Court Simon; McAnulty KieranSIMON COURT (ACT): Minister you made the statement in response to my question that the $1 billion in additional costs for the three waters transition won't be borne by taxpayers or ratepayers or the entities because it's been offset by the Government cancelling the billion or more in Better Off funding that it offered to councils in recognition of all the additional costs they're going to face as a result of this transition; in particular the costs in back office retaining staff overheads Minister—not to mention the fact that many councils like Whangārei District Council for example their water assets and revenues are cash-flow positive Minister which means that by taking their assets off them and the revenues they're going to be worse off. So Minister the Better Off funding is still needed by councils even though this Government has withdrawn it. So Minister is there any opportunity in the provisions made in this year's Estimates to recompense those councils who are having their assets taken off them without compensation—expropriated—who will suffer these additional costs that the Better Off funding was supposed to compensate them for? Minister is there anything in these Estimates in this provision which will compensate them?Second question Minister in your role being responsible for local government for councils such as Wellington City Council—Wellington City Council is going ahead with the Golden Mile improvements project which is nothing more than a mass demolition of Lambton Quay that's going to last for two or three years in terms of construction and all of the other impacts that will have on businesses. Now the project aims to remove Ubers private cars taxis from Lambton Quay spend $140 million of ratepayer and taxpayer money—probably more because you can't trust a cost estimate delivered by this Government—and the overwhelming majority of Wellington businesses retailers property owners delivery drivers taxi drivers Uber drivers anyone who has to access the Golden Mile is opposed to this project Minister. So does the Minister have confidence in Wellington City Council delivering and proceeding with this project with no backing from those affected and if so why? Thank you.Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Minister of Local Government): Point of order. Thank you Mr Chair. It might be useful to the previous two members to point out that this is an Estimates debate. And so when I respond and say that questions were out of scope and not relevant to the Estimates—CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): That's not a point of order. The Minister can answer the question and point that out in his answer. Other than that it will be for the Chair to decide what is relevant.Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Fair enough Mr Chair. However I do have one point I wish—CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The Minister's not answering the Chair. The point of order is over. The Minister can now answer the question or sit down.Hon KIERAN McANULTY: OK sure enough. So in the limited time that I have any question that is asked that refers to costs that have gone previously or matters that are outside of the Estimates document are out of scope; similarly this is not a committee of the whole House stage—so any question around Te Mana o te Wai statements etc.The other point that I wish to make is like the comment I said to Mr Penk: I would dearly like to have a discussion around the cyclone recovery. This is a matter that is very important to me. However whilst the matter might be relevant to the local government sector it is not relevant to this portfolio nor the Estimates debate.