Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill

I move, That the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill be now read a second time. This bill is about the Government taking leadership on the critical issue of water management in Canterbury. Firstly, it provides for the appointment of commissioners, led by Dame Margaret Bazley, to take over the functions of the governance of Environment Canterbury. It also provides for legal recognition of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy, and gives additional powers to the new commission to really get on top of water management issues in Canterbury. I want to talk in some detail about those additional powers.

Firstly, I thank members of the Opposition for supporting the urgency motion. I know they, in their heart of hearts, know that there are real problems with Environment Canterbury, and that the steps the Government is taking are the responsible approach, not just for Canterbury but for New Zealand. I draw the attention of the House to the quite proper statement made by the previous Minister for the Environment, Trevor Mallard, who said “Everyone knew there was a problem there.” What has been lacking in the contributions of members of the Opposition is their answer to the problems of water management in Canterbury. What Labour did during the 9 years it was in office is well documented in the reports that were provided by the Ministry for the Environment, in the commentary of declining water quality, and in the problems within Environment Canterbury, which go back at least a decade. My simple challenge for members opposite is to ask what they did when they were entrusted with the governance of New Zealand.

I also have to confront the perspective that was put forward that this is an outrageous affront to democracy. That is what the Labour Party has said. My question for Labour members is whether it was an outrageous affront to democracy when, on 4 May 2000, the previous Government passed special legislation, under urgency and through all stages, to replace the Rodney District Council with a commission, and to make changes to the elections. I ask members opposite whether it was an affront to democracy when Helen Clark dismissed the democratically elected Auckland District Health Board. Was that an affront to democracy? Was it an affront to democracy when the previous Government sacked the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board? An honest answer is that there are times when this Parliament needs to step into elected bodies so that we can lift the standard of management.

A fair question that I and the Minister of Local Government have applied our minds to is whether the threshold for Government intervention has been reached on the issue of water management in Canterbury. I point out these key facts to members opposite. It is a matter of record that in the 2007-08 biennial report on resource management, Environment Canterbury ranked No. 84 of 84 councils. That report, commissioned during the time of the previous Government, showed that Environment Canterbury was breaking the law a lot more often than it was complying with it under the Resource Management Act.

I also challenge members of the Greens, because 18 years after the passage of the Resource Management Act, we still do not have an operative water plan for Canterbury. I am interested to learn from a member of the Greens how that helps. How does it help the environment in a region that has more pressures on water than anywhere else in New Zealand that we have no plan? I repeat that 18 years after the passage of the Resource Management Act, we still do not have a set of rules. I make no apologies, as a member of this Government, to say that it is time we had a water plan in place in Canterbury. I am pleased to be working with Rodney Hide and with my colleagues in Canterbury to ensure that we get that plan.

I will address quite specifically the additional powers that are provided in this bill to try to improve water management in Canterbury. The first of those is to specifically address the issue of getting to a workable plan. I am advised that on the current legislative framework it will be another 2 or 3 years before it will be possible to conclude a plan for water in Canterbury. Are members on this side of the House happy to sit back for the next 2 or 3 years and watch an ad hoc approach to water management? No, we are not, and that is why this bill provides for powers to fast track the completion of the Canterbury regional strategy and, very importantly, the natural resources plan that will provide for the completion of that plan.

A further extra provision in this bill is for targeted moratoria to be able to be introduced by the commissioners in areas where water either has been fully allocated or is near to that point. Where we have a resource that is under the sort of pressure that water is in Canterbury, exactly that sort of short-term intervention is required. The honest answer to farmers applying for water in Canterbury in some areas is to say: “No, there is no water left. The resource has been completely allocated.” In my view, that is a responsible and proper thing for the commission to do in parts of Canterbury where additional drawing from the aquifer system is not sustainable and not in the long-term interests of Canterbury or New Zealand.

There are further provisions in this bill in respect of water conservation orders. It is important to put to the House what those provisions are and why the Government has included them in this bill. The first point about water conservation orders is that they have been quite deliberately used in frustration in Canterbury because there has not been a water plan. Groups have been so frustrated at being unable to get some constraint on the development of water that they have wanted to get a water conservation order put in place. The challenge I have for members opposite is how it makes sense for us to appoint commissioners to take charge of water management in Canterbury and to write a regional plan, and to then have a separate process, somewhere else, to decide where there will be water conservation orders that will have a big impact in terms of those plans. This bill says that water conservation orders that are received during the period of the commission will be referred to it. Members opposite are saying this is some great power grab. I remind members that the decision to refer a water conservation order comes to the Minister for the Environment. Yes, it comes to a politician. The final decision under the existing law is that water conservation orders are decided by the Minister for the Environment. The change is that rather than having it going off to an independent commission, or the Environment Court, we are saying that it is proper that decisions on those water conservation orders be made by those commissioners so that it can be done in an integrated way. No member of this House who truly believes in integrated decision-making, making decisions over whole catchments in a proper way, could object to that sensible approach for the commission in the management of water in Canterbury.

The last point I make is in respect of the contribution made by Brendon Burns. His answer was that we need national policy statements and national environment standards. My challenge to Mr Burns is this: his colleagues were in Government for 9 years but how many national policy statements did Labour advance during its 9 years? The answer is zip, zero, none. There was not one national policy statement or one national environment standard. There was not one in those 9 years. Labour members have the gall to come to this Chamber and say that the answer to Canterbury’s water problems is a national environment standard or a national water standard. I say to them that they had 9 years, they failed, they did not deliver the goods, and they did nothing. Thank goodness we have a Government that is committed to addressing these critical issues.

First, I respond to one of many inaccuracies spoken by Dr Smith. He just told the House that the last Labour Government did not produce any national policy statements or national environment standards. He is wrong. In fact, I think I was responsible for bringing forward one on electricity transmission. We also advanced a national environment standard on telecommunications. We substantially advanced the national policy statement on water quality, which now languishes because Minister Dr Nick Smith has put it in the too-hard basket, thrown it to the water forum and said “I’m not going to implement that.” Just watch, it will never see the light of day, even though that is the instrument that the National Government could use next Cabinet day, next Monday, if it wanted to, and have a national policy statement implementing improvements to water quality through the whole of New Zealand, inserting rules in every regional plan through section 55.

Where is that national policy statement on water quality now? It is sitting in the Minister’s office, gathering dust because he does not have the courage—I am sorry, I withdraw and apologise for that—he does not have the gumption to implement what everyone in this House knows is necessary, which is a policy instrument between the Resource Management Act and regional plans, which gives effect and improves water quality. That would be a meaningful step to improve water quality from next week, and it would do what we all know is necessary, when we have increased intensity of agriculture, therefore more fertiliser, and more animal effluent flowing into waterways. With every increase in intensity we have to have more care taken by the landowner. That is what that national policy statement would do, and that could be implemented by Cabinet on Monday. There would be no need for this outrageous legislation in respect of water quality.

I shall deal with the issue that he also raised of water conservation orders, because in my opinion that is one of the most egregious parts of this legislation being passed under urgency, with no opportunity for people to submit upon it. Dr Smith says that water conservation orders ought to be under the jurisdiction of this commissioner. He needs to look at history. Why did this Parliament legislate for water conservation orders back in 1981? A quarter of a century ago our predecessors legislated in this House for the introduction of water conservation orders, because the effect of each little slice being taken, of more water being taken from rivers, is very hard for regional councils to oppose, and the effect is that there is just a little bit more, another slice of the little bit left in the river, taken out for every new application.

