Shirley Ken: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Shirley Ken: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:619;Page:15282] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 I concur with the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee who has just resumed her seat. This is totally unnecessary legislation. I take offence—and I am sure other Opposition members and possibly some of the Minister’s own colleagues take offence—at the attitude of the Minister in the chair the Hon David Benson-Pope in the way he has come to the chair and had the temerity to be so arrogant when the truth is clear for everyone to see. 
This Government lead the pretence a while back—possibly a year back now—when this bill was at the top of list and had to be rushed through Parliament. At that time Government members said: “It’s got nothing to do with the Project Aqua proposal. That is totally ancillary. It is just a mere coincidence that Project Aqua happens to be out there. This is for the whole catchment and it is absolutely urgent. This is the No. 1 priority.” At the Business Committee we were told that this bill was a No. 1 priority and that this special legislation had to go through. 
That was a year ago. Is it not a coincidence that on the day that Meridian Energy announced its discontinuation of Project Aqua all of a sudden this neutral bill that had nothing to do with Project Aqua was put on the back-burner? Is that not extraordinary? Who actually believes that? Perhaps Mr Benson-Pope is the only member in this Parliament who believes that. It is possible that he is the only member who actually believes the absolute nonsense that this Government has perpetuated in respect of this bill. 
I concur with the chair of the select committee and with others who have expressed the view that there is no need for special legislation. There never was. This is nonsense legislation and the ACT party has said that from the outset. Part 1 is all about the purposes of the Act. It relates to the allocation of the waters in the Waitaki catchment. Again that point highlights the failure of Environment Canterbury. The Otago Regional Council was quite capable of fulfilling its statutory obligations in bringing down a very satisfactory water management plan principally for the lands south of the Waitaki River—for a long part of its course the Waitaki River is the boundary between Environment Canterbury and the Otago Regional Council. However for political reasons Environment Canterbury could not bring down a water management plan. It was for political reasons that it failed to do so. Mr Benson-Pope tried to blame that on the National Party. He has been in Government for 5 long weary years and has done absolutely nothing other than to bring this nonsense to the House—a bill that does not address the problem that it purports to address. 
The basic problem with this water allocation model is that it is an administrative model and by definition that becomes politicised. That is the inherent problem. That was one of the problems of the Water and Soil Conservation Act. I spent 10 years prior to first entering Parliament administering the Water and Soil Conservation Act. It was all based on those principles of “first in time first in right” and “first come first served”. I am afraid that that concept does not work any more. Water is a very precious commodity and product and to get the best allocation and use of what is increasingly an intermittent and scarce resource and also to get the best environmental outcomes we need pricing mechanisms. Just like every other scarce commodity we need to put a value on water so that the best use is made of it and we do not waste it. If we want to get the best irrigation techniques and not waste the water then we need to have a value on the commodity. If it was just an administrative allocation—“first in time first in right”—then it is a matter of “use it or lose it” and it would not matter how we used it even if we wasted it because we happened to be further up the queue in the politicised allocation model. That has failed all around the world. That is why water jurisdictions have moved away from it.