Shirley Ken: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Shirley Ken: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15414] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 In addressing the title which as we all know is a very narrow and confined debate I must first rebut the comments made by Mr Jim Peters of the New Zealand First Party. Mr Peters is a very fine and diligent man who worked very hard on the Local Government and Environment Committee but the reasons he just gave to the Committee for why New Zealand First is supporting this bill are absolute hogwash. He said a reason was that up and down the Waitaki River people regard it as a very special place. People feel like that about every river in the country. People up the Clutha feel like that. People up the Aorere the Motueka the Rangitikei the Rangitata— 
Lindsay Tisch 
: Or the Waikato. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: —or the Waikato feel like that. Rivers are wonderful things. I love rivers and people who live up and down river valleys have huge respect for them. So to say that that is a reason why in the Waitaki they need special legislation is absolute hogwash. 
The only other reason he gave was that it was because there is a tremendous depth of information on the Waitaki. That is true. We used to have the Ministry of Works doing all of the hydro design. It had 400 full-time people working in the water and soil division gauging the rivers and measuring the flows. The New Zealand Electricity Department did a huge amount of work. All of that is true but it is the same for the Waikato which is also a controlled catchment so just on that point the member’s argument is absolute hogwash and New Zealand First cannot explain away its position with those arguments. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: I am pleased that in debating the title we no longer have that somewhat farcical situation where we used to be strictly confined to the words in the title and we used to get all sorts of reinventions of what the bill should be called. With the new Standing Orders the title debate is much more broadly based than it used to be and that helps the debate. 
The ACT party is staunchly opposed to this bill. We say that it is unnecessary. We cannot understand why the Labour Government has brought it to this House. We know that it was all about Project Aqua and now that that scheme has been put on the back-burner or abandoned there is no need for this legislation if indeed there ever was. I do not believe there ever was. The key thing is that this is an amendment to the Resource Management Act. The Resource Management Act has generic provisions that provided for regional councils to bring down water allocation plans. They were charged with that responsibility. The Resource Management Act was meant to be part of deregulation. It was meant to be part of empowering and enabling local communities. It was borne out of a rejection of the National Development Act and dictates from central government. But this bill that is before Parliament now which this Labour Government is determined to ram through against better advice is very akin to the former National Development Act and all the problems that that brought to our country. 
There is no point for this bill whatsoever. The Minister in the chair the Hon Marian Hobbs has been totally unable to justify it to Parliament but it seems that the Labour Government has just to churn on because it is in a particular mindset and feels it would lose too much face if it did the right thing and withdrew this bill even at this late stage. 
The point has been made that there are any number of mechanisms for allocating water. Water allocation is important and it will have a growing importance as the scarcity of that resource which we have always taken for granted in this country becomes more apparent. No one argues with that but why the Waitaki catchment? Why not the Clutha River? Why not the Waikato River? The Waikato River is a managed catchment just like the Waitaki. Why not the other big rivers of the country? Or is that the Government’s intention? Will it systematically go round the country one by one and have the “Clutha River Empowering Water Allocation Bill” next month and another one after that. 
There is no justification for this. The ACT party will oppose it. We will vote against it but I would like the Minister just to take one last call at this last stage and tell us how on earth it is required and why it is necessary when all those other existing provisions are there in statute and have been since 1967 with the Water and Soil Conservation Act that was subsumed into the Resource Management Act.