So the prior Parliament said there are some rivers in New Zealand that are too important for that to happen to, and the Water and Soil Conservation Act was amended. That was way previous to the Resource Management Act, and water conservation orders were put in there. They have stood the test of time for 25 years, and they are not overused and they are not abused. There is a very powerful gatekeeper both in terms of the board that the Minister appoints, plus appeal rights for the Environment Court, to ensure that they are not overused. In Canterbury they have not been overused, but it is true that most rivers in Canterbury are far too low in their flows in summer. Some rivers like the Ashburton River just about dry up. Indeed, some of the rivers go to ground; they have so little water in them because they are sucked dry by irrigators. The rivers that are the exception to that in Canterbury are the Rākaia and the Rangitata, and the only reason that they are the exceptions to over-abstraction is that they have water conservation orders. Those water conservation orders were fought for through many, many years of effort by interested groups, and those cases went all the way from the original tribunal to the planning tribunal—now the Environment Court—to the High Court and to the Court of Appeal before those issues were settled. People took those issues to the Court of Appeal, and what is Dr Smith doing in this legislation? Without any submission process for New Zealanders to object, he is saying that those water conservation orders can now be varied by the commissioners. There is no political accountability of the Minister, which there is under the current legislation—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Yes, there is.

I take that back, I accept the member’s word on that.

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: You can’t do that. He’s the last person you would take the word of.

I will check that. The decision maker stops being the Environment Court, essentially, that makes a recommendation to the Minister, and it now becomes the commissioner. That is wrong. Conservation orders sit in a separate part of the Resource Management Act. They have their own code in Part 9. Regional councils are bound by them. This new entity that the Minister is setting up today as a replacement for the regional council, but slipped in the legislation, means that rather than that replacement being bound by water conservation orders, that body has the ability to vary them. That is wrong.

I say something also about what is going on here. Underneath this we actually have demand from farmers for unreasonable amounts of water from some of our rivers. The Minister said he is worried about that, and he thinks they have to be curbed. He says that, but then he does the opposite. What he is doing is allowing farmers to get more water out of these rivers. There are already provisions in the Resource Management Act that allow water conservation orders to be changed. Anyone can apply to have them varied, and if the Minister thinks that that ought to be looked at it can be; it goes to a board and eventually the Environment Court, and a recommendation comes back to the Minister. They can be changed. So why, then, this change? It is not necessary. The only reason can be because Federated Farmers, who have always been opposed to water conservation orders, were the protagonists. Right up to the Court of Appeal they fought these things, and now they are having a win through their buddies in the National Party.

I want to read out the Court of Appeal judgment made in 1987, Ashburton Acclimatisation Society v Federated Farmers Inc., because they were the two protagonists in the Court of Appeal. The decision states: “The basic contest was one between conservationists who wished the flow and characteristics of the Rakaia to be conserved, and farmers who wished to take water for irrigation.” That is what is happening again. Farmers want more water for irrigation. Dr Smith is pretending this is for the protection of the environment, when actually the opposite is what he intends and the opposite is what will occur.

I say one final thing, and it is about the habit of this Minister and this Government to use loaded names in the titles of bills. The Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill—it really does sound like the Operation Enduring Freedom of George Bush. These loaded names in legislation do not fool anyone. I say to describe what it is—“Temporary Commissioners”, they are not even very temporary.

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: 3½ years.

They outlast an election cycle, which is disgraceful, but this loaded term “Improved Water Management” really smacks of the sort of propaganda that we had from George Bush in Operation Enduring Freedom, and it does not fool anybody.

The other thing that is happening here is that Dr Smith has said this will be a precedent for change in other areas. I am told that someone attended a press conference that the Minister held and asked whether the changes being made in respect of water conservation orders effectively falling under the regional plan, rather than sitting above it, were likely to be applied in other areas in New Zealand, and I am told that at the press conference the Minister confirmed that it may well be a model for other areas. He is shaking his head to say that that is not so. I hope he is correct, I tell the Minister, because I was not there.

But this policy, really, is terrible. I think that it is very sad that after 25 years of battles in trying to assert reasonable minimum flows for at least some of our outstanding rivers in Canterbury—the only ones that are not severely abstracted as a consequence of excessive irrigation pressure—we have this Government undermining the conservation orders that are on the few rivers that are already protected in Canterbury. That is on top of the Government’s inability to advance the national policy statement on water quality—high-quality work from Judge Sheppard, a former Principal Environment Court Judge—which is sitting on the Minister’s desk waiting to be implemented. He could do that through Cabinet on Monday, but he will not.

This is all wrong. There are problems in Environment Canterbury; I do not deny that. We do not deny that. But there were less drastic solutions to those problems, which are no excuse for the inaction on water quality or the draconian steps that have been taken in respect of water conservation orders.

I am happy to take a call on the second reading of the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill. I start this brief call by bringing us back to a little sense of history. The previous speaker, David Parker, spoke repeatedly about this bill’s being passed under urgency and the like. On 2 May 2000 the Labour Government kicked out the Rodney District Council’s elected councillors with a bill that went through all stages under urgency with no select committee deliberation, so it is a bit rich for that party to sit there now and cry crocodile tears about using urgency to pass a bill to take out a council that is not performing and replace it with a group of commissioners until the council is back on track. It is a bit rich. I remind those listening to this debate that those Labour members were more than happy to use urgency when it suited them to achieve the same end. The difference is that National members did not play politics.

💬 Colin King: We support it.

We supported them on that. The Labour Party and the Green Party are now far more interested in playing politics with Canterbury’s water than accepting what all the stakeholders are telling them, which is that Environment Canterbury does not have the capabilities to do what it needs to do. It does not have the capabilities.

This debate is about getting the regional council of Canterbury right in order to manage our economic development and our environmental management. I quite happily stand here and say that we have not done either of those things well in Canterbury. We have failed to make the most of our economic growth potential, and we have failed to do the right thing by our environment. I would be the first one to say that the path we have been on with water take and water management has not served our environment well in Canterbury. We can do an awful lot better.

I touch on the moratoria aspect of this bill, which will allow the commissioners to come in and put a hold on new water applications while this issue is sorted. So although members on the other side of the House play up the issues about making more water available—and if that happens, I will welcome it—I say that the bigger part is ensuring that that is done only in a way that better protects our water management. That has not happened in Canterbury for a long time. It needs to happen. The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, the Environmental Defence Society, and the Water Rights Trust are all telling us that that needs to happen.

This is not coming just from one side of the debate. Anyone who is actually listening to stakeholders knows that everyone is telling us this. I have had a constant stream of people through my office telling me of issues with Environment Canterbury. They are not all farmers; they are not all irrigators. A number of them have nothing to do with those fields. But they have one thing in common, which is frustration with a regional council that has become disconnected from its obligations to Canterbury and that has failed us environmentally and in economic growth.

This bill is an important step to getting that council back on track, so that we can return to a proper, functioning regional council. I look forward to that happening. It will not happen without this bill, and that is why I am very pleased to support it.

I believe that it is a very sorry day for Parliament today. I believe that the Minister for the Environment is overseeing one of the most anti-democratic processes that one could imagine. I heard Amy Adams, the member who has just resumed her seat, and Minister Nick Smith say that this was OK because of what happened in Rodney. So I will go back over what actually happened in Rodney. In April 2000 the local government Minister of the day announced that she had accepted a ministerial review authority recommendation to appoint a commission to replace the elected representatives of the Rodney District Council. But that example differs significantly from the current Environment Canterbury situation, in the following ways.

In October 1999—which was before the election in 1999—the Rodney District Council requested a review of the council, following the unanimous decision of that council. I would ask Amy Adams and this Minister where the unanimous decision was for this council in asking the Government to intervene. No, there is no feedback from those members who have resumed their seats. Therefore, they are accepting that there was no request from Environment Canterbury for the review that has occurred.

