Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment)Amendment Bill

We start the Committee stage of a bill that has been a botch from day one. There is now a Supplementary Order Paper before the House that further guts a bill that has already been substantially gutted by the Local Government and Environment Committee. This bill pales into insignificance when compared with the bill that Marian Hobbs brought in, in a great rush, in November last year.

In Part 1, the bill effectively reverts to taking a “do-nothing” position—with one exception, which I want to cover in detail. Gone are the provisions for setting up a special panel. Now, all Part 1 effectively does is require the Canterbury Regional Council, through the allocation board, to set up a process that is perfectly contained within the Resource Management Act.

I challenge the Minister in the chair, David Benson-Pope, on this Government’s woeful record in respect of the Resource Management Act. Five years ago a National bill was before the House, and the way that bill was managed was an absolute sham. The select committee did its job diligently, but the bill sat on the Order Paper for over 2 years and then, suddenly, the Government tried to rush it through.

It is exactly the same situation with this Supplementary Order Paper. Members of the select committee would have welcomed the referral of the Supplementary Order Paper to select committee. But no, Minister Marian Hobbs said that it had to be developed and advanced in a great rush. That was in March. This bill was introduced in November last year in a great rush, in a truncated process, and now—10 months later—we are still debating it and trying to fix the botch-ups that Marian Hobbs proposed.

We on the Opposition side of the Chamber have consistently argued that special legislation is not required in respect of the Resource Management Act. What is required is comprehensive reform, and this Government has consistently failed at that hurdle for 5 years.

I want to draw particular attention to the amendments in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper. The great purpose of this bill was to have a specific allocation plan, but now the Minister has decided that there will be a regional plan. Well, there are regional plans in the Resource Management Act right now, so why has the Government done a complete U-turn over the course of the last 10 months?

I make the further point that the botch-up in this bill has cost the taxpayers of New Zealand $100 million.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: How much?

That is how much Meridian Energy spent in developing Project Aqua. When Meridian Energy pulled the plug on Project Aqua, it cited the botch-up over the law and the changed rules all along the way as reasons for doing it. I say to members opposite that they are responsible for $100 million of wasted public money, because of their poor policy, poor lawmaking, and the continuous hashes that we have seen in this very important area of law.

Looking at what is left of Part 1, I challenge Government members to put to the Committee why this bill is needed at all. The Canterbury Regional Council is to have elections in only a month’s time, so why does the Minister for the Environment have to override the process under the existing Resource Management Act, to appoint a board only to write a regional plan? What does the Government have against the people of Canterbury? Why will it not trust the elected people who, on 9 October, will take up their role as regional councillors? Why can those people not write the plan for the Waitaki River? Why do we need this special bill at all, now that it has been gutted to this extent?

There is no case for this bill, except one—which is perhaps why the Government is advancing with it—the bill is a botch-up.

I would like to take a call early to correct some of the nonsense we have just heard from the previous speaker. First of all, I say to Dr Smith that it is in sorrow rather than in anger that I respond to those ridiculous comments he made.

One of the most characteristic things about this discussion has been, once again, the confusion we have seen from the National Party. Indeed, there has been direct contradiction between the absent Dr Brash and Dr Smith in their undeliverable promises to their constituency, which they used to think was in the Mackenzie Basin. That is clearly not the case. This bill and the difficulties that led to it are the result of a statute introduced by the National Party that was flawed in this regard from the beginning. That led this Government to act as it has in terms of the Project Aqua consents and, subsequently, in terms of the water consents that need to be made. It is unfortunate that Environment Canterbury has not proceeded with what one would hope was its statutory responsibility, but I guess one can lay that directly at the door of Dr Smith, his flawed party, and its flawed legislation. Clearly the National Party—

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. The Minister has the right to take a call in a debate, as we know. Opposition members like a Minister to rise to his feet to take a call, but generally it is to answer questions and to make points.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): No—

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: No, you have not heard me out.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member will be seated. That is not a point of order and the member knows it.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: The point of order is this—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Please be seated.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: Will you take my point of order or not?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I have not heard a point of order.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: Point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Please be seated. I am ruling on the point of order. The Minister was quite within the bill he was speaking to. That was not a point of order.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): A new point of order?

