Peters Jim: Wellington Regional Council (Water Board Functions) Bill — Second Reading 
Peters Jim: Wellington Regional Council (Water Board Functions) Bill — Second Reading 
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JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 On behalf of New Zealand First I say that we will support this bill going on to the Committee stage but we do so with some issues yet to be resolved. The first point I wish to raise is that it is unfortunate that this bill came to the House from the Wellington Regional Council without there being a broader understanding of the past use of the land under the Wellington Regional Water Board Act of 1972 and secondly and probably more important without an attached management plan. A management plan was not a requirement of this bill but ought to have been an issue that the Local Government and Environment Committee did not need to consider. In other words there should have been a broad understanding before us as to what the Wellington Regional Council was really on about. 
The reason I say that is that it is disappointing to find that land that was set aside for long-term water supply—and in terms of that water supply to meet the need to establish forests and carry out forestry operations—did not have those express purposes carried through in the past. No evidence was brought to the committee to establish that the prime requirement of the water board Act had been carried out. There was no indication today that the land which was held for water supply and forestry purposes—and we were assured by some submitters there were very high botanical biodiversity and other recreational values implicit in this block of land—had been provided for in any short-term medium-term or long-term management plan. Although we urged in the preamble that the regional council do those things there is nothing binding upon it to do so. 
The other unfortunate issue that I wish to bring before the House is that the Local Government Act of 2002 gave to regional councils and to other councils a very expansive role. In that role there are three so-called well-being matters provided for in the Act. It is very disappointing to see many councils picking up that expansive role and going ahead and developing plans and spending budgets that are far beyond the capacity of their councils now. In some cases they are incurring debt simply because under the 2002 Act the long-term community plan empowered them to go about such actions. In the development of such plans by many councils there has been a very cursory examination of them by ratepayers. Many councils have not done thorough long-term and on-going consultation. The result is that ratepayers 2 years later—in 2005 and 2006—are to be subjected to the comment by councils that they proposed doing something in the community plan and are now going to do it. I fear that in this case the Wellington Regional Council may do the same as that. It is the pattern I am observing at present and observed last year. 
The permissiveness that the Act gave was not mandatory. It was a permissive Act that provided that councils could carry out various activities under the legislation and many councils are not using that permissiveness wisely. They are certainly not using it wisely in terms of the financial capacities and other capacities of their ratepayers bearing in mind the burden of extravagant council planning. We in New Zealand First give a message to the Wellington Regional Council to have a care for its ratepayers—the situation is exactly the same as the Hon Roger Sowry has just said—before it embarks upon any developments under this legislation. 
The select committee in the course of its work made some changes to the bill. In particular we have made a change to clause 4 in Part 2 which states that the Wellington Regional Council may “construct operate and maintain electrical installations or works for renewable energy on the land”. That was because we had the concept of wind power in mind. It is strange that right now wind power seems to be the perceived wisdom of those who have the idea that it will suddenly and at last solve our energy problems. That is very fine but the rural people whom I talk to are very very fearful of wind power operation—first of all because of the ungainly sight of it and second because of the whirring noises which never seem to cease. Anyone who has talked to those who live by a wind farm in the United Kingdom will say just that. Of course that fact does not concern most of us who live in towns or in the middle of Wellington because the wind farms are in somebody else’s backyard. But I say wind power is not the answer that it may seem to be if the wind farm is sited on one’s back door. Therefore to some degree if the Wellington Regional Council is allowed to establish and maintain those electrical installations provided it bears in mind the amenity values the sites and so on that will be affected by those strange whirring creatures that may be fine. 
But we are still somewhat uncertain as to the intention of the Wellington Regional Council. I too concur with the Hon Roger Sowry because although the regional council gave us an assurance that it would follow the legal requirements I was still left with the uncomfortable feeling that the notified basis for consents was not being preserved in this bill. If we relate that to what I have just said about long-term community plans and the annual planning of councils going on virtually unheralded but certainly not unrated it is very very disappointing to see the ability of any council to carry out non-notified works of this type. The only assurance we had was to the extent allowed by the law. I would have thought personally that the regional council should have been very fulsome and said absolutely that there would be a notified basis to any application. The people who came to the select committee from the council said almost that but did not quite give a real assurance. 
We support the bill going on to the Committee stage. We hope to have answers to the questions raised by the last speaker and raised by us in regard to the still uncertain nature of whether there will be a notified consent process and on exactly what the regional council has in mind with regard to a third party building operating and maintaining an electrical installation on the land. But most important of all we would want to see greater assurance from the Minister in the Committee stage that the long-term management plans which we do not have the ability to seek under this bill will be at the forefront of the council’s mind before it embarks upon any extensive industrial development such as wind farms. 
So New Zealand First supports this bill going to the Committee stage. We do not give an assurance that we will support it further than that but we await the developments and discussions during the Committee stage.