In this case, rather than the unanimous decision of the Rodney District Council to ask for a review, the Minister appointed—who? Wyatt Creech. Wyatt Creech has an association not only with the Government, which is pretty obvious, but also with the industry that demands so much of our water resources in Canterbury. Do members not think—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Play the man. Play the man; you can’t win the debate.

I am not playing the man. I think that the Minister is being unfair. I am talking about a conflict of interest.

Jenny Shipley was prepared to step aside on the basis that she could identify what was a clear conflict of interest in terms of being asked to be the lead commissioner in the new world order that this Minister has imposed on Canterbury. But Wyatt Creech was not prepared to do the same, when he has been held to account by the regional council in his area for what he has done in terms of the particular company he is responsible for. I am trying to say—and I think the Minister should take some notice of this—that when there is a conflict of interest, it does not have to be real; the perception is enough. In this case, the perception is more than real. That former member, a former Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand, should have stood aside. He was conflicted in every way, shape, and form. I am not surprised that he recommended that there should be a separate water authority for Canterbury. I bet he wishes that there was a separate water authority that was taking no notice of what his company was doing up in the Waikato.

The second thing that happened in this case was that the Minister set the terms of reference for the review. The third thing was that the Minister discounted the possibility of a protracted inquiry, which meant that there was not enough time for this inquiry to engage in the process in any meaningful way.

The actions of the Labour Government back in 1999, when we had just assumed office, were in response to a unique situation and at the insistence of the local authority concerned. On 17 November—and I think we took our warrants in December 1999—the council wrote to the then Minister, commenting on the need for a review and saying that it wanted the Government to intervene. That was before we had even taken office.

The Creech review was initiated as part of a Government agenda. Nick Smith stated at the time that these reports were initiated as part of the Government’s broader agenda of taking a more active role in the performance of local government on resource management issues. The two councils performed poorly in the 2007-08 survey of resource consenting processes, but no notice was taken of the fact that they had actually improved their resource consenting processes in the subsequent financial year.

On 8 December 1999 the then Minister of Local Government appointed a review authority to undertake a review in accordance with the request and within the terms outlined by the council, and, as I have alluded to, that was the first time a commission was appointed since the ministerial review provision in the Local Government Act 1974 was enacted in 1992. The review authority received more than 80 submissions in the case of the Rodney District Council, in response to public notices, because it was a publicly notified process. The Creech review talked to fewer than 20 groups, and no submissions from the general public were invited.

One of the points I will make is that the local authority mayors were consulted, as a result of an Official Information Act request—we know that this is the case—and not one of them consulted their elected colleagues on their councils; not one.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Not true.

Name one. Jo Kane was the regional councillor who made the Official Information Act request. The response was that not one of the mayors, or indeed the chief executives who were consulted, consulted their elected councils to know their response. Every single one of those mayors originally wrote to the two Ministers, at the request of the two Ministers. We know that the request went through Jo Goodhew, to the Mayor of Timaru, and then up to the two local body Ministers, the Minister who is taking this bill through, the Hon Nick Smith, and also the Minister of Local Government, Rodney Hide. They were requested to get this information through to them, from the mayors. The mayors were asked to do this for them so that they could achieve the end that they have achieved on this occasion.

In the 1999-2000 situation, the review authority that was appointed by the Government of the day to review Rodney, at the request of the Rodney District Council, held a 6-day hearing in the month before they reported to the Minister. I do not recall there being a hearing in the Creech review. I was not even invited to make a submission as a local member of Parliament, and in fact none of the local members of Parliament were invited to make any submissions on the matter.

The review authority was scheduled to report to the Minister by the end of December 1999, but that date was extended to 3 March 2000 after requests from the review authority for a time extension. The Creech review, on the other hand, was a very slapdash job. The reason it was such a slapdash job was that it had been set its terms of reference to produce the result that it produced.

In the wake of the review authority’s findings, the mayor and five elected councillors resigned on 21 March 2000. The mayor’s resignation triggered a by-election, and we all know the history of that time. No such situation has arisen in this case.

At that time the Minister announced the appointment of a commission on 10 April 2000, 18 months away from the next local body election. How long is it this time? The local body elections are only 6 months away now, so what are we talking about? It is 3½ years. I want to know something. Will we stop collecting rates from ratepayers in the Environment Canterbury catchment area over the next 3½ years? Will we stop collecting rates? A fundamental principle of constitutional law talks about there being no taxation without representation. I think that is exactly what this Minister is foisting upon—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Tell us about the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board.

I think it is hilarious that this Government would talk about district health boards. The previous National Government sacked every area health board in this country in 1991. Does the member not remember that? He was the one who was there at the time; I was there at the time. That Government sacked the lot, because that lot do not believe in elected representation in district health boards.

The Green Party opposes the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill. We believe that it will come to mark an historic occasion; it will live on in infamy in the annals of this Parliament.

Last week in the general debate I advanced a critique of the Creech report and its recommendations. I do not wish to repeat those criticisms; suffice it to say tonight that this report was politically driven and not politically informed. It failed the basic standards of organisational and managerial professionalism. In particular, the statutory arrangements in this country impose five functions on regional councils. They are resource management, biosecurity control, river management, land transport, and civil defence. The Creech report focused excessively, almost exclusively, on one part of one of those functions, and condemned the council to death. But that is already history.

What we are addressing tonight is the response of the Government to that report, and to the Canterbury water situation. In a more fundamental manner, what we face here is the relationship between central government and local government, and what that means for democracy in this country. This is not a light matter. It is concerned with two fundamental issues—economic growth on the one hand, and good governance on the other. The stated problem, as advanced by the Minister when introducing the bill, is “the longstanding systemic issue in regional governance.” “Intervention”—said the Minister—“can only occur if there is serious failure”, and he said that that had occurred.

So what does the bill do? It abolishes the elected council, establishes a new appointed commission, and gives that unelected body extra powers. That is the classic example of shifting the goalposts. We condemn a democratic body for alleged ineptitude that derives from weakness in the powers granted to it, and then we set up an undemocratic body and grant it the powers its democratic predecessor had always needed. That is not only devious; it is dangerous to this nation’s constitutional health.

We need to be careful in this country, because our constitutional integrity is quite fragile, compared to most other countries. We have no codified constitution. We have no Upper House. We do not have a clear separation of national powers. We have no federal division of authority; rather, we have a strong centralised Government. It does not take much in these circumstances to generate a momentum whereby power becomes excessively concentrated. We can all remember the New Zealand Government, not so long ago, that was described as an elected dictatorship. Jim Anderton said in this debate that he has never, in all his time in this House—over a quarter of a century—seen anything like this.

Stamping out the tender plant that is local democracy can be done even with the best of intentions. This Government believes that it is doing the right thing, as Jacqui Dean said earlier today. So believed Tony Blair when he invaded Iraq. That was on the principle of humanitarian intervention, but grotesquely misconstrued. So believed Bainimarama when he took out the elected Government of Fiji at the end of a gun. That was on the doctrine of necessity, but grotesquely misconstrued. What is to be the doctrine on which the leader of this nation, with his two lieutenants, Ministers Smith and Hide, will rest their intervention? What grotesque misconstruction will eventuate? Will it be the doctrine of frustration—frustration over the obstacles that democracy, sustainability, and the precautionary principle place in front of economic growth? Or will it be the doctrine of corporate efficiency—a truth that will not be denied, either in Auckland or in Canterbury? If it is the latter, how many regional councils will go under the guillotine for alleged inefficiency before this Government and its supporters are satiated?