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: It is a new point of order—it is the one I was not able to put just before. The Minister is required to get up and address the bill. He did not address the bill. All he did was to start going on about National Party policy and about what happened over 5 years ago.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member will be seated. That was not a point of order. The member knows it was not a point of order.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: No, I don’t.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): If the member contests my ruling, he will not be here much longer. The point is that the Minister was quite within his rights. He was speaking to the purpose of this bill.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: I certainly was not contesting your ruling. I took exception to the fact that you told me, as a member, what I was thinking. When I called out “No, I don’t”, I was actually objecting to the chair telling me what I was thinking.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member will be seated. Nothing the member raised was a point of order.

I am not surprised that the National Party is embarrassed at the failure of its legislation to deliver what Environment Canterbury should have done. The Government is entirely supportive of this bill. The expectation is that regional councils will fulfil their statutory commitments. Nor am I embarrassed, as the National Party should be, and as the most medicated member of the National Party should be—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The Minister will stand, withdraw, and apologise for that remark.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Madam Chairperson—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I am dealing with the matter, Dr Smith. The Minister will stand, withdraw, and apologise for that remark.

I withdraw and apologise.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. A colleague of mine made a similar comment and was instantly removed from the House. The Minister has made a highly offensive remark. I expect you to show the Minister in the chair some firmness and to take exactly the same approach that was taken by Speaker Hunt when another member of the House did that—the member was told instantly to leave the House.

💬 Hon Murray McCully: Madam Chairperson—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I have dealt with the point of order, Mr McCully.

💬 Hon Murray McCully: No you have not, Madam Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I have made my ruling on it. The Hon Dr Nick Smith has made his point. I have made my ruling.

💬 Hon Murray McCully: What is it?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I asked the Minister to withdraw and apologise, and he has done that. I have dealt with it.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: It shows how much trouble he’s in today. He gets all personal because he can’t defend his bill.

I do not need to dwell on the unnecessary personal comments made by Dr Smith, but I repeat that it does not surprise me that he is embarrassed by the failure of his legislation in 1991. What this Government is repeatedly having to do—

💬 Brian Connell: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I look for your guidance on this now. In the 2 years I have been in this House, there has been a clear direction from the Chairperson or the Speaker that any member on his or her feet must speak to the bill. This Minister has made no attempt to do that other than some vague references. We are debating Part 1 of the bill, and the Minister has not mentioned that once.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The Minister has mentioned that. If the member goes back and reads the Minister’s Hansard he will see that he has referred to the bill.

💬 Hon Murray McCully: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I have ruled on that point of order.

💬 Hon Murray McCully: I am well aware of that, Madam Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Do you have a new point of order?

💬 Hon Murray McCully: I have a new point of order. Am I going to be permitted to put it?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Point of order, the Hon Murray McCully.

💬 Hon Murray McCully: The Minister who is on his feet has just been asked by you to withdraw and apologise, having made an offensive remark in relation to one of my colleagues. I would have thought you would require that Minister to show some contrition and remorse in this matter, rather than allow him to continue to compound his offence by attacking the very same member in respect of whom the apology has just been due. If it is your intention to preserve order and to preserve the confidence of the minority parties in this Chamber, may I suggest that you need to inform the Minister to show some contrition and to stay away from that area in future.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member does make a fair point, but I also make the point that there were interjections on both sides. I now ask the Minister to continue to speak to the bill.

I am pleased to do so. The legislation tonight, in my view, continues the pathway that we, as a Government, have had to spend a great deal of time on in this Chamber as we correct failed legislation that has come from our predecessors. We are pleased to do that. We are pleased to face up to the issues. In respect of the issues Dr Smith raised concerning the wider issues about the Resource Management Act, I say that he will be grossly disappointed in the next week or two when Cabinet makes decisions about wider changes to the Resource Management Act, because he will find that they make major inroads into correcting the failings that he and his failed Government left in the Act.

When I first came to the House on behalf of New Zealand First, I called for a reform of the Resource Management Act—not in the real sense of the word, but in the sense that after a decade, there was an obvious need before the next decade to see whether the Act had got it right. That call was rejected and we have gone through several piecemeal changes, of which this bill is but one.

