Grigg NicolaNICOLA GRIGG (National—Selwyn): When I had the pleasure of speaking on the Water Services Entities Bill in the first reading I made a prediction that this piece of legislation will be the beginning of the end of the Ardern Government and I stand by that prediction. In fact I'm going to start taking wagers on it because this Government has dug itself so deep and it is too arrogant to start accepting that it has got it so wrong and we are seeing it reflected in the polls every single day. The only number that that side of the House needs to listen to is 88383—88383 New Zealanders. Five days—227 submissions. These numbers are stupefying. They are stupefying in the sense that they illustrate just how determined the Labour Government is to blatantly ignore the will of New Zealanders how determined this Labour Government is to blatantly ignore the democratic decision-making process that every New Zealander has a right to expect: 88383 New Zealanders took the time made the effort sat down thought about and wrote about their views on the impacts that this Water Services Entities Bill will have on them and their communities. And despite the heroic attempts of my colleagues on the Finance and Expenditure Committee they were overridden by the Labour majority as happens time and time and time again. Hence just five days—a pitiful five days was allocated to hear a very very small insignificant portion of those 88383 submissions. And in fact it gets worse; they were so dictatorial about who could be heard what could be read—this Government has anointed itself as the judge jury and executioner of the provision of water services in New Zealand. This Government and the Minister should hang their heads in shame. This is not how we do things in New Zealand. This is arrogance. This is a refusal to engage with communities across the country. It is deliberately ignoring a very wide variety of views—Anna Lorck: Have you read the bill?NICOLA GRIGG: —many many regions have to offer. Anna Lorck I have read the bill. Have you read the submissions—88383 of them? I am certain you have not. This Government has been expressing vociferously that there is no alternate plan. Well I give you exhibit A: there is a mayor sitting in the gallery tonight who has been a part of an amalgamation—Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Yep thank you. I believe I know what the member is going to say. The member will not refer to people in the gallery. The member will stand withdraw and apologise. NICOLA GRIGG: I withdraw and apologise. Three mayors offered an alternate proposal to this Government and it was roundly ignored. An alternate plan when the Government says there isn't one—the audacity of a Minister to say that there is not an alternative is an outrage. And this is the difference between the National Party and the Labour Government: we listen to the grassroots. Everything that is in this reported bill that has come back from select committee has remained unchanged. They have not listened to those 88383 New Zealanders. They have not listened to the fact that New Zealand does not want a co-governance of our public water assets—of our public water services. This is a bottom line for the National Party: we will not support the co-governance of public assets. They have been paid for and they are owned by the communities that built them just like the community of Selwyn that spent $750 million over multiple decades to build up a world-class water services infrastructure. A lot has been talked about the apparent $185 billion deficit in infrastructure. Well to coin a phrase from John Key: show me the money. Where has that number come from because the Government has not substantiated that number? They are throwing around money; $3 billion in so-called no worse off" funding—it is bribe money. Can that Government honestly in a cost of living crisis—can they honestly sit there with a straight face and say that is not going to increase the rates that ratepayers around communities in New Zealand are going to have to contend with? It is patently clear this bill is an abomination. It is ideological it is anti-democratic it is recklessly expensive and New Zealanders do not want it. The National Party will not support it."