Norman Russel William: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee 
Norman Russel William: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:661;Page:10012] 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Part 2 is the guts of the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill which abolishes democracy in Canterbury. Later on this year people all around New Zealand will as part of the celebration of democracy be involved in local government elections. As someone who lives in Wellington I will vote for my mayor and my council. However were I to move to Canterbury or Christchurch I would find that I was not allowed to vote for my regional council. In fact my right to vote for the regional council would be taken away by this bill which National and ACT are pushing through today. It is quite extraordinary that Part 2 takes away the idea of one person one vote. We have heard a lot lately about one person one vote from National and ACT. Part 2 states that we will start with one person one vote and then we will go to one person no vote. One person no vote is National’s preferred option for how people in Canterbury decide what happens to them. 
What will be the outcome of this? In the rush to get the bill through the House the regulatory impact statement has not had a lot of attention. It is a rushed regulatory impact statement that the Ministry for the Environment cobbled together in between generating all those national policy statements and national environmental standards—oh that is right we do not have any—that we have tried to get over the years. The regulatory impact statement states: “the Ministry has not been able to fully quantify the risks/costs of the proposal.” So this rushed bill is being pushed through the House without any public input or any select committee process Part 2 abolishes the right of the people of Canterbury to elect their regional council and we find that the Ministry for the Environment says in its regulatory impact statement that it has not had the time to fully quantify the risks and costs of the proposal. There is a very close connection between the lack of democracy in terms of the process of this bill in the House with no select committee process and the fact that Part 2 abolishes democracy for the people of Canterbury for the next 3 years. Part 2 is about getting rid of democracy for the people of Canterbury. 
It is interesting that in order to be appointed a commissioner one needs expertise in freshwater management. Wyatt Creech actually has some expertise in freshwater management as it turns out. He knows how to pollute fresh water which is of course why he did the review of Environment Canterbury in the first place. A company he is director of has numerous convictions for polluting water so obviously he has some expertise in freshwater management. Maybe he will be one of the people the Minister appoints to be a commissioner to oversee what happens in Canterbury after the abolition of elected democracy in Canterbury. He could also ask the Crafars. They have a lot of expertise in freshwater management. They were very very effective at polluting fresh water. They did an excellent job of polluting fresh water across the central North Island so I think it is time they spread to the South Island. It seems to me that the Minister could consider them under Part 2 which provides the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Local Government with the power to appoint commissioners to oversee the management of water in Canterbury. Over the next period they are obviously going to need someone with expertise and the Crafars have shown tremendous expertise in polluting fresh water in New Zealand. 
It is also extraordinary that we do not even know what the terms of reference are and that they could be changed at any time. We are voting to put this bill through the House yet one of the key aspects of the bill the terms of reference is not even being made public. Not only do we not have any public process through a select committee so that the public can look at Part 2 and not only does Part 2 abolish public oversight of the regional council—because Part 2 gets rid of democratic oversight—but there is no public oversight of the terms of reference under which the commissioners will operate because the terms of reference are still secret. Here we have a Government pushing through legislation under urgency to implement a regional governance structure and we do not even know what the terms of reference for it will be. Will the terms of reference for example include maximising irrigation potential in the Canterbury region which is what the Prime Minister said in his opening speech to Parliament this year? Will that be one of the terms of reference? I ask the Minister for the Environment to take a call. Will maximising irrigation be one of the terms of reference?