The background to this bill is quite unique. As members will recall, it came to the House in a very unusual form. It was poorly written, and in a very short space of time it caused more anger and concern in Canterbury and, particularly, in the Waitaki catchment basin than any other single piece of would-be legislation. That was one opinion. The other opinion was outlined in a preliminary paper submitted by Meridian Energy, which dealt with matters of water allocation as it saw them. It was the other major player and remained so until the bill collapsed in the House, although it is not quite correct to say that the reformed bill that came from the Local Government and Environment Committee was necessarily the reason for the withdrawal of Meridian Energy from that very ambitious and very costly project. Some would have said that the project was flawed in the beginning in seeking so much land. A very high cost was put to it before the geotechnical work was done. I have no doubt that there are two issues. One of them is, and ought to be, part of this bill—namely, the Order in Council of 1969. In addition, there are the geotechnical issues, plus there was the uncertainty that the bill, once it was enacted, would have brought delays to Meridian Energy, which caused it to withdraw.

I take up the point that I believe there were a variety of issues that could cause any prudent company, especially a company acting on behalf of the New Zealand taxpayer, to rethink its position, and I have no doubt that in time to come Meridian may come back to the area again—much to the horror of some people living in Kurow and other places. But the issues have changed since then. Since the bill came to the House in its first form the Otago Regional Council, which impacts in a small way on this district, has prepared a water plan, and, right now, the Canterbury Regional Council has a proposed Natural Resources Regional Plan, which is a very extensive document that looks to give some immediacy to the total region in regard to water. Two chapters within that plan cover both water quality and water quantity.

The third factor is that water is an issue. Water should be an issue in New Zealand, just as it is in Australia. When the bill collapsed New Zealand First gave firm support to bringing a renewed bill back to the House. The simple reason for that was that when we saw the whole application by Meridian Energy, and the wealth of material in that application, it seemed very obvious that if some use was not made of the extensive work done by Meridian Energy and, to a secondary degree, by Environment Canterbury and the Ministry for the Environment, then that value would be lost. But in the normal flow of things, although a regional water plan or, in this case, a catchment plan for the Waitaki catchment area could be developed, under the Resource Management Act that plan would not meet the real issue—the Waitaki River allocation in the bill.

The real issue is “first come, first served”. Although we have heard some people talk about that issue in the past, it is still the current understanding. If we look at the history of the plans over the last decade, and the jurisprudence that has resulted from those plans step by step and Environment Court by Environment Court case, nothing overcomes the fact that “first come, first served” was in. In this case, “first come, first served” for the Waitaki River was Meridian Energy. Meridian Energy was “first come, first served”. It would have had absolute prior rights, and that is the fact of the matter, whether or not members think so. In practice, that is how it works.

Alongside that are a whole number of other issues. We know that in the last 15 years the Canterbury region has more than doubled the area under irrigation. In the strategic plan for the Canterbury region there is a discussion document that states that the region has a capacity to irrigate 1 million hectares. There is huge economic wealth out there that is dependent upon water. If that is to be realised, that plan would do it.

This bill is now totally unnecessary and the Green Party will not be voting for it. There was a case for it when it was first introduced—when a single application wanted to take 73 percent of the total flow of the Waitaki River and there was no plan against which that application could be tested. However, Meridian Energy says that Project Aqua is off and it is no longer seeking to take that water. So I have to ask why Parliament would legislate for a special arrangement to make a plan for the Waitaki River, which is less allocated than many South Island rivers that also do not have plans, and which has far more surplus water, if Project Aqua is not in the offing, than many South Island rivers.

What we need is integrated catchment planning that deals with the management of the whole river, its associated aquifers and wetlands, and the land that drains into it. There are very good techniques and tools available for that now that have been developed by Landcare, but that is not what this bill relates to. This is a plan simply for the allocation of the water. It is a very, very narrow proposal. We need regional planning for river catchments to be mandatory under the Resource Management Act, rather than optional, so that we do not have any more rivers like the Waitaki River completely without a plan and suddenly facing massive applications to take water.

But that is not the issue here. Project Aqua has supposedly fallen over—or has it? I note that Meridian Energy has never withdrawn its applications. I do not place much importance on the fact that it has not sold its land; the land is making it a good return. It does not want to dump all its land on the market at the same time and depress prices. Meridian Energy is doing very well out of its land at the moment. But it has not withdrawn its applications. My guess is that when the board allocates a certain amount of water for the category “hydro”, then Meridian Energy will again apply for the whole of that category “hydro” for a modified Project Aqua.

