Moroney Sue: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Moroney Sue: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5317. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 I would like to say that it is a pleasure because it normally is to rise to speak to a bill but in this case it is the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill at its first reading and Labour is deeply opposed to this bill. Never has there been a more important time for the good people of Canterbury to take control of their own futures. Never have they needed that so much. And what are they getting from this Government? They are getting this bully Government marching in and telling them that it does not trust Cantabrians enough to actually let them have their own elected representation in Environment Canterbury. That is what this Government is doing. 
I actually visited Christchurch yesterday. I know that the people of Christchurch have had enough of things happening to them being done to them and not having control over their lives. This is the very time that Cantabrians want to take control back over their lives. They have had enough meted out to them. This is the time when they want to have more control. That was actually expressed to me yesterday in a meeting that I was having with early childhood education providers in Christchurch where they were telling me the impact on them of being pretty much sidelined and kept out of the grand Christchurch education plan that the Government landed on them last Thursday. What they were saying to me and it is relevant to this bill was that they had had enough of being treated like second-class citizens. 
The early childhood education sector in education is being treated like a second-class citizen by this Government. It happened again to the sector in Christchurch last Thursday where all the discussion was going on around schools and early childhood education was just an afterthought. They said to me: “We want to have involvement we want proper consultation because we have some great ideas.” And they did. They have got some great visions for what they want in their city but this Government keeps coming along and pulling the carpet out from underneath them. This bill is yet another example. 
This bill tells Cantabrians that they cannot take control back over their lives—that this Government will specifically prevent them from taking control back over their lives by not allowing them to have a vote on who controls decision making over Environment Canterbury. I cannot stress enough just how important it is for this Government to start listening to the people of Canterbury. It needs to actually hear what the people of Canterbury are saying rather than being on its high horse down here—up here from Canterbury’s perspective—in Parliament telling Cantabrians what is best for them. Here we go again with this bill. I will not even call it a nanny State; it is a “manny State” Government—a “manny State” Government—that now has a consistent track record in telling Cantabrians and other New Zealanders what is in their best interests because this Government just knows best. It knows so much better than the people of New Zealand and in this case the people of Canterbury that it will take democracy away to prove that it knows better. That is exactly what is happening with this bill. 
Tomorrow we celebrate Suffrage Day in New Zealand. It is 119 years since Kate Sheppard who I think was a Cantabrian actually got out on her bike went around with a whole heap of other women and good men and got the voice of Cantabrians to actually fight for the right of women to have the right to vote in this country. That is happening tomorrow. What would Kate Sheppard think of this Government? What would Kate Sheppard think of it putting a bill through Parliament today—the day before Suffrage Day—to take away the right of Cantabrians to vote for their local council?