Source: New Zealand Parliament – Hansard
TUESDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2022
(continued on Wednesday 23 November 2022)
WATER SERVICES ENTITIES BILL
In Committee
Debate resumed.
Part 1 Preliminary provision (continued)
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, the House is in Committee on the Water Services Entities Bill. When we suspended last night, we were considering Part 1 of the Bill. Once again, the question is that Part 1 stand part.
SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thanks very much, Madam Chair, and good morning, Minister. Thank you very much, Minister—thank you very much for coming back this morning.
My first question relates to a question that I raised last evening, and it’s in regards to the Supplementary Order Paper on the Table under my name, No 283, and it references clause 4, which, of course is part of Part 1. The question in particular that I ask is that the changes that were made late in the select committee process, in regards to the addition of both coastal waters and geothermal waters, were significant changes in regards to the scope of the overall bill. And I think for those that are sitting at home this morning looking forward to another big day on three waters, well, I’m not going to let you down.
The question in regard to the inclusion of, in effect, these other two waters, which makes the bill, in our view, five waters, is why was that addition made late in the process? It did not allow all of the submitters that made submissions in regards to the legislation—it did not allow them to make submissions on that specific aspect. And I think that’s pretty fundamental, because, you know, we received, as we know, 88,000 or so submissions, but the fundamental change that was made in order to add coastal water and also geothermal water was done after the process in which public submissions were being able to be taken. The question quite simply, as I’ve said, is what is the reason or rationale that we didn’t allow our submitters to do that, with quite a significant expansion of the Te Mana o te Wai statement, which has been very much litigated in the public.
I want to move on in terms of, actually, the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper that she tabled last night. I don’t know about you, but I got home and I thought, “You know what? I might spend a little bit more time having a bit more reading.”, and I started reading through this, and it’s interesting. So I refer to Supplementary Order Paper 306, and it is inserting a new section, 5A—so 5A being part of Part 1, Schedule 1. The question, really, here is—and this goes back to a conversation that I’ve been questioning the Minister around in the House a lot, in regards to parks and reserves, and the simple fact that it is our reading of the bill that was on the Table that, actually, local parks and reserves may be transferred from local councils into one of the water services entities. Interestingly, when I questioned the Minister in the House last week in regards to that, the Minister was quite clear. She said only assets which have a primary purpose will not transfer—the primary purpose being a park.
So what I would like the Minister to do is to provide a little bit of clarification around new section 5A, in Schedule 1, in regards to whether this is a clarification of the overall position around what parks and reserves will transfer into these water services entities, or, actually, is it a change? I think that’s a pretty important aspect in regards to clarification.
The other aspect is how are you going to define the difference, because in the clause here under 5A(3), you’ve got some distinctions around what will be in and out. And so 5A(3)(c), whose “primary purpose or predominant use is not the delivery of water services”—so my question for the Minister in regards to this is, quite simply: what is the process going to be in order to define or determine what falls within scope and what falls outside of scope in regards to that. If the Minister could provide some examples to help clarify what we mean by that, because the Minister will recall, in oral questions that I asked last week, I mentioned Waitangi Park here in Wellington. I asked whether that would be in or out of scope, and I’d be interested if the Minister could clarify that specific example of where that sits in the context of the drafting of this clause.
The last aspect that I’m interested for the Minister to go into in regards to this clause—[Time expired]
