of them make any sense. Basically this is an asset that councils have and councils can borrow against that asset. Councils are like Government which has a fairly unlimited borrowing to a certain extent because they can rate or they can tax like a Government can. They're not like a normal business that actually has to make a profit; they've always got that rating capacity and that's why they actually can borrow more than a normal business would for its balance sheet. The idea of governance being the reason behind this doesn't make any sense. The idea that we need to amalgamate all these things so that councils can free up their ability to raise capital or income in other ways doesn't make any sense either. The real crux of this bill is this clause 166(1) and when it's called Financial independence" it's not about financial independence it's about taking an asset that's what it is. The points (a) (b) (c) (d) and (e)—none of that relates to financial independence. (a) (b) (c) (d) and (e): (a) basically you've got no rights; (b) you can't receive any dividends; (c) you can't get any financial support; (d) you can't lend on it; and (e) you can't indemnify or use it as security. What is the point?So if you actually were honest with the New Zealand public it wouldn't be called financial independence this would be the "asset grab" clause and that's what it is. And there's no way you can hide it behind "Oh we need it for governance purposes"—that's rubbish. Absolute rubbish. The thing is the entities could still govern their own assets and be part of a conglomerate if they wanted to; it's commonplace in most businesses when you have subsidiary companies—and it works. There's no need to take the assets away and to have some kind of line there that doesn't actually exist on paper. Then the second reason we were given by the Minister was so that it frees up the councils to be able to have more ability to raise money through rates. Well what are they going to rate for? They're not providing the assets; they're not providing the services. They're going to rate for playgrounds and pools and all those sorts of things which is just going to hurt New Zealanders.Minister please answer the question that my colleagues have both asked around clause 166: what does it actually stand there and mean? Because to me if I read this it's not financial independence; it is taking an asset off an entity. Now the Minister talked about the super fund and said "that's an example if that applies". The super fund was not a case where billions of dollars of assets were built up by companies or entities and then taken away from them and then put into a Government organisation; people paid into the super fund over years knowing what they were getting. The financial separation there is completely different from taking assets away from entities that have built them up. So when the Minister talks about the super fund it doesn't make any sense.Now we have got probably the best Minister in the Government in the Chamber here today and I've got a lot of respect for this Minister—she's a brilliant person in the Waikato—Hon Member: That's nice.Hon DAVID BENNETT: And she is. And she's done great things for Tainui and the community. But I just don't get it on this clause—maybe if the Minister could explain what financial independence actually means when you take away every resemblance of having any link to an asset. It can't be for governance it can't be because it's an analogy to the super fund and it can't be because you want them to raise more money into rate. There's got to be another reason and I would love to hear it."