Environment Canterbury (Democracy Restoration) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Environment Canterbury (Democracy Restoration) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider this bill. Can I begin by acknowledging my former parliamentary colleague Brendon Burns, who at the time of the lodging of this bill in the ballot was the member of Parliament for Christchurch Central. He came second in the last election to Nicky Wagner, and so I have the privilege of taking this bill over, and it is now in my name. But I have to acknowledge Brendon, not just for the work he did on this bill but for the work he did on many issues in Canterbury and indeed around the country.

A lot of members of the House will know that sometimes when the nights are getting long and the debates are starting to get a bit short we have a bit of fun over titles of bills. We make up interesting titles for bills that we do not agree with, and use our 5 minutes or 10 minutes of speaking time for that. Some people might read this title, Environment Canterbury (Democracy Restoration) Amendment Bill, and ask whether that is made up, because surely there must be democracy in Canterbury and there could not be a need for democracy restoration in one of the finest provinces in the country.

Let me explain to the House that in March of 2010 the then Minister for the Environment, the Hon Nick Smith, took away the right of Cantabrians to vote for our regional council. It was an extraordinary move, supported by National Party members of Parliament from Canterbury. In that debate we lost our right to vote.

💬 Dr Paul Hutchison: They made a balls-up.

Dr Paul Hutchison says they made a balls-up. Well, of course, there has never ever been a single local authority in the whole history of New Zealand, anywhere in the country, that has not made a mistake or has not gone fast enough, or has not been of the political flavour of the Government of the day. But they do not get scrapped, because what we treasure more than anything in New Zealand is our right to vote. If we end up not getting the person we voted for, we say: “Well, bother, darn, blast, but that’s democracy.” It is sort of the downside of democracy that you do not get who you want, but it is a treasured part of a democratic process.

Our right to vote for our own councillors was taken away, because Nick Smith had been implored by the member of Parliament for Rangitata, the Hon Jo Goodhew, and by the member of Parliament for somewhere south of that, Jacqui Dean, aided and abetted by our mayor, I regret to say, Bob Parker, and the current member of Parliament for Christchurch Central, Nicky Wagner, who all conspired to say: “Let’s get rid of this lot.”

In my view it was about more than just frustration with the council; it was about who controlled access to our water and who controlled the rights to consenting for irrigation. That is the biggest issue in Canterbury. We have the issue of water like no other region has, and Environment Canterbury was concerned about it and was putting in place a water management strategy that would have given our control of water back and taken it out of the hands of irresponsible irrigators. That has all gone now, in the main, other than through the Canterbury Water Management Strategy, which the Environment Canterbury councillors and then chief executive started, before they were sacked.

This is a pretty straightforward bill. It just says, like it or lump it, democracy is the best thing to have, and we should not throw it out lightly.

💬 Su’a William Sio: People have died for it.

People have died for it, quite literally. Thank goodness they have not had to in New Zealand. Thank goodness we have always had better respect for democracy. I think it is about time. We have had a good period now—2 years—with commissioners appointed by the Government. This bill, by the way, is not a criticism of any of them individually. I cannot be bothered with that sort of debate. I have got respect for some of them; I do not agree with others. That is not the point. The issue is not whether we like people or not, it is not whether we are politically on side with them, it is not whether they will do the bidding of the Prime Minister or the Minister for the Environment and let irrigation consents be granted inappropriately, or whether they will be the lapdog of the local member of Parliament. It is whether we, as Cantabrians, have a right to vote for what we see as our elected representative. It does not seem like a very big ask to me.

Just while I am on the topic of commissioners, we did have a bit of entertainment in that Wyatt Creech, former National Cabinet Minister and highly respected person in his own right, had done the review of Environment Canterbury, and Nick Smith came into the House and quoted it in all sorts of bizarre ways—sorry, misquoted it, actually. Wyatt Creech was put in the most humiliating position of having his statements apparently read out. The Minister would open the document and say: “Look what Wyatt Creech just said.”, and when you read it, Wyatt Creech had not said that at all. He did not say anything like that. Poor old Hon Wyatt Creech had his name sullied in the House by Nick Smith.

