Burns Brendon: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee 
Burns Brendon: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:661;Page:9998] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I am very pleased to speak to Part 2. Before I do so I would like to note an issue that has come to my attention that relates to the bill in its entirety. If the Chair will indulge me for a moment I will refer to the title. The title of the bill is the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill. The advice to me is that Environment Canterbury is in fact the regional council’s trading name; it is not its legal identity. The legal identity for this organisation is the Canterbury Regional Council. I put it to the Committee and the Minister that this bill is inappropriately named. At the very least this is sloppy drafting but I suspect— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. We are debating Part 2. There is a debate very specifically on the short title of the bill. The procedure is long established that we debate Parts 1 2 and 3 and then the last debate is on the short title. I would welcome a debate around the points the member has raised but they are outside the debate on Part 2 that the Committee is currently having. 
Dr Kennedy Graham 
: I understand the Minister’s point but my concern in the earlier point of order was that I wished to address that point under Part 1 pertaining to clause 4 and was denied the chance to do so. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I do not need any further assistance. I say to the Minister that I think he is unnecessarily finessing the point. As I understood it Brendon Burns was referring to the title because it related to aspects of Part 2 which he is perfectly entitled to do. Yes he can talk about the title and so on later but he was addressing it in the context of Part 2. I invite Brendon Burns to continue. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: I am of course talking about Part 2 of a bill entitled the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill. We know from that title that there are questions around what the bill will do in terms of temporary commissioners what the bill might or might not do to improve water management and now we have serious questions about whether the bill is legally appropriate. I will move from that point but we will come back to that issue in the debate on the short title a little later. 
I note clause 12 and I say I have amendments in my name to the clauses within this part relating to the appointment of commissioners. The provisions in these clauses will give powers to the Minister of Local Government and the Minister for the Environment to amend the terms of reference for those commissioners “at any time”. That removes any scrutiny by Parliament or by any other body and it removes any input from the people whose affairs are being managed by the commissioners. I put it to the Minister who indicated there will be from five to seven commissioners that if one or more of them starts to take a line that is deemed to be unacceptable to the Government the Government will have the power to remove them again without any reference. That reinforces the autocratic—the Fijian—style of decision making that this bill embodies. It gives absolute power to the Government to remove commissioners who do not toe the line. It gives back to the Government absolute power in respect of all of the decisions around Canterbury not just in terms of its water but in terms of all of the functions that Environment Canterbury currently has and holds. Those are important functions and they are not just limited to water. 
We have for instance starting in 2 days’ time an absolute ban on open fires being put in place across Christchurch. That will now become the function of commissioners. I say that Environment Canterbury has broadly done a very good job of improving the air quality of Canterbury under the way that those councillors are elected as opposed to commissioners which Part 2 proposes to install. Will the commissioners continue to do the good job that Environment Canterbury has done in terms of improving the air quality of Christchurch from the point where it was the worst in New Zealand and arguably in parts of the Western World to being a city with a very good air quality? 
There are real questions around the capacity of the commissioners to do the job envisaged for them when the Ministers have an absolute right to remove them from office or to change the terms of reference and there will not be any scrutiny of that power. Those amendments can happen at any time by executive fiat by ministerial decree without any reference or even notification to Parliament or to the people of Canterbury 
Paul Quinn 
: That’s better; very nice. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: Part 2 absolutely enshrines the power being put in a very small set of hands. Mr Quinn might like to see that kind of thing happen and maybe his area of the Hutt Valley will be next to have this kind of situation imposed upon it—on its voters and its people. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Auckland was first. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: If Auckland was first and Canterbury is to be second you can bet your life that Wellington will be next in line— 
Paul Quinn 
: Aw! 
BRENDON BURNS 
: Wellington will be next in line and if it happens in the same way that it has happened in Canterbury Mr Quinn will not be pleased although he might maintain a public face.