Smith Nick: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Smith Nick: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:619;Page:15356] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 The sham of this bill is exposed in terms of what has happened to Part 4. But I must note the huge disappointment there will be in South Canterbury at the loss of and the disregard that has been shown by the Labour Party and the United Future party to commitments given to people there by former Ministers of the Crown. The message that the Labour Party and United Future have just given to the people of New Zealand is that Ministers of the Crown can go to communities make commitments and say things will happen and then this Parliament will put no weight on that. That makes for a very sad day for the Mackenzie country a very sad day for South Canterbury and a sad day for this Parliament. The message we have given is that people should not trust Governments and that is something I deeply regret. 
When we look at Part 4 we see that Supplementary Order Paper 244 in the name of the Hon Marian Hobbs has completely gutted it—it gets rid of clause after clause. My question is why? The Minister supported this bill when it was introduced. The Government members supported those same provisions at the Local Government and Environment Committee and at the second reading. Why suddenly have 16 clauses in Part 4 simply disappeared from the bill? I am not surprised that Marian Hobbs the Minister responsible for this bill has failed to take a single call to justify what she has done. When she introduced this bill she assured the House that it had nothing to do with Project Aqua. Well why is it that when Project Aqua disappeared suddenly the bill was gutted? Either she was less than upfront with this Parliament and the people of New Zealand before or she is being less than upfront with them now. This Committee deserves an explanation. Why is it that a panel of commissioners was going to make the key decisions about individual consents to take water from the Waitaki River then but will not do that now? What has changed? Why is it that Government members stood up in this Chamber not more than 6 months ago and vigorously defended the fact that those consents could not be dealt with by the Canterbury Regional Council yet now they can be? Can any member of the Labour Party tell us what has brought about that U-turn? The silence is deafening. Not one of those members can provide a justification for that enormous U-turn in terms of where the Government now rests in respect of Part 4. 
Of course we are also dealing with schedule 2. In that schedule a whole list of resource consents is provided for. There are over 200 different applications in the schedule. My question is this: why is it that we have to provide a special consent process at all to deal with a small application like that by Totara Farming for a very small amount of water? We on the Opposition side of the Chamber have argued until we were blue in the face that the Resource Management Act needs reform—for instance that applications need to be processed more quickly. For all the talk about trying to reduce delays under the Act this legislation will delay 240 resource consents. The Government has said that it wants to reduce delays under the Act so I ask the Minister in the chair the Hon David Benson-Pope why this legislation is to add to the delays. 
I shall explain why there are delays. First a regional plan is required to be written for water and there is a process of 12 months for that to be done. It then goes through a consent process which will take at least 12 months. Of course the resource consent applications were lodged at least 18 months ago and some 2 years ago. Is it good enough that the poor old cow-cocky who is waiting for a resource consent sometimes for as much water as would fill a cup or for as much water as that per hour to feed a few stock has to sit around and wait for 4 years to get a consent under this Government? 
This is awful law. It is just typical of the delays and the bureaucracy of this Government and of the Government’s approach to the Act.