The Minister Marian Hobbs answered a question in the House a while ago. She said that Meridian Energy had left its applications in so that it would be able to bring a submission to the board. That was nonsense. Anyone can bring a submission to the board.

We were told this bill was extremely urgent. We were told that the Local Government and Environment Committee had to sit at all hours in order to report it back fast. We did that. Since Project Aqua fell over, months and months have gone by. What has the Minister done in that time? She has changed the word “framework” to the words “regional plan”. That is not a huge job, but it has taken months.

The select committee unanimously agreed on a large number of amendments to the bill. We worked very hard, we listened to a great many submissions, and we took them seriously. We reported back—though I say it myself—a very much improved bill. There was unanimous agreement across all the parties at the select committee. But what has the Minister done? The Minister has issued us with a very large Supplementary Order Paper that undoes a large amount of the select committee’s work, even though she agreed to that work at the time the select committee was doing it.

This is the second time the Minister has done that to my committee. When the first Resource Management Act amendment bill was being considered in 2000, the committee heard 400 submissions. We considered it for a year and discussed amendments. All the Labour members of the committee agreed, and we reported the bill back with substantial amendment. After leaving the bill in the House for 2 years, the Minister then made substantial amendments to it, again without any reference back to the select committee. In my view, it is an abuse of parliamentary process for a Minister simply to wipe what a select committee has done in its consideration and substitute something else instead.

The Green Party will not support this bill. There is no need for it. It may be a back-door method to get Project Aqua away, after all, in some reduced form. There is absolutely no reason why the Waitaki River should be singled out in this way. The other applications for water—60 or so of them have been called in—are on hold. They have been on hold for a long time. They should simply be heard and dealt with.

I concur with the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, who has just resumed her seat. This is totally unnecessary legislation. I take offence—and I am sure other Opposition members and possibly some of the Minister’s own colleagues take offence—at the attitude of the Minister in the chair, the Hon David Benson-Pope, in the way he has come to the chair and had the temerity to be so arrogant, when the truth is clear for everyone to see.

This Government lead the pretence a while back—possibly a year back now—when this bill was at the top of list and had to be rushed through Parliament. At that time, Government members said: “It’s got nothing to do with the Project Aqua proposal. That is totally ancillary. It is just a mere coincidence that Project Aqua happens to be out there. This is for the whole catchment, and it is absolutely urgent. This is the No. 1 priority.” At the Business Committee we were told that this bill was a No. 1 priority and that this special legislation had to go through.

That was a year ago. Is it not a coincidence that on the day that Meridian Energy announced its discontinuation of Project Aqua, all of a sudden this neutral bill that had nothing to do with Project Aqua was put on the back-burner? Is that not extraordinary? Who actually believes that? Perhaps Mr Benson-Pope is the only member in this Parliament who believes that. It is possible that he is the only member who actually believes the absolute nonsense that this Government has perpetuated in respect of this bill.

I concur with the chair of the select committee and with others who have expressed the view that there is no need for special legislation. There never was. This is nonsense legislation, and the ACT party has said that from the outset. Part 1 is all about the purposes of the Act. It relates to the allocation of the waters in the Waitaki catchment. Again, that point highlights the failure of Environment Canterbury. The Otago Regional Council was quite capable of fulfilling its statutory obligations in bringing down a very satisfactory water management plan, principally for the lands south of the Waitaki River—for a long part of its course the Waitaki River is the boundary between Environment Canterbury and the Otago Regional Council. However, for political reasons Environment Canterbury could not bring down a water management plan. It was for political reasons that it failed to do so. Mr Benson-Pope tried to blame that on the National Party. He has been in Government for 5 long, weary years and has done absolutely nothing other than to bring this nonsense to the House—a bill that does not address the problem that it purports to address.