The next thing we heard was that the Rt Hon Jenny Shipley, former Prime Minister and leader of the National Party, was going to be one of the appointed commissioners. That would have been a significant conflict given her role in Genesis Energy. But after that was in the paper and after a few weeks of speculation, the right honourable former Prime Minister was forced to say: “Well, actually, I can’t take up that job; it would be a bit of a bother.” So there was quite a lot of controversy with Nick Smith misrepresenting what Wyatt Creech had said in his review of Environment Canterbury, and then Jenny Shipley being touted. It was widely known, certainly in Canterbury and Wellington circles, that her name had gone forward to the top of the list to be an Environment Canterbury commissioner, and then it did not come to pass.

I also want to acknowledge the people who were councillors, who were elected councillors at the time of their dismissal. In my view they did a fine job in a very highly politically charged arena. There was a lot of political tension within Environment Canterbury. That is what you get when you vote for people who do not agree with each other.

I think we have a fair bit of that in this House, and I have not noticed many Ministers coming to this House and saying that we argue a lot in Parliament, we do not often reach agreement, therefore we should sack Parliament. But that is actually what they did. There was a lot of tension within Environment Canterbury, but in my view all the sacked councillors have behaved with a lot of dignity and respect for the institution. They have not gone around saying that they did a good job and they want their jobs back. They have said that they were doing their best, there were tensions, and it was difficult. They said that they could not reach agreement all the time and there was a lot of infighting, but that, actually, they were elected to do their jobs. The Canterbury Water Management Strategy—

💬 Jacqui Dean: Couldn’t get a water plan.

—is a good document. I think the member should be very careful mentioning water, given how much she thinks it is dangerous, and given the fact that she wrote to the Hon Jim Anderton when he was a Minister and said: “Please do something about this dangerous substance, which I have been told is so common in New Zealand.”, and that substance turned out to be water—a very risky subject. I watched the Minister table that member’s letter in the House, and I think I will go down to the Table Office soon and retrieve it so that I can re-table it, because it is a new session of Parliament.

💬 Jacqui Dean: Focused on what’s important, as usual.

I guess from the interjections opposite we are getting an indication that this bill may not be supported, which I think is very disappointing, because, as I said at the beginning, what we are asking for is something that every other New Zealander would expect as a matter of right, and that is our right to vote for our regional councillors, whether we get the person we want in the end or not.

I am having a current battle with the Environment Canterbury commissioners. I take the opportunity to place on record that I think their decision to not allow Cantabrians to have existing use rights to put in log burners is a mistake. It is dumb. It is wrong. Actually, I think the elected councillors would have done the same thing, and I would have been arguing with them. So this is not about any current or past battle, or any future battle I might have with the commissioners, or in fact with our elected councillors. This is about a fundamental point of democracy that has been stolen from us in Canterbury in a way that has never been seen before in New Zealand’s proud history of supporting participation and supporting rights. It is our region, it is our water, and it is our vote. All we are asking is for that vote to be given back to us.

The National Party will not be supporting this Environment Canterbury (Democracy Restoration) Amendment Bill. The bill calls for an immediate special general election for councillors of Environment Canterbury, to be held within 3 months of the bill becoming law. Although I was a councillor of Environment Canterbury and I understand the council’s and the councillors’ disappointment in being disbanded, I am also impressed by the quality of the work that the new commissioners have done and what they have achieved during their term.

As the Hon Ruth Dyson tells us, the threshold for intervention in the affairs of local government by central government is high. It rarely happens and can be considered only if there is serious failure and/or extreme mismanagement. But there is a history of Government intervention into elected bodies. For example, the then Minister of Health, Helen Clark, sacked the Auckland District Health Board in 1989 with the support, actually, of the National Party at the time. Also, in 2008 the then Minister of Health, David Cunliffe, sacked the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board.

💬 Hon Tony Ryall: Not with our support.

Not with our support—OK. The Government intervened in the case of Environment Canterbury because the council had failed to effectively manage Canterbury’s fresh water. It is a truly important natural resource, which we all want managed well. Although Environment Canterbury had had 19 years to get a water plan in place, it had failed to do so. It did not have a fully operational regional planning and policy framework for resource management, which meant that any decisions that had been made were very ad hoc, very inconsistent, and very unsatisfactory. There was an enormous gap between what was being done, what needed to be done, and what Environment Canterbury was delivering.