Environment Canterbury came in last, out of an alleged 84, in the most recent regional survey. In fact, that is misleading. There are only 12 regional councils, so it is a sleight of hand to trumpet 84 councils—Rodney District Council, incidentally, is not a regional council, and it was not for 5 years. Of the 12 regional councils, I tell the Minister, one had to come last. There is a reason why the council was Canterbury. It is because water is the most sensitive issue in New Zealand right now, and Canterbury is the most sensitive region for water. One does not need to be a rocket scientist, or even an Environment Canterbury reviewer, to recognise these truths. So which is the next regional council to get the eagle eye turned upon it in the name of corporate efficiency? That which came in 11th?

How are we to judge the nature of this intrusion into the nation’s democracy? Let us turn to the regulatory impact statement and see what it says: “Elections are a right and privilege of any citizen in New Zealand. The suspension of such a right should only be considered in exceptional circumstances. Such a decision is correct to sit with Parliament.” The regulatory impact statement continues: “Targeted consultation”—members should note the word “targeted”—“was undertaken during the statutory investigation of ECan … However, there has been no public consultation on the proposals … The short timeframe available … has not allowed for a comprehensive assessment of risks and alternatives. This increases the risk that intervention could be incorrectly targeted and/or could require subsequent amendment to address unforeseen circumstances.”

This is an extraordinary impact statement. It was prepared by the Ministry for the Environment. That was a brave action, for clearly the ministry is not happy with what is going on. Will the ministry, too, be disbanded? And on what principle—a lack of loyalty to the leader?

Yet that is not all, because the Minister proposes to proceed under urgency. The impact statement states: “This, alongside the proposal to limit appeal rights on decisions/recommendations made by commissioners … potentially alienates Canterbury rate payers and the general public from decisions made on natural resources in the Canterbury region. This raises equity and access to justice issues.” This situation is perhaps, as Jim Anderton has said, unprecedented. Here we have a situation in which a Government department is fighting to defend the principles of democracy and natural justice that are historically and constitutionally the responsibility of central government to defend, but it is central government that is stamping them out. The ratepayers and the general public of my province are being alienated from decisions being made over their natural resources, thus raising issues of equity and justice.

This is the kind of thing that citizens tend to rebel against. Well, there is news for the Ministers and also for their leader, Mr Key, who appears to be losing his footing: the ratepayers and the general public of Canterbury have taken roughly 2 hours to get their act together in the face of this threat to their natural rights. A group of Canterbury citizens is organising already to picket tomorrow the offices of four National MPs in Canterbury—MPs Brownlee, David Carter, Wagner, and Adams—and they will leave a letter at their doors.

That letter reads as follows: “No taxation without representation: an open letter to Canterbury National MPs. We the undersigned are writing to utterly condemn the National Party Government’s decision to abolish the democratically elected and accountable regional council in Canterbury, and replace it by unelected commissioners responsible only to central government. Moreover, this has been done without the slightest consultation with the Canterbury public. This is an outrageous and completely unwarranted destruction of local democracy, and also a sorry degradation of democracy for New Zealand as a whole. It seems to signal the determination to favour sector interests over the welfare of the public at large. We pledge never to vote for a party which has such a flagrant disregard for our sovereign rights as citizens to elect and recall our democratic representatives at the local level. From May 1 councillors we elected in 2007 will no longer be working for us; we expect to find in our next ECan rates bills that the portion of our rates which went towards their salaries has been rebated accordingly from 1 May. If central government chooses to abrogate our democratic right to choose our own local decision-makers, then it is central government’s responsibility to pay for the unelected decision-makers it chooses to put in their place. We look forward to hearing the National Party’s assurance that this will be the case before 1 May.” Thank you.

When I listen to the debate on the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill, it seems to me that we are addressing two issues. We are addressing the issue of democracy—the democracy of the people of Canterbury, in particular—and the issue of water. I will speak to those two issues this evening.

We have been told by the Labour Opposition that this Government has intervened in the democratic process. We have been told by the Labour Opposition that this Government is getting rid of democracy and that it is trying to get rid of obstacles. Labour members talk about an assault on the democratic model. I always enjoy listening to debates on democracy in this House, and this evening the Opposition has focused on democracy in Canterbury. But what concerns me is the much bigger issue of democracy in New Zealand.

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: What of the EFA? He got into Parliament on the EFA.

That is right—the Electoral Finance Act.

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: He’s so worried about the EFA, he forgets about Canterbury.

Well, is it not interesting that Mr Hughes wants to talk about the Electoral Finance Act? I actually want to go back before the Electoral Finance Act and talk about the Electoral Finance Bill. The reason I want to talk about the Electoral Finance Bill is that less than 3 years ago, when the current Opposition members were in Government—we have heard for hour after hour this afternoon about democracy, about the rights of the people of New Zealand being usurped, and about those democratic rights being taken away—the previous Government brought into this House a bill that would have required every single New Zealander—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Although the member can refer to other bills that might have been before the House, this bill is specifically about issues in Canterbury. The member is quite entitled to refer to other bills in terms of the points that he is making, but he cannot spend his contribution to the debate solely on those matters.

💬 Hon Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We fully respect your decision, of course, but consistency with the rulings of Assistant Speaker Barker, who was in the Chair previously, concerns me. We have had entire speeches dedicated to legislation that has earlier been passed, and now an ACT member gets a chance to speak and the rules appear to have adjusted.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank the member—

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: Speaking to the point of order—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I will just deal with this. I thank the member for that point of order. This is a second reading speech. First reading speeches are pretty wide, but this is a second reading speech, and I would like the member to focus on the issues. Referring to other legislation that has been passed is fine, but we must come in towards the substance of the debate.

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I raise a slightly different point of order from the one that Mr Hide raised. As you know, the House is in urgency considering this legislation, which was not seen until it was presented and introduced by way of urgency. The Speakers’ rulings make provision for members to speak under urgency slightly wider than they ordinarily would on a normal second reading for a bill that has come back from a select committee, in which situation there has been a narrowing down of the bill by the committee, issues have been considered, and members can refer to a report. I think that being under urgency slightly alters the ambience of members. I think that some leeway must be given to Mr Boscawen, particularly in respect of his personal position as someone who came to Parliament worried about democratic issues—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank the member. I have made it very clear. I have said to the member that he can refer to other bills and other Acts, but he cannot concentrate his whole speech on them. This is a second reading speech. The first reading is much wider; this is much narrower.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I do not intend to devote my entire speech to the issue of the Electoral Finance Bill; I also want to focus on the issue of water. But I make just one comment on the Electoral Finance Bill. I remind this House that less than 3 years ago a bill was introduced into this House that required anyone—any single New Zealander—who wanted to speak out against the Government to sign a declaration. Before people spent a single dollar, they had to sign a declaration. They had to go to a justice of the peace and sign a declaration such as: “I, John Boscawen, promise not to spend a single dollar opposing the Labour Government.” For any member of that party to lecture this Government on democracy is a total contradiction.

Let us talk about participation. We have heard that already the forces of opposition to this bill are mounting in Canterbury. We have heard that there will be a protest outside four electorate offices in Christchurch, and I think that is fantastic. I think it is fantastic that the people of Canterbury want to rise up and express a view on democracy, because the last time there was such a protest in Christchurch, it was led by me. I led it, and 300 people walked through the streets of Christchurch—through the centre of Christchurch. It was not the only protest that I led; 5,000 people walked down Queen Street on 1 December.

