Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Every contribution the sponsor of the bill has made on the bill appears to be a justification for its non-passing today. This has got to be a classic. So what I would—let me make it very clear—agree is that if anyone is sitting there with the full authority of a councillor then they should receive the same remuneration as everybody else. That's not really the issue.The issue here enunciated by the sponsor is that this decision if it is passed today will see the workload of the council go up. Now that can only be a commitment to greater bureaucracy and the sort of duck-shoving that people in Canterbury have to put up with every time they deal with the Canterbury Regional Council.So I can't understand how it is that a justification being advanced by the member for this bill is something that is going to bring Ngāi Tahu into somewhat of a conflicted position with the rest of the community that they're seeking to serve. It's utterly a ridiculous argument.If the member stood up and said Well this is going to shortcut a whole lot of processes and it's going to make things easier it's going to make things clearer and that those who are wanting to do things that require resource consents will not have to go to the extraordinary lengths that they do at the moment getting expensive buy-in from those who have an interest" then that would be a useful thing in favour of this bill. Instead he stands in the House and says "Actually this is going to increase the workload for everyone who sits on the Canterbury Regional Council." That means it's increasing the workload for the bureaucrats behind the scenes. It means they'll have to increase the number of bureaucrats behind the scenes and ultimately all of the costs related to that will fall back on the Environment Canterbury (ECan) ratepayers in Christchurch.Most of us frankly who do pay that rate have got no idea what value we get out of ECan. We get these newsletters put in the letterbox every now and then. Long verbose things that claim all sorts of interesting arrangements and outcomes but really no direct connection for communities particularly in the city about what's being achieved by them. Nothing at all.Now I see someone over on the other side there who says "No they're great thanks. I love reading them." Well if you've got the time to sit around reading that I'd ask about some of the other representation that should have been undertaken by people.I have on the Table a tabled amendment. It deals with clause 13 of this bill. It is completely inconsistent in my view to come to this House and say on behalf of ECan "We want to have Ngāi Tahu representation appointed to our council and then retain the right to at any time an Act section 19Z(2) of the Local Electoral Act to create Māori constituencies." What is the point of one if the other is a possibility? The mere fact that this clause is still in here gives absolute lie to the claim that the wider Canterbury community are happy with this bill because if they were ECan would have done exactly as 19Z(2) of the Local Electoral Act allows them to do. But they haven't; they've turned up and said "We want a special bill that gives us the special authority to ask Ngāi Tahu to appoint two representatives to our council. We then want those councillors treated exactly as anybody else"—and that part's fair—"but we also want to retain the provision that would allow us to create Māori constituencies should we see fit in the future."Remember that they start two votes up on that prospect the moment this bill passes. It is very anti-democratic this particular bill and people can dress it up all they like about Treaty rights and everything else. There is a simple principle inside the Treaty that affirms democracy in this country and this rips it away.My tabled amendment would change the heading of the clause to "The council may not establish Māori constituencies" and it would delete the words "nothing in" and simply read "The Act prevents the Council from passing a resolution under section 19Z(2) of the Local Electoral Act 2001 which relates to the resolution to create one or more Māori constituencies."It's quite a simple prospect. It's one or the other. This bill confers two particular rights that I don't think should be there."