Dyson Ruth: Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 13 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7139. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): What an arrogant speech from a Canterbury member of Parliament. What do people value in a democracy—what do people value in a democracy? I think that they value their vote. This might come as gobsmackingly big news to the member who has just resumed his seat Matt Doocey but people overseas long for the right to vote. We in New Zealand sort of take it for granted but we do not have it in Canterbury. [Interruption] And that Minister interjecting and giggling said that we could not possibly give Cantabrians a full right to vote for their regional council. Why? He said it. The Hon Dr Nick Smith said it in the Press on Newstalk ZB and on Radio New Zealand. He said it was too risky. Oh too risky! It is too risky to give us our right to vote in the same way as every other person in New Zealand. Well I think that that is wrong; I think it is immoral and it is certainly not justified on any basis that that member pretends it is being justified on.The Creech report made it very clear that there was no breach of responsibility no breach of functionality no cause for concern in terms of the job that was being done by Environment Canterbury with elected members. It was all about irrigation. It was all about water. It was all about that Government wanting to get more water out of our rivers and on to the Canterbury Plains. That is what the debate was about. It was not about competency. It was not about being functional. It was about water allocation. I think the member should be honest. I know that it is a big call to ask that of him but I think the people of Canterbury deserve it.We had the promise in 2010. We will have elected commissioners totally against the context of the Creech report. Wyatt Creech was a former National Minister who was honest enough to say that what the Government wants to do is not justified.Hon Dr Nick Smith: They were dysfunctional.Hon RUTH DYSON: He never said that they were dysfunctional and I challenge that Minister to table that comment. I know that he will not be able to. He should be very careful about what he accuses Wyatt of having said because I tell you what Wyatt Creech despite being a former National Minister is a man of integrity. He would highly resent what that Minister has just accused him of saying.I think it was the Hon Nick Smith who in 2010 first sacked our democratically elected council albeit for a very short time. He said: “It will be for a very short time. We will just get it all back on track. We will just get the irrigation flowing.” He said that there was no water plan. The water plan in Canterbury was proposed in 2004—11 years ago and 6 years before that Minister sacked the democratically elected councillors. It was in 2004—an operational water plan—and that Minister knows it because he is on top of his job usually. But in this regard he has clearly been rolled. He is doing what he is told by other Cabinet Ministers and actually he is not making a very good job of it.Twice since then we have had that promise that Minister Smith made to Canterbury people broken: “Oh we’ll just have a little bit longer and then we promise we’ll give them back. We promise we’ll give you your vote back—ah more legislation.” And now we get: “Oh sorry we can’t have democracy back in Canterbury because it is too risky.” In March of this year we had a little glimmer of hope that we might get back our right to vote in Canterbury. This document the Environment Canterbury Review: A discussion document is full of great ideas—all these functions and powers what the review was all about the freshwater management; all very good. It says at the back that you have got a bit of time to put in your submission—better than this bill which is again truncated; but do not worry everyone knows what they are going to say.The review says: “Submissions will be summarised by the Review Team and available online … A report on the outcomes … [will be] published… The Government will then make a decision.” Oh they forgot to say that the Government will then make a decision having totally ignored the overwhelming majority of submissions. There were 534 submissions—534 submissions in total. How many of the 534 were supportive of the option that has ended up in this legislation? How many Minister Smith? Sixteen—one-six. Which is bigger: the 518 who opposed it or the 16 who supported it? Shall I give you a clue? It is not the number of people who backed this legislation that we are looking at. There were 534 submissions but only 16 supported the model that is in this legislation. The Government was totally arrogant totally dismissive and just rode roughshod over democracy—who cares? It says it is too risky and ignores the submissions that this document asks for. That is arrogance beyond belief although I have to say that we are getting used to it.So what was the real agenda? Well it is always hard to tell with the current Government because it is never straight with people. It does not tell people the full truth; it tells them what it wants them to believe and then keeps repeating it. Well in this case it has not been successful. Sometimes it is; I have noticed that. Some Ministers think that if they repeat things that are not true often enough people will believe them but in this case that is not the case. People in Canterbury know why Environment Canterbury was sacked. It was sacked for one reason only: to get more water out of our rivers to irrigate the plains.We know the environmental damage that is being done as a result of excessive irrigation. We know that there is an urban/rural tension. Does this bill go any way towards resolving it? No it does not. It does not restore democracy. It gerrymanders the population so that the strength is in the rural communities. Bjelke-Petersen would be very proud of that. It has not happened since his days in Queensland. Never before have we had gerrymandering of electoral boundaries in this way—never before. We have always had an open democratic fair process—Hon Dr Nick Smith: Rubbish!Hon RUTH DYSON: Well the Minister might know where he has gerrymandered electorate boundaries before in the past but I am certainly not aware of any. We have an independent commission with political representation we have public submissions we have transparency we have criteria to be met—none of it is met in this legislation. It is gerrymandered and then on top of that the Minister says to Canterbury: “Don’t worry about having a proper process for submissions—don’t worry your little heads about that. We’ll just give you a short period of time—shorter than any for other legislation.” I hope the select committee gets to go to Canterbury. It certainly did last time and the time before.Again it is a truncated process—unless the Minister is going to be absolutely disingenuous and say the Christmas holiday break does not mean anything. Is the Minister going to say that? Well in that case you should take at least 3 weeks off the time that is allowed because there is not—[Interruption] That member should be very careful about pots calling kettles black. He might have some truth discovered in the House if he continues along that line. So one of the examples that we can use to demonstrate how the Government is thinking is a quote from the Speaker actually when he was a Minister. He said in December 2008 that the one thing that the irrigation community needed to know was that they had to take the urban community with them if they were to get what they wanted. He was basically giving them his advice. But by April 2010 all bets were off. Let us work together let us collaborate—that was all thrown out and instead we got: “We can do anything”.Arrogance had taken over the Ministers. They decided that they were running the show and they were going to do what they wanted. The then Minister David Carter said to the regional councils at the irrigation conference: “We had to act [on Environment Canterbury] because the situation was untenable if we are going to seriously make progress in delivering this irrigation. I would have thought that what happened recently [to Environment Canterbury] would be a signal to all regional councillors to work a bit more constructively with their farmer stakeholders.” Those are on the record—public comments by the Minister who was the only one to tell the truth but now he is not even in Cabinet so that is a bit of a tragedy.The Creech review of Environment Canterbury did not say the organisation was dysfunctional. It did not say that it needed to be replaced with unelected representation. This legislation carries on the removal of a fundamental right of all New Zealanders: the right to vote. It is unnecessary it is wrong it was opposed by Cantabrians and it is about time the Government got off its arrogant high horse and started listening.