Dean JacquiHon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak to the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill at its first reading. Can I acknowledge and congratulate the member in charge of the bill for bringing this to the House. The bill—I guess the member has previously outlined it but I will again. So under the Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Act 2016 the regional council Environment Canterbury (ECan) has included two members who were appointed by Ministers on the recommendation of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu—and I acknowledge Ngāi Tahu representatives in the gallery today. That arrangement was very successful. From my vantage point as a local Canterbury MP—South Canterbury North Otago and Central Otago but Canterbury MP for the purposes of this bill—the complaints around the performance of Environment Canterbury particularly with challenges in the Environment Court dwindled away to virtually nothing. I can credit that with first of all the brave decision by the Hon Dr Nick Smith at the time to call in the ECan members and appoint commissioners. If I may very briefly just remind perhaps the House of the history of what has brought us to this today—that was the non-performance of ECan and its elected members in bringing a viable operative water plan and that was in an environment of a rapidly over-allocated catchment condition and a subsequent perhaps degradation—or threat of degradation—of water quality. It's sad to say the ECan elected members of the day had not grappled with that very serious responsibility that they had been elected to deal with. So the Hon Dr Nick Smith called them in and appointed commissioners.So it was with the Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Act 2016 which was subsequently brought in that included those two members of Ngāi Tahu which has proven to be very successful and very well-favoured by the other commissioners in ECan and as I have said from my point of view as a local representative has overseen a dwindling—a very strong dwindling—of complaints particularly to the Environment Court but also those complaints that come into my office from constituents who find themselves butting against. So I congratulate the commissioners and all of those representatives including the Ngāi Tahu representatives around the table who brought about that change in culture and that change in performance.However National will not support this bill at its first reading and I will outline to the House why National cannot and will not support this bill. I want to take nothing away from the performance of Ngāi Tahu and I want to take nothing away from the performance of ECan under the current arrangements but now is the time to move on and to move to a fully elected regime which we had before. I'm also reminded looking back in history about how some of the then Opposition members in the House—the Green Party New Zealand First and the Labour Party—railed against appointed members on ECan and railed against the so-called loss of democracy in ECan—Sarah Dowie: Oh how times have changed.Hon JACQUI DEAN: —time after time after time. As my colleague has just noticed oh how times have changed.But we believe that times have changed. ECan is now on a solid footing ECan now has a good culture and ECan should now be in the same position as every other regional council in New Zealand where free and hotly contested elections are held this triennium. And if this Government is true to its principles so strongly put in the years when they were in Opposition and the two ECan bills and legislation were going through the House they too will support a return to full democracy because if they don't then what were those principles back in the day when they were opposing the measures brought into this House by the Hon Dr Nick Smith that brought about the sea change in the performance and culture of Environment Canterbury? So I challenge—I challenge—the Labour Party and New Zealand First and the Green Party who now have the numbers in this House to be consistent with their—Hon Ruth Dyson: Ha ha!Hon JACQUI DEAN: —values of bringing ECan back to full democracy. Ruth Dyson laughs; it is not funny—it is not funny. Full democracy they demanded—full democracy—and full democracy is what they can get. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker.