McAnulty Kieran; Salesa JennyThird ReadingHon KIERAN McANULTY (Minister of Local Government): I present a legislative statement on the Water Services Entities Amendment Bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon KIERAN McANULTY: I move That the Water Services Entities Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This country faces a massive challenge and that challenge equates to up to $185 billion. That's a lot of money and it's especially a lot of money when you consider that at the moment our district councils—67 of them—are having to face that bill individually. What that means is that ratepayers are having to face a bill that they have to lend at rates that are unfavourable which will lead to rates that are unaffordable. And that's the crux of the issue; if we don't do something ratepayers in this country district councils in this country will face bills that they simply cannot afford and rates are going up enough as they are. So this bill brings in reforms that will save ratepayers thousands of dollars each year on water services. It will also relieve councils of the burden of significant amounts of debt that is sitting on their balance sheets that councils are having to service at the moment. Now members in this House will know numerous examples in their local areas where rates are going up at points where many people simply can't afford it. That's without taking into consideration the massive bill that they face at the moment. This is not the fault of local councils; they are doing the best they can in the circumstances they find themselves in. They are often dealing with decisions that were made many many years ago. But the facts are very clear: there are councils in this country that are facing millions—hundreds of millions—of dollars and they don't have a way to deal with it.This Government through this bill is providing a solution to that. And it's interesting that throughout this debate throughout the passage of this bill there have been criticisms of all sorts of things from other parties in this House. None of them have outlined their alternative from a financial sense. None of them have outlined how it's going to pay the bills. The ACT Party for example have put forward—which we did consider in the process of considering this bill. We looked at the alternatives. We tried to find other ways in which to do this; none of them stacked up. The proposal from the ACT Party that they will share GST with councils equates to $1 billion a year. The expenditure we're talking about is over a 30-year period—$185 billion over 30 years. The ACT Party's proposal equates to a billion a year. Over 30 years that's $30 billion—$155 billion short or 150 years short of the problem that we are facing.The National Party which we also looked at and considered in good faith are essentially proposing the status quo; they are proposing voluntary mergers through council-controlled organisations they are proposing shared services—all of that can happen already. And at the crux of this is that neither of those proposals remove debt from the councils' books. So we can say Sure work together; go for it." But when it's happening now and when councils are still servicing debt that they simply are going to struggle to afford moving forward the simple question is: how is that a solution?What this bill proposes is that collectively through 10 entities which largely reflect geographical boundaries there is a way in which they can get the scale and access to lending at a rate that they can afford to do that investment to maintain and upgrade water services in this country in a way that ratepayers can afford. Originally the proposal was for four entities. When I was given the task of being local government Minister I took on board the feedback from the local government sector. They said "We do need reform but we have concerns about four entities." So we looked at it. We considered 16 to go along with the regional council boundaries. But what we found was that if we left Northland Tairāwhiti or West Coast by themselves there'd be no change for them because they wouldn't have the scale. So that's why we've landed on 10: Northland into Auckland as was originally proposed; Tairāwhiti into Hawke's Bay; you've got the top of the South together the three unitary authorities there alongside the Ngāi Tahu takiwā; you've got the West Coast into Canterbury; you've got Southland into Otago and we end up with 10. What's interesting is that I think there's a reason why opponents to this proposal don't want to talk about rates. It's because they know their proposals don't stack up. We can prove—we can show—that the figures that back up this proposal will save ratepayers money. My challenge to the other parties as they contribute to the third reading today is: why don't they show us how theirs stack up? They won't. It's a challenge I've put to them throughout this debate; they will not come up with figures to show that their proposals stack up because they don't.And that is the simple thing that equates to this bill that people have to consider: this will save them money; theirs will not. So with all the scaremongering and all the opposing that we're about to hear in the third reading we won't hear how their bill saves them money. That is the guts of this and that is why I am proud as Minister to have brought this through the House and that is why this side of the House will be voting for it. I commend the bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the motion be agreed to."