The commissioners have since taken office and, I must say, they are a very impressive group. They are extremely well qualified and well experienced. They have worked together very effectively and have got some really good outcomes for the people of Canterbury. I just want to have a quick look at, and pay tribute to, those commissioners, because they have done a good job. We have got, firstly, Dame Margaret Bazley, who has led the organisation. Of course, she has been ably supported by David Caygill, who is respected by all sides of politics. The other councillors are David Bedford, who is the chair of Enterprise North Canterbury and owns a small vineyard; Donald Couch, who is the Lincoln University pro-chancellor and has a long history of, and experience in, resource management; Tom Lambie, also a councillor from Lincoln University, who has been involved in environmental policy for many years; Peter Skelton, a former Environment Court judge, who has been hugely helpful in developing water policy; and Rex Williams, again a chancellor but this time from Canterbury University, who has also been involved in water conservation. They are a wide, varied, and experienced group.

The commissioners have focused closely on water management. That is the most challenging issue that Canterbury faces. They have worked hard to implement the collaborative Canterbury Water Management Strategy, and they have made real progress. The 10 zones have been established, and the zone committees are under way. Seven zones have completed their draft programmes and are consulting, and several of the earlier programmes are beginning to be actioned. The commissioners at Environment Canterbury have also worked hard to develop collaborative processing in order to clean up Te Waihora, which is Lake Ellesmere. They have worked with central government, with iwi, and with farmers, and they have invested about $12 million towards their clean-up. This is part of National’s $265 million freshwater clean-up across the country, which includes Lake Taupō, the Waikato River, and the Rotorua lakes. National is aware of how important cleaning up the lakes of Canterbury and managing our water well are, and that it is particularly important that Environment Canterbury operates well. Under the commissioners it has made real progress, and I believe they will hand it back to elected members in a far stronger position for the future.

I am pleased to take a call on this bill, the Environment Canterbury (Democracy Restoration) Amendment Bill. At the outset I would like to congratulate my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson on sponsoring this bill, and I would also like to acknowledge the former member for Christchurch Central Brendon Burns, as has been mentioned previously, for his tireless work while he was the member of Parliament for Christchurch Central and in promoting and advocating the return to democracy in Canterbury.

There has been over 2 years of unelected rule in the Canterbury region with Environment Canterbury—2 years of regional councillors who have been appointed because the previous members of the regional council were, quite literally, all sacked. They were cancelled out, overthrown, and sacked, and that just is absolutely abhorrent to democracy. That is why Labour is supporting this bill. We want to make sure that we can restore democracy for Canterbury and fully constitute elected members to Environment Canterbury.

I had the honour on the eve of the first anniversary of the 22 February quakes to travel through the red zone. When our small group got to Cathedral Square I saw this mound of stones piled up; it must have been around about 2½ metres tall. I asked what it was. Those stones were put in place by the thousands of Cantabrians who had protested the fact that their regional councillors were sacked and overthrown by this Government. That mound of stones withstood the earthquakes—many earthquakes—and they are still standing there as a memorial to the fact that the wishes of the Canterbury ratepayers were totally bulldozed by this Government and the fact that it installed its own commissioners and put in place an unelected group of people to run Environment Canterbury. Those stones, which were drawn from all of the great awa—the great rivers—of the Canterbury region, will still stand there, and they will remain there until we get a democratically elected group of regional councillors, rightly voted in by the people, to actually continue the running of Environment Canterbury.

Democracy was cancelled out by this Government. It has been for over 2 years—

💬 Dr David Clark: Democracy killers.

—absolutely—and why? Well, the simple reason is, if we cut to the chase, that this was all about power politics, so the National Government could facilitate the deals to get its farming mates the rights to the water that they have craved. Sure, the former elected Environment Canterbury had its issues, but the fact is it was highly passionate about the fact of the water management in the Canterbury region. What did this Government do? It saw it as its opportunity to get rid of the elected regional councillors so that it could actually put in place a water management scheme that, incidentally, will be benefiting a lot of the supporters of this National Government.

