Connell Brian: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Connell Brian: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15416] 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 This bill has always been about Project Aqua and no amount of measly weasel words from this Minister in the chair the Hon Marian Hobbs will change that fact. This Government through this Minister was prepared to pervert the processes of the Resource Management Act for its own narrow purposes and nothing will change that central fact either. Rather than fix the Resource Management Act the Government decided to go down this path. 
 In doing so this Minister and the Government have had a terrible conflict of interest because Project Aqua was the brainchild of Meridian Energy a wholly owned company of this Government which was going to make sure that Project Aqua got up come hell or high water and to hell with the other consent holders down on the Waitaki. I tell members that that is something the National Party and the people of South Canterbury and North Otago will not forget or forgive. 
I have to tell Jim Peters from New Zealand First—a member for whom I have a deep respect—that on this issue I think he has simply got it wrong. He stood up in this Committee and created a perception that he has the imprimatur in working for the best interests of the farmers of the Waitaki Valley—that he alone has been there and got their support for this issue. Well I want to read to that member two lines of a letter that I received: “We are writing to express our serious concern about the Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill as reported back from the select committee. It is ad hoc and a retrograde step.” The letter is signed by none other than Tom Lambie president of Federated Farmers. So Mr Peters should not continue to stand up in this Committee and say that he and he alone is across this issue and representing the views of Waitaki farmers because Federated Farmers are saying that that is not essentially the issue. 
What was happening was that some farmers—with farms situated below what was to be the site of the last dam where the economic use of the water had been expended—were going to be seduced or blackmailed by Meridian Energy which was going to play godfather with irrigation. I cannot blame the people living below that dam site. But on working up the river Mr Peters would have found as I did that many a person said: “No Meridian cannot and shall not get all of this water. We want some of it as well.” 
That brings me to the next point which is about the Order in Council of 1969. My colleague the Hon Nick Smith put forward an amendment and it was a very sad day for the people of South Canterbury when the Minister of Agriculture the member for Aoraki got up and talked against that amendment which was essentially saying: “Please honour the Order in Council—the undertaking that the Crown made back in 1969.” 
Let us put that into some perspective. We are talking about a river that has a mean annual flow of about 340 cumecs. Those farmers were simply asking for an agreement to be honoured that would have allowed them to have 15 cumecs which is about 1.7 percent of all the available water. Meridian Energy said it would play ball below the site of the last dam but above that site it wanted even the snowflakes. That was its attitude and to hell with everybody else. 
So I tell the Minister in the chair Marian Hobbs Jim Sutton and the people of South Canterbury to remember who put the amendment forward to say we would honour that agreement and to remember who talked against it. That is something that goes to the heart of this issue.