Smith NickThird ReadingHon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I move That the Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill be now read a third time. This bill is the last piece of a complex jigsaw puzzle to enable the Waimea community dam to be built and I note it will be the largest dam built in New Zealand in more than 20 years. It will enable the storing of 13 million cubic metres of water in an 87-hectare reservoir stretching 5 kilometres up the Lee Valley 20 kilometres south-east of Brightwater. There have been so many challenges in getting any sort of water infrastructure project over the line that very few make it off the drawing board. There are the complex issues of getting through the Resource Management Act and getting consents and subsequently dealing with any appeals that occurred back in 2004. There's the tremendously challenging job of trying to get the funding for such projects—in this case over $100 million worth—for a scheme to happen. The third key issue that needs to be resolved for such schemes is getting access to the required land. It is a tribute to so many people that all those hurdles have been passed. Now this bill deals solely with the issue of enabling access to 9.7 hectares of public conservation land for the reservoir and 1.3 hectares of Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) riverbed. It's not a complex bill. It creates an easement over the Mount Richmond Forest Park for the reservoir; it enables the council to be able to purchase the 1.4 hectares of LINZ land. The bill has two important caveats. It says that the council cannot sell the land and importantly I acknowledge our parliamentary colleague Rino Tirikatene in terms of ensuring that the three Te Tau Ihu settlements in the top of the South and their first rights of refusal are respected. Three changes were made to this bill by the Governance and Administration Committee. Firstly the public access provisions around the conservation land have been strengthened in response to submissions from the Federated Mountain Clubs the Walking Access Commission and the Nelson/Marlborough Fish and Game Council. Secondly the bill gives a bit more time for the construction of the dam to begin extending that from 2020 to 2025. And the right of first refusal provisions have been strengthened to ensure that whether the land is in the hands of the council in the hands of a council-controlled organisation or in the unusual incident that the dam does not proceed or the dam is decommissioned at any time in the future those rights of first refusal are respected. I want to make a few points about the land. The first: we are talking about 9.7 hectares out of a Richmond Forest Park that is 166000 hectares. It's not 1 percent it's not 0.1 percent; it's not even enough to make 0.01 percent. Nor is this land some precious one of those 14 different types of reserves. This is not an ecological scientific reserve. It is not national park. I would take a very different view on this bill if it was proposed in a precious area like the Abel Tasman National Park or Fiordland. It's interesting to note that there is no record by the Department of Conservation (DOC) of this area being used for any purpose of recreation giving an indication of how remote and inaccessible it is. I also importantly note that the Environment Court orders made in August 2014 with the agreement of DOC with the agreement of Forest & Bird and with the agreement of Fish & Game provided for the inundation of this land. If I can put it very simply the small loss of the forest park is more than compensated for by the opportunity this scheme presents to be able to restore the health of the Waimea River.Some years ago as Minister I was responsible for putting in place a national policy statement that requires minimum flows in rivers and which also provides for water quality standards for New Zealand rivers and lakes for the first time. This project is the only practical way to meet those water quality standards and I'm proud to represent a region that with the introduction of the scheme will be one of the very first regions in New Zealand to fully meet the requirements of those new water standards. Now I do acknowledge there are some critics including the Green Party in this House and others who have said Well the easy way to resolve the problems with the Waimea River is to cut back the existing water consents that have been provided by the Tasman and Nelson councils for town water supply that has been provided for irrigators and has been provided for industry." People that propose that scale of cuts have no practical idea as to the level of impact that would have on local residents and on the regional economy. I hear speeches all the time from parliamentarians across the House saying that we should process more of our wood products. Processing wood products takes water. Not proceeding with this dam would be devastating for one of New Zealand's biggest and most successful wood processors in the form of Nelson Pine Industries. It would be equally devastating if we went down that road of cutting water takes for Nelson's horticultural industries whether it be our apples our grapes our kiwifruit our hops or our berry fruit. So many people again give speeches in this House that they want to see New Zealand diversify its primary exports and this dam and this water scheme is a mechanism to do it.Can I also draw members' attention to the issues around housing. In my time as the member of Parliament for this region the number of people living on the Waimea Plains has expanded doubled from 10000 to 20000 people. We need more houses to be built but you cannot build more homes unless you have the water infrastructure to support them. So in summary if you want clean water if you want more added-value processing if you want to grow exports like horticulture or if you want more houses you need more water. Can I also make the point that for neither Nelson nor New Zealand do we have a water shortage issue. That is we only use 2 percent of the rainfall that falls on this country for extractive purposes. That is one of the lowest levels of anywhere in the world. Many countries use 30 percent; some use 60 percent. The issue for New Zealand is that we have shortages in quite distinct areas at quite specific times of the year. What could be simpler than storing some of those massive winter flows of water retaining that water and enabling it to be able to be used in the time of drought and dry period? I want to acknowledge the Crown Irrigation scheme established by David Carter supported by Nathan Guy which has been critical as well as the staff of Crown Irrigation Investments Ltd and the Freshwater Improvement Fund for their financial support. I want to acknowledge the Hon David Parker and Minister Shane Jones for honouring the previous commitments by the previous National Government to the scheme. I want to acknowledge Richard Kempthorne the Mayor of Tasman District; the councillors that supported this project; and a big team of staff at the Tasman District Council—dedicated people like Dennis Bush-King and Joseph Thomas who have worked on these issues for many many years. I also want to acknowledge the contribution from the Nelson City Council and the huge contribution that has been made by irrigators and landowners in the Waimea area.This project has its genesis in the awful drought that afflicted the Nelson region back in 2001. A collaborative group was established at this time and the work of organisations like the councils like the Department of Conservation like iwi and like the landowners in that area brings us to this concluding point. Can I again thank the many MPs from National—my colleagues—Labour New Zealand First and ACT who are supporting this bill through this final stage. My hope for this project is that it not only gives water security for my home community but also provides a flagship of what is possible in terms of improving water management in New Zealand."