The basic problem with this water allocation model is that it is an administrative model, and, by definition, that becomes politicised. That is the inherent problem. That was one of the problems of the Water and Soil Conservation Act. I spent 10 years prior to first entering Parliament administering the Water and Soil Conservation Act. It was all based on those principles of “first in time, first in right”, and “first come, first served”. I am afraid that that concept does not work any more. Water is a very precious commodity and product, and to get the best allocation and use of what is increasingly an intermittent and scarce resource, and also to get the best environmental outcomes, we need pricing mechanisms. Just like every other scarce commodity, we need to put a value on water so that the best use is made of it and we do not waste it. If we want to get the best irrigation techniques and not waste the water, then we need to have a value on the commodity. If it was just an administrative allocation—“first in time, first in right”—then it is a matter of “use it or lose it”, and it would not matter how we used it, even if we wasted it, because we happened to be further up the queue in the politicised allocation model. That has failed all around the world. That is why water jurisdictions have moved away from it.

I move, That the question be now put.

I took part in the first reading debate on this bill, and I was as concerned then as I am now about the Government’s intentions as they pertained to Meridian Energy and, in particular, to Project Aqua. No amount of talk from the most despised and despicable member of the Labour Party will convince me otherwise.

This bill’s purpose is all about trying to promote Project Aqua. I see the Minister in the chair, the Hon David Benson-Pope, shaking his head. If he believes that that is not the case, then he believes in garden fairies. When I look at this guy, I see that he probably does believe in them. I thought this guy was out of his depth in the fisheries portfolio, but in this one he is absolutely hopeless. When Project Aqua fell over, the Minister for the Environment must have found herself between a rock and a hard place. I do not think it is too big a bow to pull to say that she probably has acted illegally, because one has to have the national interest at heart to call in consents. If there is not a national issue, then what reason did she have for calling in those consents? The only reason she did what she did was so that she could fast track Project Aqua.

I am prepared to say that members of the Local Government and Environment Committee did do some good work, namely the limitations placed on the intent of ministerial discretion around the allocation of water in the Waitaki. But this bill is still ad hoc, and it is a retrograde step. The National Party is strongly opposed to it. We were opposed to it at the first and second reading stages, and nothing I have heard so far in this debate will change my position. Rather than fix the issues around the Resource Management Act, this Government continues to play around the edges. I am not holding my breath for what Mr Benson-Pope is going to announce in a couple of weeks’ time. I can tell members right now, without fear of contradiction, that it will be a bit of rubbing around the edges, because he does not have the conviction, the intellect, or the drive to fundamentally change the Resource Management Act, although it is recognised as the biggest handbrake on growth. Rather than fix that issue, Labour members would rather pervert the provisions of the Resource Management Act for their own narrow purposes.

The greatest concern to me is the amount of administrative intervention and the fact that it takes New Zealand further away, not closer to, some leading world practice around how we should be allocating water. The best and closest example to hand is what is happening in Australia at the moment. Australia has not gone down the track of tradable water rights, but it is looking and, in fact, it has engaged in transferable rights, and I expect it will go to tradable water rights.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: They have on the Murray.

Oh, I stand corrected, they have already gone that far. Here was an opportunity for this Government to think strategically, to think laterally, and to bring to this Parliament some world-class, best practice around how we would deal with this issue of water usage and allocation.

💬 Richard Worth: And did they?

They have not done that. What we have is a Supplementary Order Paper that actually guts further the ad hoc nature of this bill as it has come back to the House. It is an appalling mess, and now that we have got down to the technicalities around this legislation, I note that the Minister in the chair is not jumping to his feet. He is clean out of insults. Now that he has to deal with the content of the bill he has not got anything to say, at all. This lack of strategic insight will stop investment in capital-intensive water use, and that will do New Zealand’s economy a huge amount of harm.

The member from the New Zealand First Party talked about Canterbury and its irrigation potential. But unless we have a water allocation process, or a transferable tradable water right mechanism, that investment will simply not take place. One has to ask the question: why would one invest if one did not have some certainty? So that is an issue that concerns me, and it is an opportunity lost by this Government in its rush to get this information to the House.

I move, That the question be now put.

A great deal has happened since this bill was reported back to the House and had its second reading. It is true that a great deal of time has gone by since that time, and that is regrettable, because there is a need to proceed with the water allocation plan for the Waitaki Valley and the Waitaki River. That is why United Future will be supporting this bill through the remaining stages.

