Source: New Zealand Parliament – Hansard
PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Mr Chair. Mr Chair, I want to canvass clause 16, the allocation of shares in water services entities, and also clause 32 and 33. We have talked about the allocation if the population is not more than 50,000, and my concern is that we are going to see small local authorities such as, for example, the Gore District Council who are going to feel completely disenfranchised from this process in that there will be ratepayers in those small councils who are paying not insignificant amounts. Farmers there are likely to be paying rates of $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 per annum, and will feel that they will not have a voice at this table. It’s a very unusual situation to be in, to be the owner of assets where the value will be in the millions of dollars—to be the owner of those assets but to literally have no voice, or such a small voice, at the table that they will be disenfranchised from the decision making.
It’s also a very unusual thing—and I know that the Minister has spoken about the partnership model, but it is a very unusual situation for owners of an asset to not have a majority say in the strategic use of those assets, which clauses 32 and 33 bring about. It is, I guess part of the move from this being a voluntary opt-in to being a compulsory requirement to be in that it makes the shareholding proportion all the more important, and I think it is probably at the root cause of why so many local authorities have become so staunch on opposing this as they feel their voice is going to be so diluted.
And looking at the partnership—and, again, I refer to the comments my colleague Nicola Grigg made about Ngāi Tahu covering such a broad geographic region—there doesn’t seem to be anything in the method of appointing mana whenua representatives that might require that the mana whenua representatives actually have any knowledge of, or affinity to, or affiliation with, that geographic spread. So, for example, for the North Island entity, the mana whenua representatives could arguably all come from the Canterbury region and have very little, or no, knowledge of the assets and the issues that might be occurring around the Gore region or the western Southland region or the Queenstown region. So I’m really struggling to see how (1) that voice of the local people is going to be given effect to, and (2) that seems to be actually exacerbated by the appointment process of the mana whenua representatives not actually having any requirement to have that geographic spread either.
So I’m interested to hear from the Minister how she believes the shareholding model, based on population, is actually going to give voice to those very small local authorities such as the Gore District Council, with a population of around 8,000, but with people in that that are making quite significant rates payment that are going to, obviously, impact on the assets that that authority holds. Thank you.
