Twyford PhilHon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): A river runs through my electorate called Te Waio-Pareira otherwise known as Henderson Creek and every time there's a heavy rainstorm raw sewage floods that river. And the reason it does that is that for decades successive councils have failed to build the infrastructure needed to support a growing city. In January about 1000 people in my electorate in West Auckland suffered catastrophic flooding. Why? A heavy rain event sure but again a total failure by Auckland Council over multiple decades to build the stormwater infrastructure needed to support a growing city. I am happy to say that with the passage of this bill through the House we will see a specialist water agency whose job it is to deliver maintain and manage stormwater and waste-water networks in the city. It will be able to borrow two to three times as much as Watercare currently can because its balance sheet will have been separated from Auckland Council's balance sheet and it will be freed from the shackles of the rating agencies. Thirdly it will have a detailed and comprehensive legislative mandate that for the first time ever will require these entities to do the job of managing stormwater in our communities. There is no such legislative mandate currently. There is no way to hold councils accountable for in the case of Auckland its manifest failure to manage stormwater properly in that city.I want to make a brief remark about one aspect of the work that the select committee did in scrutinising this bill and I want to thank the Minister the Hon Duncan Webb for his willingness to engage with our committee and allow us—and when I say us" I mean all the members of the committee because in spite of the huffing and the puffing by ACT and by National in this House in the select committee room the members of that committee worked together in a way that was sensible and adult and collegial in the best interests of our country. Together we developed new policy. The committee developed new policy to change the way that the responsibility for managing the streams that make up the urban stormwater network in Auckland is managed. The current problem in Auckland which was so exposed by the weather events earlier this year is that Auckland has had a stormwater by-law from 2015 which says that if an urban stream passes through private property or abuts private property the responsibility for maintaining it and clearing any blockages lies with the private landowner. It is a nonsense an absolute nonsense because those urban streams pass through literally dozens of suburban properties. It's not feasible for a suburban property owner to spend $50000 to hire a heavy digger and equipment to clear the stream. Every time there's a heavy rain event debris flows down from upstream and can block that property. What happens currently is that the landowner rings up the council and says "I'm worried there's going to be another catastrophic flood because there's a big blockage in the stream next to my property." What happens right now is that the council says "It's not our problem you deal with it." and that is one of the main problems—the blockage of streams and the refusal of the Auckland Council to take responsibility for maintaining those streams. That is one of the big problems that emerged from the floods earlier this year.Our committee has fixed that problem and the bill as it stands in the House today says that it is the responsibility of the new water entities to maintain the entire stormwater network including the urban streams. Property owners will still be required to exercise their responsibilities and not allow through their own actions for blockages to occur and the new water entities will have all of the powers and tools needed to enforce that. But suburban property owners in our cities will no longer be able to be held responsible by a council like Auckland Council for messes and blockages in the streams that happened as a result of someone else's omission or commission further upstream. I say to the House that is a significant improvement and advance and I thank our colleagues on the select committee for the work they did."