Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This bill continues to help provide the Canterbury region with stable and effective governance. This stability remains an important goal to provide a platform for Canterbury’s future growth and to assist with the earthquake recovery.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: No it doesn’t. It does nothing to assist it.

The Canterbury region is of national significance, as the member across the House would understand. It has huge economic growth potential and it is a key driver in making New Zealand a more productive and competitive economy.

Canterbury’s vast and valuable water resources, its significant capacity to support highly productive agriculture, its size, its history of competing interests for resources, and the demands of earthquake recovery continue to set it apart from other regions. The Environment Canterbury regional council’s role in realising the region’s full potential is of critical importance. There is a strong need for a governance arrangement that maintains the council’s current momentum and effectiveness, particularly in freshwater management. Effective regional decision-making is particularly important during the critical period of earthquake recovery and major Government investments in water and other infrastructure from 2013 to 2016.

However, it has to be said that in the past the actions of Environment Canterbury have not always achieved the standards required of it. In 2010 the Government was confronted with a serious situation that had arisen with the then Environment Canterbury regional council. The council had lost the confidence of its community, including every one of the region’s 10 mayors. An independent review found that the council’s failures required comprehensive and rapid intervention on the part of central government to protect and enhance both regional and national well-being.

In particular, despite almost two decades since the passing of the Resource Management Act, there was no operative plan in Canterbury to manage its fresh water, and the council was not capable, according to that report, of delivering one. If you are concerned about the environment, then these actions are very important. So in 2010 the Government acted. We passed the original 2010 Act that provided special governance and resource management arrangements to address the situation, and appointed seven commissioners for a 3-year term. Since then, the commissioners, under the leadership of Dame Margaret Bazley, have proved highly effective in addressing urgent problems with water management in Canterbury and in rebuilding key stakeholder relationships.

Dame Margaret is a public servant of the highest calibre who has served successive Governments. She and the commissioners have been very successful in a short space of time. The commissioners have brought a collaborative approach to decision making, which I understand has been widely appreciated in the region. In short, they have done a great job.

Some of their significant achievements include the receipt of eight of the 10 zone implementation programmes under the Canterbury Water Management Strategy, and successful applications to the Government’s Fresh Start for Fresh Water Clean-up Fund for Lake Ellesmere and the Wainono Lagoon. These are important environmental initiatives for that region. They have also included progress towards a land-use recovery plan and a second-generation land and water regional plan. It has also included a massive increase in consent processing time frame compliance, to 92 percent in 2010-11, and throughout 2011-12, with a current average of 93 percent compliance. That is an excellent result.

However, their work is as yet unfinished. There are a number of initiatives critical to Canterbury’s environment and economy that are either incomplete or still in progress. The second-generation land and water regional plan and other plans will not be adopted by late 2013, nor will the Canterbury Water Management Strategy be fully implemented. These are core components of freshwater decision-making and management in Canterbury. In particular, the Canterbury Water Management Strategy is critical to unlocking the region’s economic potential in an environmentally sustainable manner. This remains the commission’s top priority.

Another critical factor to consider is the impact of the Canterbury earthquakes. The earthquakes struck subsequent to the original 2010 legislation. This has reinforced the need for a competent and consistent approach to planning for infrastructure from this organisation. In the interests of Canterbury’s progress and to protect the gains the commissioners have made, it is vital that we continue with the current governance arrangement for another 3 years. Accordingly, the bill provides that commissioner-led governance of Environment Canterbury will continue until the 2016 local authority elections. The bill also retains the 2010 Act’s provisions that provide Environment Canterbury with additional resource management powers and functions. The continuation of the current arrangements will facilitate the region’s economic growth and recovery.

The commissioners have been able to build strong relationships with the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, Christchurch City Council, Selwyn District Council, and Waimakariri District Council on earthquake response and recovery matters. To displace or to interrupt these relationships at this point in time would significantly impede the region’s progress.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Local Government and Environment Committee, chaired by Nicky Wagner, for the committee’s consideration of the bill and, in addition, thank those other members on the committee. I also acknowledge the genuine concerns expressed by submitters on the bill about the decision not to hold regional council elections in 2013, as was originally planned. This decision was not taken lightly. However, for the reasons I have outlined, continuing with commissioner-led governance for another 3 years is justified in the circumstances.

Our intention is to transition the regional governance of Canterbury back to elections by 2016. This is why the bill provides for a review of Environment Canterbury’s governance arrangements. The review is mandatory and must begin on 1 March 2014. It will look at Environment Canterbury’s governance structure, membership, and resource management powers.

The bill is about enabling the Canterbury region to prosper and enabling the commissioners to complete their excellent work. The people of Canterbury deserve strong and effective leadership from this organisation. The commissioners have delivered this over the last 3 years and will continue to do so. I thank them for that. This bill will ensure robust, effective, and stable regional governance for Canterbury, and therefore I commend the bill to the House.

