Woods Megan: Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 10 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9628. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I am taking a call on the Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Bill to signal that Labour will not be supporting this bill. We will be opposing it vehemently and we will continue to oppose it through all stages in this House. The reason is very simple: there is simply no justification for this legislation. The Minister Louise Upston has just given us the pap that we have become accustomed to hearing when it comes to this situation.I just want to put on the record the very shoddy nature of the consultation period that went with this legislation. This is a piece of legislation that the Government has known was going to be required since it last cancelled elections in Canterbury. It had 3 years to get its act together but instead we had rushed process with submitters having barely enough time to submit let alone make their voices heard at the table. This simply is not good enough and this was made very clear to the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee who sat through those hearings in Christchurch. I would have thought that the Christchurch-based Government members of that committee should hang their heads in shame for being part of a process that silenced the people of their region on such a fundamental issue as their democratic rights.I have said that we are opposing this bill. The reason is very clear: there is no justification. So I want to go through some of the reasons that we have heard about why it is required that we once again cancel elections in part of our country. First of all the Minister for the Environment Nick Smith came out and said that democracy was simply too risky. Well this is a very surprising sentence to hear uttered from the mouth of an elected representative. I think the people in Nelson would be very interested to know that their member considers that democratic elections are just fundamentally a risky business and something that should be feared.We have just had the Minister Louise Upston tout the other line that is sometimes heard that such an abrupt change in leadership just cannot be had—so we can have only some of the people elected. Well there is absolutely no logical basis for this comment. Both for this House and for local bodies we go through elections every 3 years in other parts of the country—except Canterbury that is. There could well be a whole turnover of councils or of parties going out. This is the stuff of democracy. It happens. And that is why organisations have staff. Staff are very good at continuing the work streams that the newly elected members want to see continued—so that they are passed on. This is simply a bogus argument with absolutely no logical or intellectual merit and is beneath anyone to advance as a case for having this bill in place.We then had earlier on another justification: “Well it’s just like the DHBs.” Well there are two answers to that: look what the Government is doing to district health boards around the country at the moment and see whether they are organisations that this Government wants to hold up in some kind of esteem. The second answer is that it is illogical. They bear no resemblance. District health boards are responsible for the disbursement and the governance of centrally collected tax money. Regional councils are not. And this is where it gets to the crux. This is a very basic point about representation following along with taxation. Ratepayers in Canterbury do not have that most fundamental protection of having no taxation without proper representation. This simply is not good enough.Then we have the other one “Well it had to be done.”—the regional council that was in place in 2010 before it was sacked was simply so bad that the Government had to come along and save the environment. That is one that we often hear trotted out by members of this Government. That is simply wrong and has no basis in fact. Any scrutiny of the facts does not bear up that assertion. Let us have a look. When we had the commissioners they came in and said that they were going to set a target of 80 percent of Canterbury water—rivers and lakes—being swimmable by 2015. This was their target—the new commissioners. They were already at 74 percent when they set this target in 2010. That is what our elected representatives had delivered us before they were sacked in 2010. But the commissioners came in and they said: “No we’re going to do it better. We’re going to make it 80 percent.” Well today in Canterbury 67 percent of our rivers and lakes are swimmable. We have seen a decline in water quality in our region. So anyone who has the audacity to stand in this House and say that we have seen environmental improvement because of this regime is simply not right.It is not just us in Labour who get a little bit het up about this piece of legislation. We had submitter after submitter. In fact the Minister Louise Upston said there were 1167 submissions received on this legislation—1152 submissions opposed this legislation. There was overwhelming opposition to this legislation. We had the Christchurch City Council which labelled the Government’s move in this area as extraordinarily arrogant and said that Canterbury deserved more. I agree with our elected Christchurch City Council that we in Canterbury do deserve more. We do not deserve to be controlled by appointees of the Government in Wellington; we deserve to elect our representatives. There is no justification for the treating of Canterbury any differently to the rest of the country. When we have the Minister standing there and saying that it is part of a transition back—well we heard that when the first legislation was put in place in 2010.The Government then broke its promise and enacted another piece of legislation in 2013 and here we are in 2016. I have no faith in those members opposite if—God forbid—they are still in Government in 2019 that they will not still extend it. Why do I think that? It is because the Ministry of Primary Industries was lobbying in Cabinet papers to have this as a permanent situation. This Government does not want to ever give Cantabrians their vote back and it has made that very clear so have no faith that this is a transitional arrangement. If you look back in Hansard you will see the words “transitional arrangement” all through the 2013 legislation so beware any falsehoods that are spoken on the other side.We had a very good submission from the Law Society when it came and it gave a very considered and sophisticated submission. It said that “The proposed further suspension of full democracy is inconsistent with core constitutional values. The justification for the proposed mixed-model governance structure is not sufficiently convincing and the need for the continuance of appointed Commissioners has not been demonstrated.” This cuts to the core of why we cannot and will not support this legislation. There is no justification; there is no need. No one has made a case and I am looking forward to hearing one made on the floor in this House today. There are plenty of Government members who sit on that committee from whom I am interested in hearing long and full contributions on the justification to the people in their electorates of why it is that their votes should be taken away from them. For elected representatives to do this is simply reprehensible. There is no justification for it.I want to take the opportunity at this second reading to acknowledge one submission that was made. It was made by Christina Loughton a Christchurch woman who has for a long time been an activist and has spoken on a number of issues. Christina has died since she made that submission but she made her views very clear. She made it clear that she saw this as an affront to her and her fellow Cantabrians. She made it clear that she found this yet another arrogant and out-of-touch move from a Government that is intent on keeping power and not considering ordinary people. I ask Government members and particularly the Canterbury-based Government members of that select committee to vote with their conscience to realise what they are doing to the people of their region and to do the most basic thing that an elected member can do—that is to stand up for democracy. Thank you.