Let us talk about participation. Let us talk about the right of the people of Canterbury to participate in their local government. It is interesting that the Human Rights Commission has spoken on the issue of participation. In referring to the Electoral Finance Bill, the Human Rights Commission said that “A human rights approach to democratic government requires genuine participation. Genuine participation, in turn, requires an informed electorate.” We do not have an informed electorate when we try to create complex electoral law.

It is also interesting that Mr Burns talked about an “assault on the democratic model,”. He is not the only person who spoke about assault. The Chief Human Rights Commissioner talked about the Electoral Finance Bill being “a dramatic assault on two fundamental human rights”. Democracy is important. It is extremely important. No one has done more than this side of the House to stand up for the rights of democracy. I do not know how those four previous Labour Government Ministers have the gall to stand up and preach to the National and ACT Parties about democracy.

We are talking about the management of water and the water resource. Water is a very valuable resource and it is very important for the future wealth of this country that we develop and preserve that resource. That water is about to get a whole lot more valuable, not just because it will be better monitored and better managed but because from 1 July that water will have a much, much higher value. Members might ask themselves what is happening on 1 July. Well, on 1 July the Government is introducing the emissions trading scheme. It is a tax on the people of New Zealand, and every single New Zealander will pay it.

Why is it relevant to water? We heard from the Minister for the Environment this afternoon that over 50 percent of New Zealand’s water resource is contained in the Canterbury region. That water flows down the Waitaki River. The reason the emissions trading scheme has significance for the value of that water is that on 1 July a tax will be applied to electricity that is generated from thermal sources like oil and gas. Any generator who generates electricity from thermal sources will have to pay a tax. They will recover that tax and the price of electricity will rise. Treasury advised Parliament last year that electricity would rise by 5 percent. I realise it is a tight debate, but let me explain the impact on the value of those water resources that the Government is trying to manage for the scheme. With an emissions trading scheme the price of all electricity will rise, but those who generate electricity from renewable sources, from water, will not pay that tax; they will have the benefit of a higher price of electricity and they will make super-profits.

The emissions trading scheme will be a massive tax on the people of New Zealand. It will generate windfall profits to Meridian Energy, and it will significantly increase the value of that water. The increase in the value of the water in the Canterbury region will result in windfall gains. All of the electricity that is generated from the water in the Canterbury region—in the Environment Canterbury catchment—from 1 July will be able to get an extra 5 percent estimated value by Treasury. The generator will not have to pay the tax, which will result in windfall profits to the State generator and to private generators. I remind the House that on 1 July this country is conducting an experiment unlike any other in New Zealand.

On those notes, I say that I am thankful for the opportunity to speak, and I say again that if anyone from Labour has any concerns about democracy, I suggest that they look at the submission of the Human Rights Commission on the Electoral Finance Bill, dated 7 December 2007. Who can forget the words in that submission? The commission stated that the Electoral Finance Bill “represents a dramatic assault on two fundamental human rights that New Zealanders cherish, freedom of expression and the right of informed citizens to participate in the election process.” Thank you.

This is a short call during the second reading of this important bill, the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill. I will start off by taking the House through an event that happened within the last month, when the Kaikōura and Hurunui District Councils sat down with the Minister of Local Government and the Minister for the Environment. It was very interesting to take in the flavour that came out of the meetings with those councils. I heard the member opposite say that the mayors never discussed with their fellow councillor colleagues their response to the Minister of Local Government. Well, I can testify that that is not the case. In actual fact, there was a good canvassing of the views of the councillors, and I would have to say that in the Hurunui and Kaikōura District Councils those views were canvassed to a person; everyone wanted something to be done that was quick and final. They did not see a future in Environment Canterbury, because it was mucking around and wasting opportunity.

Talking about opportunity, I will refer to the Amuri irrigation scheme that in the late 1980s transformed a desolate wasteland, which would have been blown away by the north-westerly, into an oasis. The amount of game that was around at duck-shooting, and times like that, was just unbelievable, and the win-win situation was outstanding. That is what those on the other 42,000 hectares have been hoping for, for the last 20 years, but nothing has happened. So when we get to the second reading of this very important bill, it is good to see that we have enshrined in it the vision and principles of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. That is very, very important.

I will touch on a couple of important aspects, because what we are hearing from the other side of the House, and what is being very poorly represented by the Greens, is the suggestion that environmental standards will go out the window. I want to draw the House’s attention to the primary principles of that water management strategy’s regional approach. It says that planning for natural water use is guided by the following first order priorities: consideration of the environment, customary uses, community supplies, and stock water. Second order priority considerations are irrigation, renewable electricity generation, recreation, tourism, and other amenities.

The point I am making here is that a high priority is put on the environment, and with the Canterbury Water Management Strategy, the environment had to be No. 1. The Government was very concerned that that strategy was very, very fragile; I make the point again that if one person had felt that he or she had not had adequate provision consideration within that strategy, and had pulled out, it would all have been lost. It would all have been lost. So I make the point again that I made in my first reading speech that it takes 90 percent of the effort to get the last 10 percent.

This Government did not come into power to sit down here purely to get its pay, as we saw the previous Labour Government do over the last 9 years. It is with great pride and passion that I live with a vision that potentially one day we will have 42,000 hectares of beautiful country in the Hurunui irrigated, and I say “Thank goodness it will come from a National Government.”

I have sat through a lot of this debate and have listened to members speak. Like Ms Adams, I am a Canterbury member. Ms Adams represents a mostly rural electorate; in my case it is semi-rural. To some extent this debate has degenerated into some sort of name-calling or labelling exercise, and it is interesting to note that there are people in the community who love to live off the back of our rural constituents and who love to live off the back of the revenue that our rural constituents create, but when it suits them they put the boot into rural people and bag them.

It is very interesting that the Minister of Conservation, a Cabinet Minister who nominally resides somewhere in my seat—we are not quite sure where—has not taken a call on the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill.

💬 Colin King: Kate Wilkinson.

Kate Wilkinson, someone says. She has not taken a call on this bill. Maybe she is dropping acid—folic acid, that is—somewhere in this place. But it is interesting that that Minister has not come down and has decided not to take a call on this bill, because that member does not like to front up on the hard issues. That member has been rolled so many times in this House that—and I sympathise with her—she has probably decided to raise the white flag! “I’m out of here. I’m not speaking on the bill.” But I could be wrong.

The Opposition has talked about process. I acknowledge that there were, and are, problems with Environment Canterbury—I acknowledge that. If members talk to farming communities, or to urban communities, they will hear that there were difficulties and problems, particularly around water—I acknowledge that. But the question is how we fix, or attempt to fix, those difficulties.

A lot of the members on the Canterbury Regional Council did an outstanding job over many years, and they will no longer be there once this bill is enacted. The question is one of process: how to deal as a Government with those difficulties. One option that was suggested by a number of the regional councillors was to have a commissioner sit alongside the regional council to deal surgically with some of the difficulties in the bureaucracy.

It is interesting to look at the process and what we are hearing tonight. I listened with interest to Mr Boscawen’s contribution. He is a man who holds himself up as the bastion of democracy, who then stands in the stalls beside his leader, Rodney Hide, a man who for many years celebrated being Parliament’s independent man, a man who believes that minorities should be represented, a man who believes in the democratic approach, and a man who has said repeatedly that the people know best how to deal with their money, that we should empower the people, that we should give the people the right to deal with Parliament, that we should give them respect—empower them. Tonight, with this piece of legislation, just as on other nights in relation to the super-city legislation, he has been led by the nose through the stalls and into the Ayes lobby. What Mr Hide and Mr Boscawen are really saying is that they believe in democracy as long as it suits them.

