Sage Eugenie: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sage Eugenie: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8210. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 This Part 2 of the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill deals with a review of the powers and functions of Environment Canterbury under Part 3 of the principal Act the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Act 2010. That part of the principal Act deals with water conservation orders. In the Green Party’s view there would be no need for the review of water conservation orders in 2014 if the Government was committed to doing something now. It should be committed to doing something now because in Canterbury we have a legal situation with water conservation orders where the provisions that apply under the Resource Management Act in Canterbury are quite different from anywhere else in New Zealand. The purpose of water conservation orders outside of Canterbury is “to recognise and sustain outstanding amenity or intrinsic values and to preserve as far as possible in its natural state any water body that is considered outstanding” and to protect habitat fisheries recreational scientific ecological and other characteristics of a river or lake that is considered to be outstanding. Yet in Canterbury that does not apply. Those provisions have been substantially weakened by the principal Act and when officials’ advice was that there was no justification for continuing this different regime in Canterbury why does the bill continue it? Why does the bill not repeal that? When we were debating Part 1 I challenged the Minister of Local Government to answer the question as to why Ministers have decided to go against the advice of officials and I repeat that challenge. It is not legally good practice to have two different regimes applying in different parts of the country. 
New Zealanders love our wild and scenic rivers. They love rivers like the Rakaia and the Ahuriri which are protected by water conservation orders. They are an important part of our way of life and our identity and they are places for people to enjoy recreationally. When we are losing wild and scenic rivers internationally and in New Zealand because they have been channelised with stopbanks for flood protection purposes and they are being taken for irrigation to turn fields green it is really important that we protect the rivers that remain. This bill certainly repeals the references to the Hurunui River water conservation order and that is because Fish and Game withdrew its application for a water conservation order to protect and preserve that river because it recognised that it would not be of much value given the weakened provisions that apply. There have been no other applications for water conservation orders since the principal Act was passed.  
The bill should reinstate Part 9 of the Resource Management Act which applies elsewhere in New Zealand. Because it does not it means that we are not getting the protection that some of our Canterbury rivers deserve. In 2010 I rafted the Clarence River. That is a multi-day rafting trip on one of the most scenic and enjoyable grade 2 and 3 rafting rivers in New Zealand. The river starts at Lake Tennyson. People start rafting near the Acheron homestead and the river is nature’s own highway. It goes through the tawny tussock lands of Molesworth Station through the Clarence Reserve and down that fault line between the inward and seaward Kaikouras. The Clarence River deserves to be protected by a water conservation order because it is one of our outstanding rivers. Yet because the south bank is in Canterbury and the weakened provisions in the principal Act would apply why would the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society or Fish and Game apply to protect that river?  
We have seen no progress on protecting our outstanding wild and scenic rivers under this Government. We had two major reports on water conservation orders by the New Zealand Conservation Authority and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment last year recommending greater attention and expansion of the ways in which water conservation orders work and their application to the land in the catchment. Yet what has this Government done? Absolutely nothing. That is because this Government does not care about our rivers except as a source of irrigation and to generate hydro power. It has had the opportunity to repeal those sections in the principal Act and as Fish and Game said that would be a demonstrable example of good faith in restoring the law in Canterbury as it prevails elsewhere in the country yet the Minister has failed to take that opportunity the Government has failed and there has been no explanation from Ministers on the Government benches as to why it has rejected that advice when it would be a sign—