Hutchison Paul: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Hutchison Paul: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12022] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this very important Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill. It was quite fascinating to hear the Hon David Cunliffe say that this is a non-discriminatory fair framework bill when it clearly transgresses the resource management process and clearly makes changes to the normal process that one would go through at the Environment Court. The stated purpose of this bill is to amend the Resource Management Act to enable the merits of competing water users of the Waitaki catchment to be considered and to establish a framework for the allocation of the water that will allow for sustainable development. 
There is no doubt that this area is hugely important for New Zealand. On the one hand we have enormous energy requirements and it is somewhat sad that the Labour Government has chosen to manipulate the normal processes in order to get its version of how the energy requirements of New Zealand should be settled. The other aspect of course is that there is huge potential for the use of irrigation in the Waitaki and the Waikeria valley areas yet we have a Government that is outstanding in this case for deciding that it is going to ram through a specific course of action against its track record in both the Resource Management Act and the Environment Court. 
I want to quote my colleague the Hon Nick Smith a very good member who is responsive to his constituents and who has listened to the people at the grass roots. What did he say in the first reading of this bill? He said: “This bill is an abuse of process and an abuse of power. It is the Government writing the rules to suit itself. It is offensive to all those New Zealanders who believe there should be one rule for all including this Government. That is why members of this National Opposition will oppose this bill.” 
I must accept that I was not a member of the select committee and I understand that some improvements have been made during the select committee process. The specific improvements that National welcomes are firstly those of reducing the powers of the Minister to sack members of the water allocation board. Surely this has to be one of the things that a Labour Government so intent on central control and so intent on manipulating the processes of well-established Resource Management Act consents needs to be curtailed on. 
We welcome secondly removing the Minister’s power to direct the board on process and to override the Resource Management Act; thirdly removing clauses enabling a normal and thorough section 32 analysis to be bypassed when developing the water allocation plan; and fourthly removing the “national perspective” test for Project Aqua. 
When we look at the bill a myriad of concerns remain. The very heart of our concern resides in the fact that the bill does not provide for normal Environment Court appeals. This is enormously rich considering that when it came to New Zealand’s largest dump at Meremere only half a kilometre from the Waikato River and 4 kilometres upstream from Auckland’s water supply it was Marian Hobbs Minister for the Environment who refused to use call-in powers in that situation. But in this case she is saying “No we will not do it there because it suits us; down in the Waitaki Valley with this Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment) Bill we will just change the rules to suit the Labour Government.” I wonder about the propriety of this process. 
The second thing is that the consent criteria are being skewed from those of any other resource consent. National has made it perfectly clear over the last few years that there are all sorts of problems with the resource consent process. We have the absurd situation in New Zealand where Beca Carter Hollings and Ferner have pointed out that in order to plan and build a road in New Zealand from go to whoa getting the bulldozers in it would take up to 7 years and they can do the same thing in Singapore in 3 months. 
It seems extraordinary that this Labour Government instead of making the Resource Management Act itself more efficient and effective chose to cement in processes that are just obstacles to the gaining of a resource consent. It has cemented in a whole variety of these yet on this occasion it chooses to make a specific bill for a specific situation that suits the Government. Then exemplified in this bill we have the situation where there is no attempt to ensure that historic commitments given to farmers in the Mackenzie Basin are honoured. 
I understand that Meridian Energy’s chief executive Dr Keith Turner said the bill did not appear to give any protection to existing rights to take water from the South Island’s Waitaki River. What did the Labour-supported Local Government and Environment Committee recommend? It recommended that a clause in the bill strengthening the rights of existing water consent holders be deleted. This is what Labour does—it just runs riot over those previous commitments that had been made to the land holders up there in the Upper Waitaki Basin. 
New Zealand certainly does face an energy crisis but the solution to it is undoubtedly best achieved by a fair set of rules for all. It is absolutely hypocritical of Labour which blocked private sector developments like the Dobson scheme on the West Coast to now be creating its own special set of rules. There is no doubt that an enlightened Government in this country would be looking for a win for the environment and a win for progress. 
 There is no case more poignant than the Dobson one where it could certainly happen. But in that case for ideological reasons this Labour Government said: “No. We will make it a ‘lose’ for the environment and a ‘lose’ for progress.” It is that sort of sentiment that has brought about its choosing to abuse the Resource Management Act and bring in this particular legislation. This is the Government that at the same time it is bringing in this special legislation for a project that suits it has ratified the Kyoto Protocol and is about to slap on a carbon tax that will significantly affect every New Zealander and every New Zealand business. This Government just does not think through a national plan of efficiency or fairness or an appropriate set of national strategies that are in any way visionary in terms of the crisis we have before us concerning energy. What absolutely astounds me is that the Government has brought in that carbon tax—or is about to and is determined to—on a premise based on total uncertainty. The National Party rejects this amendment that the Labour Government is bringing in.