Goodhew Jo: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee 
Goodhew Jo: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:661;Page:9987] 
JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata) 
: 
 I rise to take my first call in respect of Part 1 of the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill. I do so very very happily because the people of my electorate have been asking for an improvement in Environment Canterbury for a hang of a long time—since before I was elected as the MP for Aoraki. I rise to my feet a little heavy in heart because the quality of this debate appals me. The absolute scaremongering with the talk of a coup d’état and the removal of democracy is a load of hogwash. This bill allows a return to elected councillors. 
Sue Kedgley 
: It’ll never happen. 
JO GOODHEW 
: We say it will and this bill allows for it either in 2013 or before 2013. It would be helpful to stick to the facts I say to Ms Kedgley—it would be helpful to stick to the facts. Let me give members some more facts. You see the people of my electorate have been complaining about Environment Canterbury’s inability to manage water from an environmental perspective a recreational perspective a cultural perspective and an economic perspective for far too long—far too long. Yet we have had consensus with the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. We have had groups getting together with the Canterbury Water Management Strategy yet there was no end in sight—none whatsoever—and no progress in sight. It was the inability of Environment Canterbury to perform its statutory duties in terms of managing the water of the region that has brought this bill about. 
I will pay tribute to some people. I pay tribute to Alec Neill because he has tried his damnedest to get things turned round and I feel we need to acknowledge that. It has not been enough; he has found himself unable to achieve the progress he wanted to. There has been improvement in respect of consenting but what the Opposition forgets to tell us is that the number of consents issued is hugely less anyway. Environment Canterbury has been dealing with about half the workload. Hello—90 percent for half the workload is still bad. I pay tribute to the regional councillors from my electorate Mark Oldfield and Angus McKay. Those guys have also tried their damnedest to address the concerns of their constituents within the region. But still tens of thousands of dollars later—sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars later—people have got nowhere when it comes to the management of water in the region. 
Actually this bill is about making progress. It is a temporary measure—it even says that in the title. It is a temporary measure and it is here not before time. I will quickly read some of the reaction from around the region. One of the mayors in my former electorate Mackenzie District Mayor John O’Neill said it was: “a bold move which would have the full support of the district’s ratepayers.” So much for no consultation guys; it has happened. Those mayors have been out asking their people for years and years what they want to happen in a timelier and better way and they have said that Environment Canterbury should be made to do its job. A former Waitaki constituency councillor Dr June Slee said: “The community knew ECan wasn’t doing its job and this push for change was community-driven.” It is a shame that that same community appears to have been completely ignored by Opposition members in the House—completely and utterly ignored. It believes that its only community of interest is a small cohort that is anti the development of water and that does not seem to realise that the environmental standards of the water are also currently not being looked after well enough. 
So this bill is a way forward—a light into the future. We are very very positive that this is the best way to go. From my perspective a return to democracy in 2013—or before if at all possible—is certainly within the scope of this bill and I am sick of hearing that it is not. Thank you.