Fitzsimons Jeanette: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:620;Page:15550] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Nothing the Minister for the Environment has said today or on any previous occasion convinces me there is any need for this bill. The Greens accepted that there was a need at the beginning. The Minister said today that if the application from Project Aqua to take—she did not use this number—73 percent of the flow of the river had gone ahead there would not have been enough water to go around. There were all those applications to take water but no regional plan to give any guidance as to how those consents could be considered. So we accepted that there was a need for the bill at that stage. 
I have to say the select committee did a very good job on it. We worked very hard. We sat extra hours by a long way. We constrained ministerial power in the bill quite considerably. We ensured a high level of skill and expertise on the board that would set the water plan. We ensured there would be more than two such people to consider all those matters and make the decisions and we returned to the councils concerned the power to issue eventual consents. We reported back a bill that I was proud of particularly because the entire select committee all of whose members had voted differently on the introduction of the bill supported the amendments we had made. What is more we met the very tight deadline of 22 March which was the Minister’s deadline. We were not given the normal 6 months. We also went to Oamaru and heard submissions. 
However with the withdrawal of Project Aqua I no longer accept that this bill is necessary. The Waitaki River volume now vastly exceeds the volume of water required by the applications to take water. It vastly exceeds it. There are many rivers in this country that are much more allocated than the Waitaki is and for which no plan is being proposed. What is special about the Waitaki? I listened very carefully to hear why the Minister still thinks it is more important for this river than any other river to have a plan and I did not get an answer. Meanwhile we have red zones in Canterbury where the council says no further groundwater can be allocated because the groundwater is already seriously depleted. We have rivers like the Ashburton that are a shadow of their former selves because of over-allocation. We have rivers facing the twin threats of pollution from runoff from surrounding land and depletion of their flow. Of course when we take water and deplete the flow we increase the concentration of the remaining pollutants in the river—it is a pincer movement. 
But this bill is actually not about the river and that is the sad thing about it. This is not a bill about the river as a habitat for rare wading birds. It is not about the river as people’s favourite trout and salmon fishery and a major tourism attraction. It is not about the river as a recreation area for kayakers and rafters. It is about who gets how much water for commercial purposes. It is an allocation plan; it is not a plan for the river. 
We have a sustainable development programme of action. We have not seen a lot of action but that is what the programme is called. It has identified water as one of the key four issues we need to work on—the key four things that are threatened in terms of sustainability. This bill does nothing in respect of that. What we need is mandatory regional planning for fresh waters. We need mandatory integrated catchment plans for all our significant rivers that are under pressure—plans that recognise the multiple values of the river—not allocation plans that try to arbitrate between those who want to take water out of the river for other purposes. The other values have got to be respected more. In this bill we even have a clause that states the board must provide water for the following purposes but gives no priorities. We have a clause that does not even state that the board must provide for firefighting stock watering and the intrinsic values of the river itself as the Resource Management Act states before it considers how much water is to be allocated for hydropower or irrigation. It makes them all equal. Goodness knows what the board will do with that! 
Jim Peters who has been a really contributing member of the select committee—and I always value what he has to say—says that the reason for this bill is that we cannot wait till 2009 for a plan for the river which is how long it would take if we left it to the council. Why is it OK for all the other rivers which are in a worse state than the Waitaki to wait even longer than 2009? The Minister has not done anything even to require the process to start for any river other than the Waitaki. 
I wrote to the Minister some months ago sharing with her a discussion paper that I was considering with various regional councils and other groups around the country seeking their views on whether there should be mandatory integrated catchment management plans for rivers. I got some interesting feedback from members of the community and from councils but after all these months I have not had a reply from either of the Ministers I sent the paper to. There has not been even an official acknowledgment from either of them that I contributed that input. Basically it appears that no one in the Government wants to know. The Government just wants to sort out the wrangle between the irrigators and the hydro generators and the rivers can go hang.