Many people have said that the bill originally was about the fast tracking of Project Aqua, and I am sure that many people still believe that today. But I am convinced that Meridian Energy certainly does not believe that. I think it is to the credit of the Local Government and Environment Committee members that we were resolute in how we handled this bill to make sure that it was not a fast tracking. The Government showed no intention to pressure anybody there to create an inner track for Meridian Energy to get Project Aqua through. In the end Meridian did pull the plug on a project that was ill-conceived at best, and not very well investigated, as it turned out. When Meridian Energy announced that the dirt it was going to use was not going to be adequate for its purposes, it really left me wondering what on earth it had been doing all along in its analysis of the project. I do not believe the Resource Management Act was to blame for the collapse of Project Aqua at all.

I still share concerns about the post - Project Aqua situation down in the Waitaki Valley. I am grateful to the honourable member David Parker for his assistance in meeting with some of the residents there and trying to resolve some of these issues that are still outstanding. But with regard to the Waitaki and the allocation of water, there are really two communities down there who still seek to have this bill proceed through the House. The upper Waitaki residents have different concerns than the lower Waitaki residents. I even had discussions this afternoon with some from the Mackenzie Valley who are keen to see this bill go through, because it does offer them some hope for the redress of their concerns to get water for irrigation and for environmental concerns in the Mackenzie Basin.

I met recently with members of the community in the lower Waitaki. I have been down a couple of times since the committee finished its work, and I am convinced that the majority of the residents there do want us to proceed with this bill. They are frustrated with the delay, but they have confidence.

💬 Sandra Goudie: Why?

They see the need for a water allocation plan to be done. There are a number of very exciting projects there, and they believe that if it was transferred over to the regional council to take care of, it would result in even longer delays than they have experienced up until now. A lot of good work has been done in preparing for this water allocation board to be put in place, which is what Part 1 of this bill is all about, and it makes no common sense to throw all that out and start again and hand it all back to Environment Canterbury. So for that reason we will be continuing to support this legislation.

I do, though, share the concerns that have been expressed about Meridian Energy’s mixed messages since announcing the closure of Project Aqua. The reasons it has given for not withdrawing consents have not satisfied me and I am sure they have not satisfied the community in Waitaki, who have been through so much with that project hanging over their heads for a number of years. But I am convinced that the community does want to see this project proceed. There are many projects down there. There is tremendous potential for viticulture in the Waitaki Valley, and the community will be keen to know whether they will have water allocated to them. There are also irrigation projects that have great merit economically for the area, and it is important that some certainty is found about how much water will be available.

There are also the concerns of those who value the river very much, and there will be a minimum flow established for the environmental, the intrinsic, values of that river. So it makes good sense for this water allocation board to be established, to be able to go through the process with the utmost speed that it can, and to deliver, finally, some certainty to the community down there, which, in my opinion, has been knocked around for a number of years. So we will be pleased to support the bill through the Committee stage, although we will be listening to the debate as it proceeds over the particular changes that will occur now through the Supplementary Order Paper, which are necessary in order to remove the aspects that were related specifically to Project Aqua.

If ever we needed an example of where the Christians had been consumed by the lions, then clearly that contribution was it.

💬 Hon Member: A classic!

It was absolutely a classic in that regard. I tell the Minister who has just left the chair, Mr Benson-Pope, that before the dinner break we were discussing the Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 3), and it was a mess, a complete shambles, and an embarrassment to any Government. Here we are, after dinner, discussing the Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill, and it is a mess, a complete mess, and an absolute mess. The Prime Minister should take a look at who she has in her ministerial portfolios and do a reshuffle. She must do that. For the benefit of New Zealand that should happen right now—no later. She should put him out of his misery and bring this to an end. New Zealand cannot afford for that to continue.

If ever there was a debate that caught the cliché “Know the price of water”, then this debate must be that. One that follows in tandem to that is “Know the price of lack of good leadership, or good democracy, or good political process”. This demonstrates overwhelmingly what happens, and those in New Zealand who are listening to this debate should take notice. This is what happens when we end up with hopeless Government, either locally or centrally. I ask the Ministers who are in the House, and the members of the Government, what, then, “power of general competence” in the Local Government Act means when one looks at the way in which it is being applied in this debate at the moment.

