Davidson MaramaMARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): On behalf of the Green Party we will not be supporting the Waimea water augmentation scheme bill. I want to acknowledge the merits that have been raised by other members of this House. We simply are a voice for the many locals that have opposed this bill. I wanted to pick up firstly on the fact that this is its second reading so I went through the report back from the Governance and Administration Committee. I agree with other ratepayers and citizens who highlighted that it was quite difficult to get an accurate number of exactly how many submissions were opposed and how many were in support. There were apparently 137 written submissions and the report from the committee went through groups and names of organisations who were in support. But I wasn't able to get any clear understanding of the weight in terms of the locals—and I know some were opposed; I've already heard that through some of the members—who were opposed to this. I'm not part of that committee; I wasn't able to get a clearer sense than that. So I agree with those submitters who went back and also read the report back from the committee and were concerned that they also couldn't find that clarity. So there are a number of reasons why we cannot be convinced to give our support to this bill. Yes there are longstanding water issues in that region but for the Green Party we will always ask What is the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause of those water issues?" We will always want to go back to looking actually at sustainable water supply water storage allocation issues and actually the core economic infrastructure that has led to some of the dilapidation of aqua tables and water tables in the first place.I think that's part of the admirable position that I'm really proud to be able to take today—actually wanting to look at what is truly truly behind some of those longstanding water issues. We feel strongly—and again I acknowledge the different characteristics and dynamics of this particular dam. Of course everyone knows that the Greens have been clearly vocal and have it actually in our confidence and supply agreement that we generally oppose large-scale irrigation plans. So this will be no surprise to any member in the House. However we—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Mr Eagle could you resume your seat. Thank you.MARAMA DAVIDSON: I'm just giving a really really brilliant speech here Mr Eagle. I do acknowledge that certain dynamics of this particular augmentation scheme have been put on the floor tonight about different reasons why this is particularly different for a large-scale and commercial irrigation scheme. So I am not even going to pretend that I haven't heard those reasons. However there are still a number of valid concerns that we hold and that I'm happy to stand here and represent on today.I did want to pick up on—actually I will say that I am pleased to see from the Tasman District Council in its submission and in the workings of this bill that the council will make a biodiversity easement and that the council will make as part of its resource consent a condition for the dam around protecting diversity rights. I did want to raise that as one of the wider and longer-term concerns that the Greens absolutely will have as part of this augmentation scheme. Just recently we had the UN Convention on Biological Diversity—I think just last week actually—held in Egypt. That convention and that meeting of parties wants to see ambitious global targets in the next two years to protect the organisms that are vital for global food production clean water and the removal of carbon from the atmosphere. I wanted to raise that because with schemes like these we need to be absolutely clear without any doubt that we are not going to continue to contribute to the ongoing loss of plant and animal diversity on Earth. A fundamental worldwide extinction crisis is happening and has been happening. Actually there's less awareness of this I believe generally than there is of climate change.Coming back to the bill this is what I wanted to raise as one of our reasons for opposing. This extinction crisis is deepening every year and we are severely impacted by it. In New Zealand of course—and I acknowledge the council's biodiversity investment—we're losing our indigenous biodiversity at an alarming rate. I saw that the council will make these investments and we will want to keep a check on this. We all want to keep an ongoing monitor of the types of resource consent conditions that the council are proposing they will make—for example the salvage propagation and establishment of at least three new populations of the nationally rare New Zealand shovel mint. These are the sorts of precautions that the Green Party will be keeping an absolute monitor on and it goes to the core of some of our concerns with this scheme. I know that not many of the other members in the House have picked up on particularly the concern for biodiversity. So that was one of the main points that I wanted to raise.I acknowledge—and I believe it was one of the original reasons why at first there was a No vote from the council—the concerns about the funding model and I also understand that because of those very concerns the funding model was changed but still even with that change of the funding model some locals and people of that region and community are still concerned with the share the equitability and the distribution and who will be picking up the tabs. I acknowledge that over the long scheme of things we can say it may not seem like a huge huge amount for individual ratepayers but I think people are also concerned at the council and ratepayer overall investment. So I acknowledge those concerns as well.Of course there is the situation of using conservation land for commercial purposes and we absolutely want to remain cautious and very principally so on that as an issue. I understand that this has been picked up for two reasons as being viable to push through that conservation land: because it is of lesser conservation value and also because it's being seen as a pragmatic solution. I just want to make sure that we actually get that balance right—that we actually truly understand the transformation of the economic model that we have operated on all around the country to date and whether or not we have got that right in this augmentation scheme.So those were some of the main rationales for the Green Party's opposition to this bill which I am very proud to put on the floor in this House tonight and I'm particularly picking on the fact that there was not a clear mandate and consensus from all of the local community and that there was actually clear local opposition to this bill and I stand absolutely to acknowledge that opposition and the reason that they raised their opposition. We understand that this bill will make its passage through the House because it's got the numbers but we will be keeping check on all of the valid concerns that we are raising particularly into the future of this development including the financial monitoring of this budget—whether it blows out or not—and who ends up bearing the impact on that. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker."