Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to be talking on the third reading of the Water Services Entities Amendment Bill. Having been a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee during the long period of hearing submissions on the first two of the four bills that now represent the water services changes and like many in this House having witnessed the cascade of submitters who turned up and were virulently opposed to these changes and came with good sound reasons—they weren't just emotional reasons; they were well validated views on why they opposed the three waters reforms. It was a pretty sobering exercise as we went around the country listening to all those submitters in their genuine attempts to try and get the Labour Government to at least change some elements of these proposed reforms.But unfortunately they all fell on deaf ears and it was a pretty sad indictment of what consultation means given some of these issues that have been pushed through by this Government because many New Zealanders do not agree with these reforms. In fact in many of our electorates we've still got signs going up: Stop Three Waters" which is interesting because people remember this and they will remember this for certain when we're going over the next few months.The big issue I think around this—and I was involved in the British reforms of the water entities—was about going from being council-owned right through ultimately to privatisation which in hindsight I don't think was a good idea. But the reforms around how they restructured the entities and moved into more commercial operations—I think if we'd put up the governance structure that is proposed here in New Zealand it would have been laughed at—it wouldn't have even been considered given the complicated governance arrangements that this bill and these proposals entail. This different layering up of diffused ownership and governance and control—and ultimately no one has ever explained to me who's going to own the shares because my view of ownership of shares is that if you have a share you need to either have directorial right to control it or you must have some form of management influence. Under these arrangements whilst the Government is keen to say that it is controlled and owned by the local authorities that legally in my view is wrong and always has been and no one not even the officials who took us through this weird process were ever able to give a proper view on who will own the shares. I think if these reforms were to be put in place from an accounting perspective no one actually would be able to say who owns the shares.I think that's the first thing around ownership but the diffused governance structures have councils representation boards then we've got regional advisory boards then we've got the boards of the entities themselves and of course we've then got the murky arrangements around co-governance. That is not to say that mana whenua don't have a role to play in water; they do they're very important and we should value their input but the structural arrangements the structural impediments that the arrangements will embed are just something that only a weird academic would ever conjure up in terms of coming up with an optimal solution to restructure the water industry in New Zealand. It is a phenomenally complicated structure with a lack of accountability a lack of control and what we'll end up with inevitably is very powerful CEOs and we've seen them being put in place at vast cost and they will be the ones that will run these entities because there will be little accountability above them. And the worse thing is the lack of accountability back to the original people who currently own those assets namely the councils and ultimately the residents of the areas that they represent.So of course we oppose these reforms because we want to make sure that ownership stays with councils on behalf of the residents of New Zealand. That is the first and primary part of this. But it is very important that we put in place good oversight with these organisations around quality. Of course we supported way back even before these reforms came about the particular arrangements here. But the Taumata Arowai reforms are about making sure that we have good regulatory oversight of councils around water quality. I take Anna Lorck's point earlier in her speech: it was inappropriate. That deals with the issue around having an independent oversight of the councils around water quality; that is important. But these reforms are murky muddy unclear and will ultimately lead to poorer outcomes. Certainly if you're sitting in one of these regions like Gisborne or whatever or some small town and you're trying to ring a head office that might be based in Wellington and talk about a broken pipe there'll be a lack of ability to actually get someone to know where you're talking about a lack of ability to get a local operator involved someone who can turn up quickly and do it. Instead there will be a monolithic organisational structure. It will be wrong it would be poor and we would do a disservice to New Zealanders if we were to allow these reforms to go through in their current form. Therefore on that basis I'm happy that we're opposing these reforms."