I rise to speak in the second reading of the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill. I have to say I am very disappointed in the speech from the new Minister of Local Government. I thought, having been given responsibility for a major portfolio, that he might have taken some time to have some new thinking in his portfolio area. But what has he done? He comes into this House and trots out the same arguments of the two previous Ministers in regard to Canterbury. So I think he has made a start that he will be ashamed of in the future, because he could have put his mark on local government, but he has decided not to, and he has decided to back an undemocratic bill for the people of Canterbury.

What this bill does is to delay the elections of Environment Canterbury until 2016, with a little review in 2014. The Minister said it was a transition. That is not the transition that Dame Margaret Bazley—the woman he has just said was a very high public servant—suggested to him. I absolutely agree, so why did they not listen to her? Why did they not take notice of what she recommended to the Government, which was a transition to a fully elected council? They totally ignored what she said. So those were hollow words from the Minister of Local Government in regard to Dame Margaret Bazley.

But this is a broken promise from the Key Government, because when Nick Smith was Minister he said that whatever the circumstances—whatever the circumstances—the next Environment Canterbury election would be in 2013. He said: “the next regional council elections in Canterbury will take place no later than those scheduled for late 2013. The explicit intent”—he went on to say—“is for the commissioners to withdraw and to be replaced by elected representatives as soon as their task is achieved and the present systemic issues are resolved.” The task has been achieved and the issues have been resolved. But he did not just say it, he actually made it equally clear in the Cabinet papers he presented to the Government. He said: “I propose that this election be deferred until such time as the commissioners have satisfactorily addressed the immediate issues facing ECan, but no later than the local body elections scheduled for 2013.” Those immediate issues have been resolved. Why is this election being delayed?

The first Cabinet paper put up by the next Minister of Local Government, David Carter, and the Minister for the Environment, Amy Adams, stated that any option except a return to a fully elected council would be a limit on the democratic rights of the residents of Canterbury compared with the rest of New Zealand. That was what was in a Cabinet paper from the former Minister of Local Government and the Minister for the Environment. They said that any option except a return to a fully elected council would limit the democratic rights of residents of Canterbury compared with the rest of New Zealand. Well, it is obvious they were rolled. They were rolled at Cabinet and the Government decided to extend Environment Canterbury’s term, thereby denying the people of Canterbury a vote for another 3 years.

And what is being used? The earthquake. It is a very convenient excuse for everything that the Government does. It blames it for the fact that there is rising unemployment, it blames it for the fact that there is loss of jobs, it blames it for the fact it is getting nowhere in its policies—it is all the fault of the Christchurch earthquake. And it has done it again on the Environment Canterbury elections, which should be held this year. Our suspicion is that this latest U-turn is just a precursor to the Government’s plans for regional amalgamation in Canterbury on a grand scale. Why will it not be upfront and tell the people of Canterbury that what it really wants to happen is for there to be a major amalgamation of all those councils? No, it is hiding that, and it is hiding behind the earthquake in Christchurch as to why it needs to delay elections in this area.

Well, what did the Chief Human Rights Commissioner, David Rutherford, say? He is not a Labour person; in fact, he was appointed by the National Government. What did he say to the select committee? He said: “Our view continues to be that the undemocratic way in which the original legislation was introduced, and its continuance, is simply wrong from a human rights perspective.” That is what the Chief Human Rights Commissioner, David Rutherford, National’s appointment, said about its legislation. Is it not all stacking up? You have got some very important people telling the Government to have elections in Christchurch, but the Government is totally ignoring them.

And what do the residents of Christchurch think? Well, they are pretty outraged at what has been done to them, and there has been a series of very significant protests held in Christchurch against the fact that there will be no elections for Environment Canterbury until 2016. They see that as a loss of democracy in this very troubled city. Even the Christchurch City Council has overwhelmingly expressed its opposition to the move, and it said it was going to seek a meeting with the Minister to ask why the elections are being postponed. Well, that will be a fat lot of use. That will get it nowhere because the Government decided that there was one issue, and one issue alone—well, two issues as to why it was postponing them. One is the major amalgamation, and the other is the effect of irrigation—the effect of irrigation. To hell with democracy, let us worry about irrigation for the farmers! To hell with democracy, let us worry about whether or not the farmers get a bit of water! Let us protect their irrigation. Democracy does not count when it comes to whether or not the farmers get a fair deal. That is what the bottom line is in this.

David Carter admitted in answer to oral questions in this House that his officials advised that there should be a transition to a democratically elected council, and he actually agreed at that stage that there should be a transition. The option that was put forward was an option where you would have a mixed governing body as a transition. So when the Minister talks about transitioning by having a review, that is not a transition, Minister; that is a review. The transition model that was put up out of the five models and supported by Dame Margaret Bazley was that you actually have a transitional mixed governing body for Environment Canterbury, with provision for the Minister of Local Government to review the arrangements by 2017. That was rejected by the National Government. It cancelled the election and cancelled the democratic rights of the people of Canterbury. We absolutely oppose this bill, and we will continue to oppose it, and so did the regulatory impact statement.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.