I would like to also mention the commissioners. I have got nothing against the commissioners who have been installed into Environment Canterbury. I have been to various hui, and I do like to commend Environment Canterbury for the initiatives around Lake Te Waihora and the joint governance—co-governance—arrangement between Ngāi Tahu, the Te Waihora management board, and Environment Canterbury in relation to the clean-up of Lake Te Waihora. That initiative is to be commended, but those initiatives must be entered into with the iwi by elected representatives from the regional council. So I would just like to once again endorse this bill. We are supporting it, and I would like to encourage members on the other side of this House to support it, too. I would like to once again commend the Hon Ruth Dyson.

The Government does not support this member’s bill in the name of Ruth Dyson, the Environment Canterbury (Democracy Restoration) Amendment Bill. The people of Christchurch were badly let down by Environment Canterbury. The problem of water allocation around the area that was administered by Environment Canterbury was that we had a highly contested resource, which in many parts was overallocated already, with a high demand for more allocation. Environment Canterbury utterly failed in its duties to meet its responsibilities, so much so that the Minister for the Environment at the time, Nick Smith, made the wise and brave decision to appoint commissioners in its stead.

Environment Canterbury had 19 years to develop a water plan and it did not do that. What was happening in Canterbury was that water allocation decisions were being made in a policy vacuum. A policy vacuum is not a good method to deal with an important resource. I am mindful of the debate in the previous bill, the Crown Minerals (Protection of Public Conservation Land Listed in the Fourth Schedule) Amendment Bill, where members across the House were decrying the use of schedule 4 land, potentially, for mining. They seemed to be fixated on bringing in more regulation and legislation around that, yet they seemed to be perfectly comfortable with the fact that there was a policy vacuum in Environment Canterbury at the time, which meant that water allocation was being done in a haphazard and unplanned way. There is a bit of an irony in there, which I suspect is lost on members across the House.

As the constituency member of Parliament with responsibilities from Geraldine south down to the Waitaki River, I had a number of my constituents who were either looking to renew their water allocation permits or going for new water allocation permits, and who were suffering from an ongoing battle of cost. They would wait for years for Environment Canterbury to deal with their allocation requests, or, indeed, any form of trouble or complaint they had. They would then come to me. Of course I would ring Environment Canterbury or I would write to Environment Canterbury, and I, too, experienced the frustration of trying to get a decent level of service out of Environment Canterbury. So it was those failures—those failures of not doing its job properly—that led Nick Smith to appoint commissioners to Environment Canterbury, and since then I am happy to say that the complaints have all but dried up.

Of course, no farmer will ever be completely happy with their regional council; that is a bit of a given. But I have to say that the performance of the commissioners has been outstanding. We now have a lot of progress on water management strategy. In fact, more progress had been made, not only by the Environment Canterbury commissioners but also by this National Government, in 3 years than was made in the entire 9 years of the previous Labour Government, when it had its much-vaunted water plan of action, which in effect became the water plan of inaction. Well, I have to say that since that time a lot of progress has been made to the benefit of the people of Canterbury, and that is something that I suspect is lost on those members opposite, who are so fixated that they cannot see the wood for the trees. National opposes this member’s bill.

I am pleased to speak in support of the Environment Canterbury (Democracy Restoration) Amendment Bill, which the Green Party will be supporting, because the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Act was very bad law. Canterbury University law professor Philip Joseph said that the Act—which was passed under urgency, in the dead of night, with no opportunity for public scrutiny, no going before a select committee, and no submissions—breached several principles of law, that it is “constitutionally repugnant”, contains “elements of subterfuge”, and is a “constitutional affront”. And as Mr Joseph said in an article in the New Zealand Law Journal: “Representative democracy and independent courts are the twin pillars of the legal system. The abrogation or suspension of the former, even at local government level, has menacing implications.” As he pointed out, electors have resisted the term of this Parliament being extended, and yet that Act put forward no elections for the regional council for more than 3 years, and we still do not have the certainty of when any elections will occur—if they will occur.

That Act was very bad because it was also retrospective. It suspended the ability of the Environment Court to consider the Hurunui water conservation order and the appeals on that order. It interfered with water conservation orders to remove the regulatory roadblocks to irrigation, which is probably why the member for Waitaki’s constituents favoured it.

