Twyford Phil: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Twyford Phil: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:661;Page:10092] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 The tension between private and public interests and the tension between the many and the few lies beneath hundreds of years of struggle in our political tradition. I take members back to the 14th century to the Peasants’ Revolt to the Levellers in the 17th century and to the English Civil War between the parliamentarians and the royalists which raged across Britain for nearly a century. I remind members about the Chartists in the 19th century who campaigned for popular sovereignty and universal franchise. I remind them of the fight to give women the vote of those who gave their lives in the Second World War to defend democracy and of the spread of parliamentary democracy around the world in the 21st century. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. There is far too much noise coming from the Government benches. I am having difficulty hearing the member. If members want to discuss matters then that is what the lobbies are for. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: I know that members opposite do not want a history lesson but in my humble opinion they need one. We should not take the history of our democratic traditions lightly. This House is a shrine to that tradition and tonight the members on that side of the House are desecrating that shrine. 
I know that the members on the National benches think that this issue is not about democracy. I know that they think it is just a technical thing a pragmatic solution. They think that we are just twiddling with the knobs so that we can get the outcomes we want on water management in Canterbury and that it is not about democracy. Jo Goodhew said that it is just a temporary interruption of our democratic traditions and that they will be resumed in 3½ years. I know that is what National members think but I urge them to stop to think about what they are doing to our democratic process. 
The problem is that the constant companion of this National Government is the temptation to undermine the public interest and the common good in favour of stacking the deck in the interests of its business mates. It has done that in Auckland over the last 12 months where we have seen Rodney Hide John Key and Steven Joyce kicking away the safeguards against the privatisation of our public assets. We have seen it in the corporatisation of local government. In Canterbury with the thirst for irrigation and the insatiable hunger for more dairy farming on the Canterbury Plains it is so tempting for powerful business interests to say that the process of democracy is too slow too messy and too inefficient and that they could run local government so much better if the Government could just get the people out of the show and let them make the decisions. 
Subsidiarity is a principle that is much spoken of. It is allegedly the founding principle of our system of local government. I say “allegedly” because there are very few checks and balances on executive power in our system even with the advent of MMP. We have a unicameral Parliament and a system that allows very little challenge to the power of the executive. Local government in our system is one way that power can be shared between the powerful and the powerless and between the centre and the periphery. What this Government is doing tonight in this House with this bill is the opposite of subsidiarity. It is showing an absolute contempt and disregard for local government as part of our constitution in this country. It paid lip service to subsidiarity in the Auckland super-city reforms while stripping out the decision making in the powers of local communities and centralising it. 
What is the Government doing with this bill? It is abrogating the democratic rights of up to half a million people in Canterbury so that it can more efficiently allocate rights to water. I say that that is dangerous. It is dangerous to our political system it is dangerous to our democracy. Why is that? It is because to shut the people out of decision making even for a 3½-year interregnum sends a powerful message. And what is that message? The message is that the people are not capable of governing themselves. That is the message. The message is that even if people pay the rates even if they pay the taxes and even if they have to live with the consequences of the decisions of their elected representatives they are not capable. But there is a superior class of person that the Government knows it can shoulder-tap that can make those decisions. In that superior class are the hand-picked mates of the National Government whom this Government trusts to make decisions on behalf of the people of Canterbury. 
You see it turns out that for this National Government not everyone is equal. Not every person is equal in value or in importance. The people are not trusted to make the tough decisions. They are not trusted to govern themselves not in Auckland and not in Canterbury and I ask where it will be next. This bill strikes at the heart of our democracy and at the idea that in the political sphere no matter whether one is rich or poor no matter whether one is brown white or yellow no matter which side of the tracks one grew up on and no matter which political party one supports we are all equal and that each of us can have a political voice. 
One of the two Ministers who are responsible for this disgraceful bill is Rodney Hide the Minister of Local Government. He is fond of quoting the sacred principle of one person one vote. Rodney Hide talks about democracy out of one side of his mouth but out of the other side he is busy handing over the assets of Auckland to his mates and at the same time he is abrogating the democratic institution of regional government in Canterbury by suspending elections for 3½ years. Suspending elections has a ring to it that we are familiar with. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Mugabe. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: Yes and from other places closer to home. Why is that? It is because the 14 democratically elected councillors in Environment Canterbury could not resolve a system for allocating water rights—that is why. So I ask whether if the Auckland super-city cannot agree on a plan for regional public transport next year we will just sack the new Auckland Council. What if some provincial council cannot agree on whether Rio Tinto should be allowed to build a mine in its area? Well let us sack them. What about if other regional councils cannot agree on a merger plan? Well let us just do away with them because they obviously cannot be trusted to govern themselves. They cannot be trusted to make decisions in the interests of the people who elected them. 
I will quote from the regulatory impact statement which makes a very powerful case for the kind of decision that these Ministers have made with this bill. The paper sets out a number of options that were open to the Government in considering a response to the problem of water rights in Canterbury. The Government could have done a number of things. It could have installed a commissioner/adviser it could have used the existing powers in the Resource Management Act it could have put in commissioners only for the business of allocating water rights it could have invested energy and resources into the Canterbury Water Management Strategy specifically and it could have provided targeted assistance. What did the Government do? It chose the most intrusive most undemocratic and most authoritarian solution by sacking 14 democratically elected councillors. 
In a few weeks members of this House will be turning out on Anzac Day at cenotaphs and memorials up and down this country. We will pay homage to those who gave their lives in the Second World War and other conflicts to defend democracy. I hope that the members on that side of the House will hang their heads not in reverence but in shame.