At the moment central government is saying in Part 1: “Look, you down there in Canterbury are so thick that during the local government election process you will not be able to find, amongst your rank and file, people who will be able, in their regional council, to make decisions in terms of the allocation of water, or any other resource for that matter, in your area.” The Government is telling those people that they are so thick they cannot do it, and that the Government does not trust them. The Government is saying: “We in central government—we, the socialists, the Labour Party minority Government, propped up by the Christians—do not believe that you can do it, so we will pass legislation tonight in the House with that minority support to make sure you get the message from Wellington.” I tell this Government that the people of Canterbury will be sending a message to this Government all right and it certainly will not be in support of this legislation.

Let us look at the history. The Resource Management Act was passed in 1991. By the end of the 1990s, it was decided that there was a need for some major reform. The Owen McShane report came about as a result of that and it recommended 12 substantial changes to the Resource Management Act. The report went to the select committee, which was considering the report when there was an election and a change of Government, and the incoming Minister, Marian Hobbs, put a red pen through the whole lot. All those recommendations were thrown out. They were completely rejected by the incoming Government. Tonight we are debating yet another silly amendment bill that will achieve absolutely nothing with regard to the Resource Management Act. None of those recommendations, or the hundreds of other recommendations to the Government since then, through the second select committee process, has been taken up by way of amendments to the Resource Management Act.

Let us look at the process that took place with Meridian Energy in terms of Project Aqua in this debate with regard to Part 1. A hundred million dollars of taxpayers’ money was invested in setting up a hydroelectricity plant in Canterbury, where more energy needs to be produced. That process was stopped, or thrown out, and the primary cause of that, according to the report that came back from that process, was the overwhelming cost of having to go through the Resource Management Act process. So the Government introduced a fast-track—a Clyde-dam kind of piece of legislation—which went to a select committee. The select committee rejected a large chunk of it and made some sensible recommendations to the Government. When the bill went back to the Minister, David Benson-Pope, he threw the whole lot out and introduced a Supplementary Order Paper of about 9 pages to the House, like he did with the fisheries amendment bill, at the eleventh-and-a-half-hour when nobody had time to look at it properly.

I find the course of this debate rather interesting—first, with regard to the role of the Canterbury Regional Council. We in New Zealand First support this legislation for the very reasons that were enunciated by the member from United Future. This legislation has the support of the upper hill-country farmers. It has the support of one Stan Scorringe, the Mayor of the district at the present time and a would-be National Party candidate. It has the support of a substantial number of the farming body in that district who are very concerned about the Order in Council of 1969 that we hope will be part of certain matters to be discussed in this legislation.

Secondly, with regard to the Canterbury Regional Council, we should remember that this very valley was the subject of a major inter-boundary dispute between the neighbouring regional councils. But, following that, there was no express intention by the residents of that district for a water plan. That was stated to our committee and it is on record. I believe that statement, and nobody contradicted the fact that there was no express intention to go beyond the needs of the local community—namely, Waitaki—at the time Environment Canterbury was putting together its sequence for water plans.

Thirdly, the Canterbury Regional Council is working through a resource plan at the present time. However, with the natural order of things, if one went through that plan and through the various steps, then moves to the next step—to put together a catchment plan, which is what this legislation is about—the time delay would be inordinate. It would take years and years to get to that step. Therefore, it is certainly an eminently sensible move to put this legislation and all the material that we had before the committee, and which has been accumulated since then in both Otago and Canterbury, before a board to decide upon the allocation.

Before we can come to some of the excellent concepts that have been developed around here about the value of water, the first issue is what water is there, what water is in the river, having a care for the river, and whether those matters will form the subject of a regional plan that is now in place of the framework. I can go through all the issues that are involved such as the regulated minimum flows and the flows of levels from which abstractions can or cannot take place. If all the issues that one goes through in a regional water plan—all enunciated in the Canterbury natural resources plan—form the body of the meat, as it were, before the board, and that board comes through in a suitable period of time, then the people of Canterbury will be rewarded.