It has been very disappointing listening to some of the comments from the National members who perpetuate the inaccuracies and the myths that the former Minister of Local Government Rodney Hide and former Minister for the Environment Nick Smith put about that Environment Canterbury had no plan for water. As former judge the Hon Professor Skelton noted soon after becoming a commissioner, Environment Canterbury did have a plan for water; it was the proposed natural resources regional plan. It had been notified back in 2004, submissions were held on it, and it was ready for decisions to be issued in August 2010. National’s Act and the appointment of commissioners, in fact, delayed the notification of decisions on that plan.

The National Government did not sack the Ministry for the Environment. The defects in the Ministry for the Environment and the fact that there was no National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management until very recently were not seen as hanging offences in the same way that the National Government categorised Environment Canterbury. This bill goes a small way to restoring some of the democracy that we need in Canterbury by proposing that there be elections called.

As Rino Tirikatene noted, the cairn—which thousands of Cantabrians erected on a very bleak June winter day, in recognition that we need democracy in Canterbury and in opposition to the actions of the National Government in making it much easier to tamper with water conservation orders for irrigators to access our rivers—still stands as a memorial to the very bad law that the National Government introduced to get rid of regional democracy. National’s Act breached one of the fundamental constitutional principles that there should be no taxation without representation. So we have the Environment Canterbury commissioners putting out for submissions their long-term plan, which proposes that $79 million be raised in targeted rates and general rates, yet there has been no opportunity for elected representatives to decide on how those rates’ revenues should be spent. It is being decided by commissioners without any elected representatives, and that is bad. This bill goes some way to redressing that by providing for elections in Canterbury. The Green Party supports this bill.

New Zealand First will support this Environment Canterbury (Democracy Restoration) Amendment Bill, but, in saying so, we declare one significant reservation. So I guess that although we do support the bill, we stand somewhere between the National Party’s position and that of the other side of the House.

Primarily, it is the interests of democracy that should be the main consideration, and although one may understand the reasons why the commissioners were appointed, which is one thing, it is also necessary, which is the other thing, that those commissioners should be decommissioned and democracy restored as soon as practicable. That is what New Zealanders and democracy demand. There is a need for public support for governance at all levels, including regional councils, and I would have to say that at the present time the commissioners seem rather remote to Canterbury people, and are really not connecting closely to them. That is because, of course, they were not elected by them, they are not directly accountable, and that is not good for community governance.

I would have to say, however, that there were grounds for appointing the commissioners, and I say that sadly. The main reason was progress with water issues. There was a need for a better planning process in relation to water issues by Environment Canterbury, as it was elected, and I for one was not satisfied with the progress that was being made. I say that without any disrespect to the councillors who were elected. I think they did their very best, I think they were competent, and I think they did make some progress, but not enough. I think the main problem, actually, was the support—or lack of it—within Environment Canterbury itself.

That then put aside, it is now certain that the commissioners are no longer needed and should be dispensed with, and elections should be held as soon as possible. The Canterbury Water Management Strategy is well advanced, the water issues are beginning to settle down, and there is a new chief executive officer and management in place in Environment Canterbury. The Central Plains Water consents—and I will declare an interest, in that I have been, and still am, the chair of the Central Plains Water Trust—have been dealt with, mainly through negotiation and settlement. That is also settling down, and there is an accord on Te Waihora. So a lot has been done and a lot has been achieved. I just do not see that there is any longer any need for the commissioners to continue, so there is a need for elections.

I would have to add that, of course, the earthquake has eroded confidence in Canterbury in many things, and that people—and you will understand this—are not feeling great about the whole situation. There is a need not only to restore Christchurch physically but also to restore its communities and its democracy, and all those things really hang together. The real questions, and this is the reservation for New Zealand First, are when and what? And 2013 would appear, on the surface, to be too late. However, if, as we would wish to see, there should be some discussion about whether a unitary authority should be established in Canterbury combining the city council and the regional council, and the same for the other district authorities, then that is something that we think deserves consideration. If people support it, then we will support them on that. If the people do not support it following comprehensive consultation, then that is fine by us as well, because, as I said at the beginning, democracy is the primary consideration, and those options should be put before them.