Mr Colin King talked about principle. The commissioners remain till around October 2013, not up until the next election, when the people would have their say and could either blow the regional councillors away or re-elect them. No, the process of people having their say is gone—and Mr Colin King talks about principle.

When we look at the Creech report, we have to say that its recommendations looked preordained. There were 80 submissions—none from the public, of course—and 20 groups were spoken to. It was a 3-week process, and then we had the political massaging effort of the roadshow, with Mr Hide and Dr Nick Smith wandering around the countryside for a couple of weeks, having a chat to the local authorities. That is the alibi for putting this measure through the House.

Another interesting point is that Dr Smith told Labour members and Green members this morning that this bill would not be implemented till roughly some time in May—possibly the end of May. He himself did not know at that point when it would be enacted, because it is required to commence on a Gazette notice—there has to be a transitional period. Well, I am reliably informed that the Local Government and Environment Committee has an extremely light agenda—feather light. It could have been called together tonight, it could have been called together tomorrow, and people and groups could have had their say. Why would the Government abrogate its responsibility and guillotine that? I suspect—and I will adhere to your ruling, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I will not elaborate—that it is exactly the same mentality as this Government exhibited over the “three strikes” bill, which was to kill off any opposition, to not allow anyone to have a say, and to ram the bill through as quickly as possible, and then hope that all is well.

I am one who acknowledges the economic benefit of irrigation. It has given massive benefits to my electorate and other parts of Canterbury—massive benefits and massive economic growth. I am balanced enough in my views to say that publicly, without fear or favour. But I also acknowledge that there have been problems.

One of the biggest problems, as David Parker pointed out, was Dr Nick Smith sitting on his hands for 18 months in respect of the National Policy Statement For Freshwater Management. Dr Smith got up and asked what Labour did for 9 years. That is a fair call. But the question also goes back the other way. Dr Smith, as David Parker said, could have called Cabinet together on Monday, or last Monday, or a month ago, or 18 months ago, when he became Minister, and he could have activated the statement through a Cabinet decision. But, for whatever reason, he chose not to. So I say to those like Mr Hide, the bastion of democracy, the man who says we should empower New Zealanders and we should put the power back into the communities, that he says that when it suits him and when it suits his means.

I see Mr Gilmore writing frantically. I am reliably advised that there will be a picket of four National Party electorate offices. I assume that it will be the offices of Mr Brownlee, Mr Carter, Ms Wagner, and Ms Wilkinson. Forget that there is another National member called Mr Gilmore. He ain’t even worth picketing! There is the old saying about why seagulls fly upside down, but I will leave it there, because it would not be appropriate. Mr Gilmore ain’t even worth picketing. He is a legend in his own lifetime. The punters know that it ain’t worth going near his electorate office because it ain’t worth picketing. It ain’t worth throwing a tomato or a rotten egg because it would just bounce off.

I say very seriously that I think this House should acknowledge the difficulties of Environment Canterbury, but should acknowledge also that it made great strides in the months before this report concluded, as it did in respect of consent processing times reaching 90 percent of the rolling time frame compliance rate to the end of January 2010. But, oh no, there was not a word of that from across the aisle. This decision will not go through the select committee process. The public has not been consulted on the Creech report, and every vestige of public input has been cut off, apart from debates in this House. Those members talk about the Rodney District situation, but Ms Dalziel has outlined the difference there: the difference was that the council wanted some action, wanted the Government to move in and take action. The difference here is that no process is being embarked upon. If it is so principled—

💬 John Hayes: For good reason.

And if it is for good reason, well, let us hear one, I ask “Les Patterson” in the front row. I ask him to give us a reason, because we have not heard one tonight.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member knows he cannot refer to another member by a nickname or a surname.

💬 John Hayes: It’s not my nickname, with respect.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is not his nickname. The member cannot refer to another member by a name that is not his.

I apologise. It is actually “Sir Les Patterson”. I should have used it—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, no. I have ruled. The member cannot use those references. I ask him to withdraw that comment.

I withdraw.

The member said “For good reason.” Well, no good reason has been outlined or articulated tonight. There is no good reason to justify not having a select committee process. There is no good reason to justify not asking the community—except that for the Government there is one good reason: people may rise up and oppose this measure. Yes, the public of Canterbury want action. Yes, I think they want decisions through the regional council, but they also guard their democracy. These commissioners will have the power to rate, but, unlike elected folk, the commissioners will not be voted in or booted out by the public. The commissioners are at the behest of the Minister until October 2013. They will rate, and they will require money from the Canterbury constituencies to empower them to do their work, but they will not be accountable to those constituencies in the same way as elected members. I wait to hear from that member the good reasons why democracy has been cut asunder tonight. I wait for those reasons, as do the people of Canterbury.

Here is one good reason for the Government to intervene in this positive way with the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill, and that is that the review group found a significant gap, characterised as “enormous and unprecedented”, between what needs to be done in Canterbury to appropriately manage water and Environment Canterbury’s ability to do so. That came directly from the Creech report.

I also want to thank—and I know this has been said before, but it think it bears saying again—the previous Minister for the Environment, Trevor Mallard, who had these wise words in support of what the current Government is doing. He said “Everyone knew there was a problem here.” I shall say that again for the benefit of members opposite, who seem to be in denial, except for their colleague Trevor Mallard when he was the Minister for the Environment. He said: “Everyone knew there was a problem here.” It was quite late in the term and at a time when there was not the ability to put a group to do what Wyatt Creech has effectively done. I thank Mr Mallard for his endorsement of that. We will deal with the results, and this is a Government that is dealing with the results.

The failure of Environment Canterbury is also Labour’s failure. Let us not make any bones about that. In the 9 years of the previous Labour Government, I ask members how many national policy statements and national environmental standards it produced. It was none—a big fat zero. There were absolutely none. I say to Mr Burns and Mr Parker that New Zealand needs national policy statements, but we should not look to Labour to develop them. Labour will not do that. It had 9 years to release a national policy statement on water quality, and I ask where it is. It is up to the National Government to face up to the problems and deal with them.

This bill gives the development of a water plan for Canterbury the very highest priority. Environment Canterbury has been making decisions on water consents in a policy vacuum, and that has resulted in policy development on the hoof and at the expense of applicants. I can say, from experience and from talking to many applicants for water consents, that they have been expensive, litigious, and extremely difficult. Many applicants have said to me that they lodge a consent with Environment Canterbury, then go back home to the farm and wait for the bills to come in. They do not necessarily see any action, but they certainly see the paperwork.

There has been a total lack of determination by Environment Canterbury to tackle the allocation issues in the Waitaki catchment. There is a huge backlog of consent applications and renewals going right back to the time of Project Aqua. I take my hat off to former councillor June Slee, who was practically a lone voice in Environment Canterbury when she was calling for it to come to grips with its responsibilities.

This is a bill that looks to fix the problems we have now and set a good policy framework for water management for Canterbury in the future. This is something the National Government has faced up to, which Labour failed utterly at.

This time last year, by ramming legislation through the House under urgency, this National Government staged a coup against democracy in Auckland. This National Government bypassed Aucklanders’ right to a referendum under the Local Government Act, and that Minister sitting over there, Rodney Hide, embarked on the most cynical undermining of democracy this country has seen in many a year. Aucklanders thought that that was bad, and they were right. People all around the country have been wondering who is next for the chop.

