Jones ShaneHon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I'd like to take a point of order first before I offer my thoughts about section 69H.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): So you're calling for a point of order? Hon SHANE JONES: Yes. I just want to seek some guidance from you. When I speak on 69H I'm going to talk about the person being someone associated—enjoying authority in a council and I realise that the council that caused many of these problems was led by an Opposition member of Parliament. Can you give me some direction as to when I might end up offending Standing Order 120 by calling into question the failure of the people who landed us in this similar situation—why we're having to tidy this up—without the person on the other side of the Chamber feeling that I'm violating Standing Order 120.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Well I think the Standing Orders are clear that all members are honourable so therefore anything that addresses another member should be respectful and the Standing Orders are very clear that we're debating a piece of legislation in front of us. The committee of the whole House is the opportunity to debate the detail of the legislation. There have been a number of speeches made that traverse the context of the legislation and I have allowed those to go. But there comes a time when we stop talking context and we start talking details. So my suggestion to the member is that if he wants to address section 69H—we've had a number of speeches addressing that—and he has some new information that he wishes to traverse that is of a personal nature he is respectful in that and sticks to the point.Hon SHANE JONES: Thank you Madam Chair.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I call the Hon Shane Jones.Hon SHANE JONES: I want to assure the committee that I am not standing to impute anything improper or add to any sense of angst about the people who were associated with enabling or acquiescing with poor decision-making over a long period of time. Section 69H is a test about practical ability. I want to direct the attention to section 69H(1)(c) (d) and (e) in clause 4A. I don't want to run the risk of protracting this discussion but I am very allergic to law being used to enable people to avoid making timely decisions number one; number two and to that law being used to expand either the body of information a decision maker feels he or she needs or the relevance of that situation. So I go to the current state of knowledge about harm of that nature. I thoroughly support—and the party I'm a member of thoroughly supports—the efforts of our Minister of Health in relation to drinking-water improvements. I don't rely on drinking water supplied by a local government entity where I live. I know however many people do—for example in Kaitāia and we've got some significant challenges there. I just want some reassurance that when we use the term state of knowledge" in terms of the likelihood of the harm how exhaustive is that test likely to be? Because other than a filter I think sitting somewhere in the spouting of my house to date none of my guests or my mokopunas have suffered any inordinate illness by drinking the water off the roof of my house. What scope will there be for that classic common-sense approach which I think is a credible part of engineering that has helped us achieve the infrastructure to date? That's the first thing. The second thing is when we use the words the "likely efficacy of each"—I make the point to the Minister that whilst supporting him one day councils—well there may actually not be as many water authorities in the future. Who knows after the next election perhaps a more enlightened group of people will come to lead local government in some parts of New Zealand but that's another matter. I think that the notion that we're going to test the efficacy—we need some reassurance from the Minister that yes health trumps all. But a number of our councils are working within an envelope where they don't have endless amounts of pūtea. They don't have endless reservoirs of either private capital—because this is provided as a public service. And I want to be assured that the officials advising the Government have taken a very—not a pragmatic—practical approach to how they're defining "efficacy". Then when we talk about availability it would be useful to know whether the Minister conceives of "availability" being availability to a given water provider. In my case I'm from the Tai Tokerau. We have a council called the Far North District Council and the Far North District Council was previously led by Wayne Brown. He suffered the depredations of the audit department after the new incoming council mayor Mr Carter—another friend of mine facing tremendous competition in the upcoming election. But I would point out that for people like ourselves availability means: what is available what will pass the test of efficacy in terms of those isolated areas in New Zealand and what knowledge do the long-term health officials genuinely believe is applicable for a number of these isolated rural councils? Or does the notion of availability and efficacy contemplate in actual fact in the future the current providers of this essential service i.e. water that won't make our elderly and our young people ill can be made available and that there's a suitable range of ways to deliver that service?"