However, in circumstances where the Government has taken no action whatsoever on these issues despite calls to give them some thought, then we have no choice but to look at this bill as it is in the current circumstances. And in those circumstances we must support it, because, as I have said a couple of times already, democracy is the primary consideration and everything else is secondary. New Zealand First will, accordingly, support the bill.

I rise also to support the Environment Canterbury (Democracy Restoration) Amendment Bill. It was originally in the name of my former colleague Brendon Burns, who worked tirelessly on behalf of not only his constituents in Christchurch Central at the time but also the people of Canterbury in respect of water issues. Water issues are, of course, fundamental to Environment Canterbury’s role. It is not the only role that Environment Canterbury undertakes, but it is an extremely important role, as we have heard in this House already.

I want to focus initially on the report that led to the removal of democratic governance in the region. I think it is important for us to realise that the Government actually intervened in the local government process. It intervened in the process in order to remove a layer of democratic governance that existed in our region. The justification for such a strong intervention and such an undermining of something that is absolutely fundamental in terms of our commitment to civil and political rights in this country was based on a report. That report had two distinct parts to it. One part was clearly a political report. It was politically motivated, it was politically inspired, and it was designed to give an answer to a problem that had already had a resolution decided by the Government of the day. The Government had decided what it wanted, and this part of the report was written specifically to achieve that desired outcome, which was the removal of the democratically elected councillors of Environment Canterbury.

The second report, the objective part of the report, did acknowledge that there had been problems in the past and identified what those problems were, but that part of the report made it absolutely crystal clear that all of those issues were being addressed—every single one of them. They were being addressed in such a way that would give any Government confidence that all it had to do was to allow time for those particular measures that had been put in place to reach fruition, and they would achieve the objective that it said it had set in reviewing the operation of Environment Canterbury. That, to me, was what was fundamentally wrong with the whole process. The Government actually designed a report with a political input and an objective input, but it ignored the objective input and just chose the political input, which actually gave it the result it had already decided on. It had already made up its mind that Environment Canterbury’s elected representatives would go and that they would be replaced by commissioners, and those commissioners were given a task that was actually made much easier as a result of the work that had been going on to resolve some of the problems of the past. They were problems of the past. They were certainly being addressed at the time.

There was no basis for the sacking of Environment Canterbury when the National Government of the day undertook that task, and there is no justification today for the Government to vote against this bill. Christchurch is crying out for the restoration of local democracy, and what we have heard today is a Minister of this Government stand in this House and not deny—which is essentially confirming the fact—that the next layer of democratically elected governance in our city is also on the chopping-block. But it will not go as far as it has gone with Environment Canterbury; it will just strip it of its core function. The Christchurch City Council will lose all of its planning function for the central business district as part of the recovery of our city. I am outraged by this Government going down that track and to find that the Government here tonight will not vote for the restoration of democracy in the region. We know that the Government is planning to remove that vestige of democracy that remains in Christchurch through the core function of the Christchurch City Council. It is an outrage.

I rise to speak against this bill, the Environment Canterbury (Democracy Restoration) Amendment Bill, I am sorry to say. The threshold for intervention in the affairs of local government is necessarily very high and very rare. It is considered only at times of serious failure and mismanagement, and that indeed is what we had with Environment Canterbury, over 19 years, not successfully coming up with a water plan. Canterbury’s 10 mayors—it is worth remembering 10 mayors and councils were unanimous in their support for the findings of the review group. The Government intervened because the council had failed to effectively manage Canterbury’s fresh water, which is a crucial resource. Let us not forget that. It did not have a fully operative regional planning and policy framework in place for resource management, and that resulted in an ad hoc and unsatisfactory arrangement for managing fresh water. There was an enormous and unprecedented gap between what needed to be done to effectively manage Canterbury’s fresh water and Environment Canterbury’s ability to do so.

It was on that basis that the Government made this rather unusual step to move as we did and put in those three commissioners. Dame Margaret Bazley is arguably New Zealand’s most respected public servant and problem solver, and she has shown over the last year the wealth of experience in management and governance that she has in large organisations. David Caygill is, of course, an ex-colleague of members on the other side of the House. David Bedford is the chair of Enterprise North Canterbury. What progress they have made over the course of a year! It has been astonishing. The people of Canterbury had been let down by Environment Canterbury, and now, after just 1 year, the commissioners have put a plan in place. We are very proud, as the National Government, to have been able to take action and to deliver on a promise to fast track a water plan for Canterbury.