Today the people of Canterbury have experienced an even more barefaced outrage: the abrogation of their district council and the sacking of their elected representatives. I want to read a quote: “Elections are central to democracy, but they are not always on their own a magic or quick-fix solution.” I invite members of this House to guess who said those words. Could it be Nick Smith, maybe? Wyatt Creech? Nicky Wagner? Amy Adams? Could it even be Rodney Hide? Actually, it was Frank Bainimarama in 2008. Elections will not be held for Environment Canterbury until 2013, perhaps slightly before Commodore Bainimarama plans to hold elections in Fiji but not much before. I say welcome to Fiji on the Rakaia.

This Government has form when it comes to riding roughshod over our nation’s democratic traditions. That is what is happening here tonight in this House as the elected representatives of the people of Canterbury are sacked by Nick Smith and Rodney Hide. They have done it before in Auckland. They bypassed Aucklanders’ right to a referendum on forced amalgamation, they stole the democratic rights of local communities in Auckland, they rammed through changes in this House under urgency, and there has been a rushed and inadequate consultation process. In all of that process over the last year, at least they made a pathetic attempt to listen to Aucklanders, even though it was mostly a fake listening campaign. It is no wonder Aucklanders feel ignored, and 56 percent of them told the New Zealand Herald the other day that they do not want to be part of a super-city.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Did they have a select committee in Auckland?

They had a select committee in Auckland, but they are not having a select committee for this bill. They do not even think the people of Canterbury deserve the courtesy of a select committee process. This outrage shows a total disdain for the democratic rights of the people of Canterbury. For this National Government and its cronies, democracy is an inconvenience. It is an irritation. When democracy gets in the way of National’s objectives and agenda, it is given the chop.

Environment Canterbury has had a very difficult time dealing with the tensions associated with water allocations. No one has come down to the House tonight and suggested that Environment Canterbury has done a good job. No one is suggesting that. It has had problems, but the response of this Government is to take it out to the back of the wood shed and dispatch it with a blow to the head. Fourteen councillors are getting the chop, and with them go the democratic rights of the people of Canterbury.

For the next 3½ years the people of Canterbury will have no say and no input, and there will be no accountability for the actions that Rodney Hide and Nick Smith’s appointees will make on their behalf. That is the way Nick Smith and Rodney Hide like it. This National Government is so divorced from our country’s traditions and democratic institutions, and cares so little that it is not even embarrassed in the slightest by what it is doing tonight. It has no conscience and no embarrassment about abrogating the democratic rights of the people of Canterbury simply because Environment Canterbury is not doing its bidding and is struggling to come to terms with one of the most difficult environment and development issues this country faces. For this National Government that is enough justification to take Environment Canterbury out the back and knock it on the head.

One would think that this Government would have thought twice before doing this, given the bath it is taking in Auckland. Anger, resentment, mistrust, and anxiety about our democratic institutions are being expressed from Pukekohe to Wellsford by Aucklanders of all political persuasions. They do not like what this Government is doing. They do not like the fact that Rodney Hide, whose party earned 3.65 percent of the vote in the last election, is running local government policy and undertaking one of the most damaging initiatives that local government has seen in this country’s history. People understand what is going on. They are not silly. They understand that this Government is taking away the rights of local communities to have a say and is handing those rights and that power to Nick Smith’s and Rodney Hide’s hand-picked appointees. They do not like it.

This National Government has a very retro approach to democracy. It is taking us back to the future. This is not democracy in the 21st century. The National Government is taking us back to oligarchy and the days of the 19th century. That is the kind of politics it is comfortable with. It is so much more efficient to have the great and the good sitting around the boardroom table, making decisions on behalf of everybody else. It is so much more efficient. It is so much tidier to have the boardroom in control instead of the ballot box. That is the way Rodney Hide likes it. It is not a lot different from Rodney Hide’s and Steven Joyce’s so-called council-controlled organisations, which will be in charge of 75 percent of the assets, income, and expenditure of the Auckland Council if they have their way and continue with their agenda of corporatising Auckland local government and handing over that city’s resources and assets to their hand-picked mates. I ask members to consider the cavalier disregard for our democratic institutions, the speed with which this Government is willing to throw them out the window and install its own hand-picked appointees to run our institutions, and the whiff of oligarchy that hangs over this disgraceful legislation. Members should make no mistake: this Government is a threat to our democracy.

For 3½ years the people of Canterbury will have no representation. They will continue to pay rates, but they will have no say and no input into how the commissioners deal with their resources and their environment. Rodney Hide and Nick Smith are going to take over because they think they know better. They will hand-pick the decision makers and try to get them to ram through their agenda. National does not trust the people. It is only a few months until the local elections. This Government does not trust the people of Canterbury to look at the situation, make an informed judgment, and democratically elect their representatives to take office and sort the situation out. The people know there is a problem. They know things need to change, but this Government does not trust them.

Oligarchy and cronyism go together. We have seen it in Auckland. We saw the former National Party president, Michelle Boag, advising John Banks’ mayoral campaign and hired by Rodney Hide’s Auckland Transition Agency to recruit senior executives for the super-city. For an entire week Rodney Hide, Mark Ford, Michelle Boag, and John Banks all denied that there was a conflict of interest. They do not really see things that way. They do not see that it is a conflict of interest to have their cronies making decisions on their behalf. Rodney Hide and Steven Joyce are appointing the directors of the council-controlled organisations.

It is a pleasure to stand and speak on the second reading of the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill. We would not know we were talking about Canterbury after hearing the member who has just resumed his seat, Phil Twyford, talk about what is going on in Auckland. For the people listening tonight I will read what the review group unanimously concluded, which is that the institutional failure in Environment Canterbury “requires comprehensive and rapid intervention on the part of central government to protect and enhance both regional and national well-being. Failure to intervene will lead to continued lack of progress in water management in Canterbury.”

The review panel, which undertook a series of consultations with councillors and various review groups up and down Canterbury, came to that conclusion. It got to the situation where it found that Environment Canterbury was broken. It found that the situation was the tyranny of democracy. People came into people’s offices and said that Environment Canterbury was not delivering what they want, that it was not delivering the needs of the people, that it was broken, and that we needed to bring in some commissioners to put in place a fundamental change in the nature of Environment Canterbury.

When we look at the review report we see a series of recommendations. Tonight the focus has been on water. But there have been many other recommendations, and they include the need for a review of public transport. No member on that side has spoken about those recommendations. All they care about is the threat to democracy. They fear that there might not be an election in 3½ years. Well, there might be a miracle. The situation in 6 months or 8 months may be that the commissioners have fixed Environment Canterbury, although I doubt it. We have allowed enough time to fix the problem and not have some half-cut solution.

Environment Canterbury does not have issues just around the water strategy. We are very happy to include the Canterbury Water Management Strategy in schedule 1 of this bill, and I think that is a good step forward. There has been fear on the other side of the House that that would not happen and that we would not abide by those principles. But they are in schedule 1, and I think that is a good thing. Many members of Parliament were involved in the consultation around that strategy, and those rights and principles are enshrined in the bill. Another area where there is fault with Environment Canterbury concerns discussion with iwi in the local area. There have been major problems with that discussion and a need to bring in more resources for iwi liaison. The bill will allow more consultation to be put in place.

The great fear I seem to hear from the other side of the House is the fear of success, the fear that Environment Canterbury might change and actually be better for the people of Canterbury. I think there is a fear of giving Environment Canterbury a chance over the next 3½ years to be fixed and to give the people of Canterbury what they want. They want a council that delivers them the resources they want. It is not just across the councillors; it is across the entire council. The council is broken.

I look forward, during the debate on the remaining stages of this bill, to hearing some sensible discussion from the raucous banshee on that side of House. Thank you very much.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Your predecessor, the Deputy Speaker, asked me to withdraw a name I used for a colleague across the House, which I did. In order to be consistent—as my remark was far more benign than the rudeness of the member, Aaron Gilmore, in his last comments—I invite you to take some action.

