Eagle PaulPAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. Oh yes ever observant—the eagle" eye that I have Chief Whip. I haven't used that line before—ha ha ha! Look it is the second reading. We've heard that from every other speaker here this evening. I want to acknowledge the Governance and Administration Committee—a hard-working committee if not probably the best select committee. No one's listening—that was a test of who's listening.Marama Davidson: Come on Mr Eagle!PAUL EAGLE: Oh there we are—there we are.We've got the deputy chair in front of me and she's fairly feisty and she keeps all the members including those from the Government benches honest and hard-working. That's Ginny Andersen the list MP based in Hutt South.Can I thank the local member the Hon Dr Nick Smith. A local bill is important. These are things that are generally not put forward lightly. With my council background I certainly remember local bills going through. In fact I can only remember one and that was for the Wellington town belt. So these are important.I want to just acknowledge the members of the committee who went down to Nelson and listened to the locals really. This is the big dynamic when it comes to building big infrastructure at a local level: that often locals get nervous. The deputy chair of the committee said that there were some hungry hippies who certainly weren't too happy with what was going on but that is expected. I think one of the things you learn in local government—and I can see three colleagues across the House there who have been leaders in local government—is that you do have to make the calls around the big infrastructure. This is core infrastructure too: water. I'm not going to divert into water and the issues with that.I can well imagine—there was so much competition to travel to Nelson to listen to these submissions that I missed out but never mind. I do want to say that I can just imagine what some of the conflicts would be from the locals. Those are valid concerns. I think too often we try and play a wee game where we pit the corporates or business versus locals and I think one of the keys to a good local authority is the ability to strike a compromise.I note that in some of the progress around Tasman District Council making a decision the margins of voting have been narrow—they've been tight—but certainly in early September they were able to vote 9-5. Look you never get a full vote on these projects. You can imagine that those councillors who are more intimate with their communities or who live in the communities where people have expressed concern about this won't vote for it. But 9-5 is a good decent vote that gives the level of reassurance I think that yes there's been some conflict around what people want but overall that new funding model that was presented and was reached with investors showed confidence. That's different to the 8-6. Another local councillor obviously looked at the detail and that's good and got the project—positively voted for it.I just want to note the economic and environmental benefits for the community. Previous speakers have certainly spoken about it but water supply—I heard the member for Nelson talking about the need for big business. Certainly I think it was called Nelson—the people make medium-density fibreboard (MDF)—Hon Dr Nick Smith: Nelson Pine.PAUL EAGLE: Nelson Pine—there we are. Thank you. The member spoke about their need to ensure that there's a constant water supply. Look when you break that down into simple economics that's jobs. That's ensuring that they've got the water supply to make the MDF to make sure that the people who work for Nelson Pine have a job—that they are not laid off or not put into a holding pattern while they sort out core infrastructure.I can imagine too—look Nelson is the playground of the Wellingtonian like Coromandel is or once used to be for Aucklanders and from the Waikato it still is. So I know that that council Thames-Coromandel District Council had the same issue with their water infrastructure: just really an increasing demand on that core infrastructure supply.They've listed some growing urban communities here: Richmond Nelson Brightwater and Māpua. The comment there is they want to avoid water shortage. You don't need to remember back far to 2001 when they had the "Big Dry". Certainly this will stop that. This will ensure that the water supply will be consistent. And look sometimes we forget that it is Tasman but there's also Nelson and one of the things I notice on visits down there is that there's more collaboration between Nelson City and Tasman District and I think that's good.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come for me to leave the Chair.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.PAUL EAGLE: Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. Look it's always a privilege to—Hon Meka Whaitiri: Make it a brilliant three minutes.PAUL EAGLE: Absolutely. Look there's just still so much to talk about. I don't want to recap but what I do want to say is that the one thing I will recap on is that this is a major decision for a local authority. I said it was about being bold and therefore it would offend and you will get that. We saw what the voting record was like: 9-6. Later in the year after getting a better deal or a new funding model that was 9-5. I think that's important. They are the elected members of the district. They are taking a risk but it is core infrastructure and it's certainly a risk worth taking. I didn't want to divert into water and I won't but I will come back to that at a later speech and talk about the importance of getting core infrastructure like water in place.Often it is the smaller district councils—I said that they had a great relationship with Nelson City. I'd hate to think that I was going to suggest they should amalgamate but I won't. But there's no—Hon Dr Nick Smith: I will.PAUL EAGLE: The local member for Nelson maybe—that's for another day too. We had a former chair of the Greater Wellington Regional Council Fran Wilde—she was an expert at amalgamation; you might want to talk to her. But I digress.Hon Dr Nick Smith: She's a goody.PAUL EAGLE: Absolutely. I do just want to acknowledge or echo the words of my colleagues and others who have said "Look we do need to keep with the concerns of iwi."—keep in mind sorry. All keen all for it. As the select committee has gone through and made the changes I think the real issue here is just making sure that the iwi groups and Te Tau Ihu are aware of what those changes are what they mean and they can come back to the table confident. At the end of the day this is a confidence arrangement where people are saying "Look we are partnering. We've got a council-controlled organisation in there." It's a big deal for the people of the Tasman district.The member for Napier talked about having documentary evidence—something in writing really—that and doing the old-fashioned face-to-face and making sure this deal gets across the line. It has been many years. I'm sure someone will remind me how long it's been to get from someone first saying "We have a problem here Houston." to now where the deal is on the cusp of going ahead.I'm proud that the Labour Party is supportive. We are a party that is keen on infrastructure. We could talk about housing and a whole lot of other key infrastructure too—transport for example. It's my pleasure to commend this bill the Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme)—what a mouthful—Bill to the House. Kia ora."