The completion of the Canterbury natural resources regional plan last year was a major step forward for Canterbury, meaning that it now has an operational water plan. It is all the more important, after the devastating earthquakes that we had, that we have a guide in place that will help Canterbury’s economic recovery by developing the region’s natural resources while protecting our natural environment. The plan covers, as we have seen, water quality and quantity, the beds and margins of lakes, rivers, and wetlands, groundwater, and soil conservation. It involves different trade-offs between the environment and development. It will be refined in a way that is responsive to the zone committees’ work under the Canterbury Water Management Strategy.

Calling for an election now, as this bill indicates, would simply be going back to the beginning again. If regional elections had been the answer, Canterbury would not have had a water problem such as it had for so long. So National tackled a dysfunctional regional council and completed a resource plan. I am very pleased that we have also adopted a good clean-up plan for Te Waihora / Lake Ellesmere, and that we have advanced the work on the water management strategy.

Just briefly, I can update the House on progress on that Canterbury Water Management Strategy. It is well advanced, with all 10 zone committees and the regional committee appointed. All implementation programmes are either developed, or have been received by the regional council and relevant territorial authorities and are out for consultation. Seven zones have issued their draft reports for consultation. Some of the earlier programmes are now being actioned. Finally, the collaborative model of the 10 zone committees and the regional committee has proven to be very effective.

I oppose this bill. We think the approach that has been taken by National to rein in what was a dysfunctional council and put in commissioners has worked very effectively and will continue to do so for the interim period. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to rise and speak on this bill, the Environment Canterbury (Democracy Restoration) Amendment Bill. I would just like to say that there is a very high threshold that has to apply before a Government will intervene, as Helen Clark did, I recall, in Auckland and as I think David Cunliffe did 3 or 4 years ago in Central Hawke’s Bay. So there is plenty of precedent for what the National Government did in this matter.

There is a connection back into my electorate in the Wairarapa, because one of our companies in Masterton was operating for some years in an arrangement with a wholly owned subsidiary of Environment Canterbury. It was a company called Target Pest, and it was wholly owned by Environment Canterbury—by the local authority. It went into receivership owing more than $2 million. The chief executive of Environment Canterbury had made it clear in writing to the people who suffered the problem of their $2 million loss that, in fact, because this was a local government - owned entity, its bills would be paid by the Government. So although there was concern on the part of people owed money by Target Pest, they were led to believe—wrongly, I might add—by the officials employed by Environment Canterbury that their debt would be settled. It was not.

One of my constituents has lost his house, he has lost his beach house, and in the last 4 or 5 months he has lost his whole business because of the activities of the irresponsible management of the Environment Canterbury council, ably led by Sir Kerry Burke. Some members of this House may recall that I was so furious about this problem that I asked for the Government to remove his knighthood. Certainly he should have given it back, because his stewardship of that arrangement was absolutely outrageous. Not one of the creditors has had a cent back of that $2 million—not one. So I absolutely believe that the Government’s intervention in the affairs of Environment Canterbury was appropriate, and the Government’s intervention was backed at that point by the mayors of the 10 local councils.

Aware of this problem in Canterbury, and the Wairarapa connection, I am particularly delighted that Dame Margaret Bazley was appointed to sort this issue out, because she is, I think, without a doubt New Zealand’s greatest living, most competent public servant. She is certainly very, very highly respected and is a brilliant problem solver. She brings huge experience across a wide variety of management roles in government. She has specialist skills and she is particularly good on organisational and change management. She has also got a huge history of working with Māori communities at whānau, hapū, and iwi level. As well as that, we have also got David Caygill, Helen Clark’s first deputy leader, involved in the management of the council arrangements. I would like the House to note that for 20 years Environment Canterbury could not produce a water plan. Dame Margaret had one on the table in 12 months. I think that the people of Canterbury are being particularly well served by the present arrangement.