This party has made a stand in earlier debates on this matter for those who have property rights. In this case a substantial number of those are being respected. We have a regard for the farming community and the prime reason why we are giving this legislation support is because the farming community were telling us as recently as 1½ hours ago that it wants this legislation. When there are discordant voices in the Chamber saying there is no rationale for this legislation, I counsel them to talk to the community there and see whether they are in tune. I say to them with absolute certainty that they are not. New Zealand First, alongside United Future, is pleased to advance the cause of this legislation, because, putting aside all the baggage of the past, this legislation will advance more quickly the best wishes and best desires of the community.

I concur with what I am sure is the majority of members in this Committee that this bill is absolutely not necessary. It has been absolutely gutted by the Supplementary Order Paper, as was brought to the attention of members by the Hon Nick Smith. It is just extraordinary how this bill, which had 55 clauses, has been reduced to closer to 34 clauses as a consequence of the Supplementary Order Paper. One really has to ask why this bill is necessary.

I note in Environment Canterbury’s submission to the Local Government and Environment Committee that it had notified its intention to do a water allocation plan and had about 33 submissions in support of that being priority work in the ensuing year. Yet the Minister cut across the bowels of everybody and introduced a bill to put forward a project that would bypass the Resource Management Act. After hearing all the speeches in the Chamber, I think most members would concur on that point.

It is just extraordinary that we have now come to the point whereby, essentially, Environment Canterbury could do a water allocation plan without this legislation. It intended to do so and it should be allowed to do so. All the submissions have been put through the process, largely for nought. There has been a huge expense in time, and a lot of anguish, frustration, and heartache about all the different changes and issues that arose as a consequence of this bill. It took some considerable time and effort on the part of all those who submitted, and there was a huge number of submissions. That has largely all been a waste of time. I think that is an absolute tragedy. The quite extraordinary amount of money that has been spent to bring this bill to this stage and to this state is just criminal.

I know that the Local Government and Environment Committee has spent an inordinate amount of time on this bill. Committee members have met with people who have made submissions, and have looked at the area. There was commitment and dedication on the part of us all to try to get this bill straightened up from the sorry state it was in, and all of that has largely been wasted. The bill in its original form noted within it 55 exclusions to the Resource Management Act and 13 inclusions. It was a significant amendment to the Resource Management Act.

One of the predominant concerns was the exclusion of aspects of section 32, but, as has been evidenced by the chair of the committee, that was changed. As the bill was developed, the Minister saw the efficacy of requiring the purposes of the Resource Management Act to remain intact with regard to section 32.

As my colleagues have said, Environment Canterbury should be putting forward this water allocation plan. That has been the purpose of the Resource Management Act. I see that it is trying to sidestep the Resource Management Act to put forward Project Aqua on the basis of it being in the national interest. The Minister is now looking at a better expression of the national interest in changes to the Resource Management Act, although there is some scepticism about whether that will come to pass.

I point members to the considerable effect of the Supplementary Order Paper. It absolutely guts the bill. I really do not know why we are going ahead with this bill. It is a complete waste of everybody’s time. It is just a nonsense that we are wasting our time debating it in the Committee stage. The Minister should have withdrawn this bill and left it to Environment Canterbury to go back to the people to make submissions on setting up a water allocation plan, following the due course of the Resource Management Act. I am certainly glad that National opposes this bill. It has been an absolute disaster from whoa to go, and I think all the exclusions and changes to the Resource Management Act are absolute evidence of that. National opposes this bill.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I am the lead Opposition member speaking to the Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill, and I note that Mr Jim Peters, whom I respect greatly and who has made two good contributions, represents a party with significantly fewer members than National. I wish to note that I have had only one speaking slot.

Further to that, I had to put up with an extremely derogatory speech from the Minister in the chair, Mr Benson-Pope, to the point where he had to withdraw. I wish to make a further contribution about the very important issues in Part 1, and to respond to the points that the Minister has made. I have had no opportunity to do so.

I point out that in the Standing Orders there is provision for up to three speeches from members. It is the norm for the presiding officer not to allow every member of the Committee those three speeches per part, but it is the practice—longstanding, as you will see if you read the book commemorating the 150th history of Parliament, and very vigorously defended over the years—for bills in the Committee stage to be debated thoroughly. I ask you to reflect on that.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I thank the member for that. I am going to accept the closure motion in terms of the Standing Orders. There are several parts in the bill and there will be ample opportunity to speak to those parts.