Mark RonHon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. It's an interesting time actually to be speaking to this piece of legislation because I guess down the track the Government's already signalled that we'll be looking at legislation around three waters and considering both issues. It does take me back to my time when I was Mayor of Carterton and drinking-water standards was always one of those discussions that we had very often with an eye to cost and what it was going to cost the ratepayers and the appetite of ratepayers for large increases in their rates to meet modifications upgrading of plants and services.Of course drinking-water standards is always a debatable issue and I know for many of our people in rural provincial New Zealand who obtain their drinking water from the rooftops who run their own filtration systems who have their own bores who may actually be drawing down directly from open springs—some of us wonder what all the fuss and bother is about. Very often I've heard debates and discussions between metropolitan citizens of New Zealand and rural citizens of New Zealand where one is demanding ultra-high standards but not wanting to pay the cost of that and others are scratching their heads saying Well you know actually sometimes a little bit of contamination might actually be good for your stomach and good for your gut and good for developing immunities and maybe that explains why some of you folk are always sick because you actually don't have the level of immunity that you should have." I've heard those discussions time and time again.Alastair Scott: Nothing like a bit of E. coli.Hon RON MARK: I think that one of the things that stands out—well actually you know we did have a problem at our home when Chris and I bought our home in Carterton. Within months of being there Chris went down crook and we had to get people in to have a look. It turned out that the filtration system for our water supply which was going from the rooftop was not sufficient. We installed a $2500 filtration system complete with UV. But of course we didn't have the benefit of town supply where we are. We just crack on and provide for ourselves and I guess we learn lessons along the way as to what we need to do to ensure that our health—the health of ourselves and any guests and family that we have staying at our place—is taken care of. We're very mindful of that. I've got to say generally speaking as the Mayor of Carterton we had very very few if any reports of serious illness out in the rural community. The area that was always a challenge was in urban centres. One of the challenges was that when you forecast that you were going to install UV and upgraded membranes people always looked at the bottom line and what it was going to mean to their rates and most times people would object—object to excessive expenditure by the council—and question the need for such measures. I'd have to say that there were times when councils probably made decisions that reflected more the resistance in the community to expenditure than they reflected a desire to get the water quality to a standard that they felt it needed to be at. I guess what's been tragically useful from the Havelock North situation—and I really felt for Lawrence Yule when he went through that as a mayoral colleague because that was a very very difficult time and of course people died. So that has been a timely jogger for everybody—an appropriate jogger for everybody—to look at water standards and water quality. This bill isn't the end of the matter. It takes care of those urgent amendments that the inquiry identified as being necessary. I have to say that the requirement to consult for three years and then publish and notify in the Gazette for another two years always appeared to me to be overly heavy in terms of the time and the consultation process. People sometimes don't realise the costs of those public consultations and what that impacts on. It's a bit ironic actually because sometimes the consultative processes that local government has to go through are very very costly and they cost the ratepayers directly. There may well be people and stakeholders out there who might have reservations about the removal of these consultation periods the specifying of a specific period of consultation being three years. But I think we're sitting here as the Government saying that we have catered for that. Consultation will still occur and where major or substantive changes are being proposed that will be consulted on but it's just removing that time line and enabling things to move a little more quickly than has previously been the case. I know from being in local government that there are people who watch local government like hawks and they seek to make representations on each and every little thing that the council wants to do. There are others who pick the issues that they might be concerned about. I think it would be fair to say that within the Carterton District we had those who watched our expenditure across the board and they didn't normally make serious objections to waste-water treatment plants being upgraded or water reticulation systems or town supply systems being upgraded. What they tended to be more antsy about was what they considered to be the frittering away of their rates on projects that they didn't think were deserving of attention. Sometimes that might have been a park and sometimes it might have been grants of money to social organisations and social service providers—generally those were the complaints made by businesses. Then there were the others who complained about grants being made to businesses in terms of economic development. It was always a balanced argument I felt looking at that line. But in this space in general people do when they are informed about the problems that the council faces tend to listen. They do tend to rationalise well. Their concerns are always first and foremost around—in this case—the water that their children are cleaning their teeth with first thing in the morning and that it is safe. There will always be that contest about the level—how high up we're going to push the quality of water on the scale of things because I know it's one of those exponential curves. You can push for water quality to a point and the costs will be marginal minimal acceptable bearable. But the more one pushes that water quality right up to the pinnacle of absolute purity—the costs skyrocket. We saw that when we were upgrading our facilities in Carterton and I know it's occurred in other places.Mark Patterson: Prudent mayor.Hon RON MARK: A prudent mayor—very prudent. But I just think Madam Deputy Speaker that those conversations about how pure should pure water be will continue. The people like those of us in rural communities who provide our own water probably—as this legislation goes through it may give cause to reflect on our own bores our own water tanks and run the ruler across just to be sure that things are OK and I know that councils themselves will be paying attention to those outlying areas as well. You've got to remember that 45 percent of the houses in Carterton district actually provide their own water—45 percent. The rest is provided by the town supply.But it's a good piece of legislation—timely brought into the House for the right purposes—and so New Zealand First will be supporting it through and looking forward to the report back from the select committee as to what adjustments may or may not be needed. Thank you."