As I recall the comment, it was something about a “raucous banshee”. I would have thought it was not a particularly offensive term. It is very graphic and colourful; it is a term that is not often heard. But I would not say it is necessarily offensive. I often like to have a bit of colour, so I will not take any offence.

I am pleased to take another call in the second reading of the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill. If ever there was a misnamed bill, this is it. This bill is in the name of the Minister for the Environment, Nick Smith, who is on record time after time, when he was in Opposition, criticising water quality around New Zealand. It is rather like when he criticised noisy exhausts; he has done nothing about that either. Here we have a bill that rather inappropriately talks in its explanatory note about temporary commissioners and improved water management. There is nothing temporary in the fact that this bill will disestablish Environment Canterbury’s democratic rights for the next 3½ years, and there is nothing in the bill, in my view, to improve water quality—quite the contrary.

I also note that this bill is in effect an outrageous affront to democracy and to Canterbury voters. I suggest that it is actually giving the two-fingered salute to the voters of Canterbury. They will have to continue paying the bill for the commissioners, at an undetermined rate, I have to say—it is left up to the Minister’s discretion, if my memory of the bill is correct—and they will have to pay the bill not just for the per diem rate that the commissioners are paid but also any transport and travel costs. So Government members should not talk about costs to ratepayers being reduced under this bill. It is absolutely the opposite. I think this bill is saying to the voters of Canterbury that they are simply not intelligent enough to make the decisions about who is best to make the choices for Canterbury on water issues. That is the subtext of this bill. It is saying that the voters of Canterbury do not have the intellect to be able to decide how their water rights and how Environment Canterbury should be run. I think that is a galling statement from National, which supposedly prides itself on democratic principles. I absolutely believe that is the case.

I note from announcements today that the Minister has decided that Dame Margaret Bazley will be the commission chair - designate. I have to ask who the other commissioners provided for in this bill will be.

💬 Hon George Hawkins: Alec Neill.

There is a name to conjure with. I noticed on the Television One news tonight that Dame Margaret is already in place in Christchurch and has been welcomed by a beaming, soon-to-be-former chair of Environment Canterbury, that little known former backbench MP Alec Neill. Maybe he will be given a job, and that raises questions about who else will be given a job as the Government scrambles to put together a suite of commissioners to take over the running of Environment Canterbury.

This bill is just an outrage; it will take away a democratically elected council. It is showing contempt for the democratic process, as the Government has done previously in Auckland. It is a signal victory for the Minister of Local Government. He is managing to do to Canterbury what he is has done to Auckland by completely neglecting the democratic process, the wishes of the people, and the chance for them to have any input. Here is a bill coming through under urgency with not a skerrick of a chance for any input from anybody, be they from Canterbury or anywhere else. It is violating the fundamental principle that people should not be taxed unless they are represented. I think, from memory, that that was the cause of the Boston Tea Party in America in the 1700s, which led to the American Revolution.

I hear there will be pickets outside the offices of four National MPs in Canterbury tomorrow. They seem not to have noticed that there is a fifth National MP in Christchurch, Aaron Gilmore. It was unkind of my colleague Clayton Cosgrove to pick on Aaron Gilmore, because maybe he is not aware that Aaron is shopping around in Southland looking for a seat down there. That is maybe why the voters of Canterbury will not miss him tomorrow.

This bill is being forced through under urgency. There is no signal in it from the Government, or from the Minister, as to how there will be better balanced environmental outcomes. The bill makes reference to the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. I uphold the strategy. I think it is a very, very good thing. It is a round-table, locally driven initiative, which brought together people from the environmental movement, farmers, and irrigators. It is a winner. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Canterbury. However, I think it is being put at risk, because on one page this bill says it upholds the principles of the water strategy but then on another it says it wants to see the rapid allocation of water. The fundamental tenet of that strategy, brought together so patiently by so many good people in Canterbury, is around environmental matters. It states that sustainable management is the first primary principle, that water is a public resource, and that first order priority consideration has to be the environment, followed by customary uses, by community supplies, and by stock water. What is this bill going to do? Is that the sequence that will be applied, or will it meet the Prime Minister’s stated agenda that he wants to see new projects on the blocks in Canterbury next year without—and the Minister for the Environment has confirmed this—any accompanying legislation to this bill to put in place any new environmental standards?

The Minister can throw the borax back to this side of the House and say we did not put in place proper standards, but he has been the Minister for nigh on 18 months and he has had the opportunity to take to Cabinet a whole range of proposals around water quality. He is waiting for the Land and Water Forum to deliver. I think that the forum will, in effect, emulate what has happened with the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. I think it will try to bring together a round-table consensus, such as we had with the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. But if the Canterbury Water Management Strategy is effectively abrogated by the rapid allocation of water, then the people who put that strategy together will walk from it, and that will send the signal to the Land and Water Forum that it is going to have exactly the same issues. The forum will not hold those parties to it because it will see that the Government has an agenda on one side for rapid allocation. It is talking the talk about environmental balance, but what party in Government does not talk the talk about environmental balance? It has to be delivered on, and we are at the point with the Canterbury Water Management Strategy that it could start to be implemented, given real support. It needs real support. The Government cannot undermine that by having a strategy or an agenda alongside it that says it wants quick runs on the board and that it wants to see new water in place next year.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: We didn’t say that.

The Prime Minister is on the record on that, as Dr Smith well knows. I think the Minister has lost the battle in Cabinet over this. Those who want to see quick runs on the board to make it look good in next year’s election will be ahead in terms of the decisions.

That is the result of today, and that is why I say that Dr Smith has lost out and Rodney Hide has effectively had a second victory in terms of local government at the expense of ratepayers, first in Auckland and now in Canterbury. The people of Canterbury have lost their rights, they have lost their democratic say, and they have lost their chance for input. They have not been given a single chance to be heard other than through the Creech review, which simply went to Canterbury, talked to 20 different groups in 3 weeks, and came back and wrote a rushed report, which is now followed by rushed legislation. That is not the way to get it right for my province of Canterbury.

The water strategy is in place, it is a fundamentally good document, and it has broad buy-in. It is a Canterbury document put together by Cantabrians. It was driven by Environment Canterbury—and that is part of the irony of all of this—and Environment Canterbury, in fact, was starting to deliver. It was meeting 90 percent of its resource consents in the approved time frames, and that is as good as any other local authority. I should note, of course, that the person who was the chair of the resource consents committee for Environment Canterbury for most of the time that the Government identified as problematic is now the departing chair of Environment Canterbury. However, that is putting a rather blunt point on things. The fact is that Environment Canterbury was starting to get its act together, it was the driver of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy, and it deserves to have support. It deserves to have more than a ritual bow, which this legislation attaches to it by putting it as schedule 1 to the Act and making a couple of references to it. It deserves to be enshrined in legislation and given a lot more support than is envisaged in this bill. This bill is doing away with the democratic right of Cantabrians to decide who is in charge of the big economic driver of their province.

We on this side of the House want to see sustainable growth and we want to see new jobs, but we do not want to see another generation of water quality going backwards. This is the first time we have had to get it right, and this Government is ripping that asunder with this bill. It will put that water strategy under intense pressure, and my belief is that we will see it fly apart in a very short time frame as the Government implements its agenda for the rapid allocation of water. That is a tragedy in the making, because we will not have this opportunity again. We will not get that number of people in a round-table, consensus fashion putting aside their own separate interests to try to do something for the benefit of our province. We will not get that again. If it falls apart in Canterbury, it will not be able to fly on a national basis.