If you look at the game playing that is going on in the Wellington region, with various mayors and heads of regional councils all jockeying for position to come out top of the pile in some sort of council reorganisation, I think the people of Canterbury are far better served by this arrangement than by what this bill proposes, which is a return to democracy where a bunch of local people are going to be arguing with each other to be the chief factotums. What we need in Canterbury at the moment is strong, stable leadership in the wake of the earthquake to move that part of New Zealand on. Thank you.

Can I first of all acknowledge and thank all the members who have contributed, and, obviously, those who have indicated their party’s support for my bill, the Environment Canterbury (Democracy Restoration) Amendment Bill, which calls for the restoration of democracy in Canterbury. As I said at the beginning, it is not a big ask. It is what every other person, every other citizen, in the rest of our country has, and that is the ability to vote in an open election for the candidate of their choice to run their local authority—in this case Environment Canterbury, our regional council. We lost that right to vote in March 2010.

My colleague Lianne Dalziel explained the deception that had been brought into this House, very clearly. The report that was presented to the Government by the Hon Wyatt Creech was clearly a report of two halves. One half was written by Wyatt Creech and had a very open style about it. It contained the concerns, the recommendations, and his response to the recommendations. He indicated his high level of satisfaction with the undertakings and work that Environment Canterbury had done in order to address some of the report’s concerns. The second part was a predetermined section written to achieve what the Government wanted, and that was to get rid of Environment Canterbury, which was blocking what the Prime Minister wanted, and that was wholesale irrigation in parts of Canterbury where that irrigation is very contentious.

I deeply regret the fact that people like John Hayes, who is from Wairarapa, thought it was OK to come into this House and say what Canterbury needs. He is not from Canterbury, and it is not up to him to determine what we need. It is not up to the rest of the members of the Government to determine what we need. We have the right to vote for whom we want, whether people like it or not. That is what happens in a democracy. Some people win. Some people lose.

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: She’s not from Canterbury. She’s from Kilbirnie.

We do not always like the outcomes; we just like the process of democracy. Mr Finlayson can chip away, but I am sure that he as Attorney-General would value more than anyone the precious gift we have in New Zealand of democracy. The National Government intervened just over 2 years ago to take away that right to vote. That is all that my bill does; it asks Parliament to restore Cantabrians’ right to vote for their regional council.

I want to acknowledge the member for Christchurch Central at the time, Brendon Burns, my former colleague and long-time friend and future friend, who introduced this bill originally. He put it in the ballot and he was fortunate enough to have it drawn out, but he did not win the election, so the bill has been transferred to my name.

I want to acknowledge the councillors who worked so hard as elected representatives, despite the political differences I had with some of them and the political affiliations I shared with others. They actually prepared the Canterbury Water Management Strategy, which the National members were praising Margaret Bazley for introducing. Actually, I went to several briefings about the Canterbury Water Management Strategy and the structure and the process for a shared view on water management in Canterbury, long before Nick Smith decided to sack the council. Margaret Bazley has more integrity than to claim credit for that. If she was in this House, she would say that what John Hayes, Jacqui Dean, and Nicky Wagner said was not correct. I know her to be a woman of very high integrity. She would have corrected them because she was not responsible for that. That work was undertaken by elected representatives and the chief executive and staff at the time.

When this outrageous breach of our democratic right was undertaken, thousands and thousands of Cantabrians protested on the streets. We erected the cairn of stones from the Waimakariri River that my colleague Rino Tirakatene referred to earlier. It is just in front of the cathedral. Not much else has survived around that neck of the woods. Most of it is in rubble. But we put there a cairn of rocks, and we said at the time that those rocks will stay in that place until Cantabrians have their right to a democratic vote restored. Through our 10,000 or more earthquakes, that cairn of rocks has stood strong. That should be a bit of a message to this House: even mother Nature cannot destroy our passion and desire to have our democratic right to vote for our regional councillors restored. We now know that Gerry Brownlee’s next plot is to strip some core functions from the Christchurch City Council, and, again, I say that is not what we need in Canterbury. What we need is the support of Parliament to get on with the job, which we try to do to our best ability but do not always achieve. Certainly, at the very minimum, we need to have our right to have our vote for our regional council restored.