Woods Megan: Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 13 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7124. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Labour is opposing this bill but I can assure the Minister who has just taken his seat the Hon Dr Nick Smith and everybody that we are not opposing the reconstruction of Christchurch. Actually it is on this side of the House that we believe that part of the reconstruction and recovery of Canterbury and of Christchurch is about power going back to Cantabrians. It is about Cantabrians having a say in their future and not central control from Wellington.Not much of what stood in 2010 in Cathedral Square remains today. There are a few things and one of those things that remain standing in Cathedral Square is a cairn that was erected by people when democracy was sacked by Nick Smith in Canterbury in 2010. This was a monument that was erected by people from all around the region bringing stones from all our rivers so that it would not be moved until democracy was restored in Canterbury. Well that cairn is going nowhere because this bill is not the restoration of democracy. This bill is a continuation of central government control of a region.Nothing that the Minister for the Environment said today either in fact or in logic justified why it is that Canterbury will have a regional council governance structure that is different from everywhere else in the country—nothing that Nick Smith said justified that today. He tried to say “Well Labour did it.”—it seems to be all that National can say in response to everything. Yes when Labour was in Government when there were problems we as a Government did step up and we did what was necessary; we certainly did not withhold democracy for 9 years at a time which is what the legislation that we are debating here today in effect will do. That democracy was always restored at the latest at the next triennial election.And let us not forget that actually the Minister who has just taken his seat promised Cantabrians in 2010 that they would have democracy restored in 2013. He did not do it in 2013 and he most certainly is not doing it in this legislation here today. Let us bear in mind that this is a Minister who has labelled democracy as carrying too many risks. This is a Minister who told The Timaru Herald that he was worried about the outcome—the outcome being the decisions of a democratically elected council. Everybody in New Zealand should be worried today—not just the people of Canterbury whom this legislation impacts on but everybody. Because this is a Government that is willing to sack elected bodies if it does not like what they are doing and replace them with its own appointees. It simply is not good enough and it is not something that we are willing to put up with.The other thing that really concerns me and I have tabled an amendment to this is the report-back time that the Minister has described on this bill: a report-back time of 15 February 2016. This puts it in the 4 to 6 month category which means there will be no vote. There will be a vote but no separate debate on that part of the legislation. Given that this period that the Minister described includes the New Year break when the House does not sit for 7 or 8 weeks it leaves effectively a select committee consideration of little more than 2 months. This is simply not acceptable. This is about a Parliament stripping away democratic rights and to put in place with that a truncated select committee process is reprehensible and something that should not be allowed to stand. Either the usual 6-week period for receiving submissions will have to be shortened—and that is not acceptable to Labour members—or there would be only 1 week to hear submissions. Again that is not acceptable to Labour members.We know that with predecessors to this legislation when the Government has previously legislated to take away the right of Cantabrians to control their own destiny actually Cantabrians have wanted to have their voice heard—and we have a Government that not only is putting in place legislative measures to stop that happening when it should have been fully democratic elections at the 2016 triennials but also it wants to truncate the select committee process. So I ask the Government and any other support parties to at least consider voting to allow this to have a full and proper select committee process so that Cantabrians will have the right to be heard and they will not be stifled by this Government because as the bill stands at the moment they will be. This is an absolute travesty.This is the continuation of central control of Canterbury by this Government. Appointing nearly half the councillors in no way shape or form represents a return to democracy. The Minister likes to dress it up and “mixed model” is what he has come to. It is like being a little bit pregnant—being a little bit democratic I guess. It simply is not the case. This is not democracy; this is the Government maintaining its sticky fingers in the affairs of Canterbury in a way that it does nowhere else in the country. And it is an insult to the people of Canterbury. We are more than capable of governing ourselves of electing representatives who will make decisions for the good of our province like every other place in this country—Hon Dr Nick Smith: What about Hawke’s Bay health?Dr MEGAN WOODS: —and Cantabrians are more than capable of doing that. The Minister is heckling across the House: “What about Hawke’s Bay?”. We did not deny democracy there for 9 years. Democratically elected councillors were restored. So the Minister’s continued justifications are weak and they do not stand up as I said in either logic or fact. The Minister is on very weak ground here and he knows it.What we also know is that the Minister has made a big hoopla about how we simply cannot afford to lose the skills base that is currently sitting around the Environment Canterbury table. This is the case with any council in a triennial election. In fact it is the case with any member when they stand in 3-yearly parliamentary elections. So I want to know from Government members about the fear of losing skilled people. Should we cancel all elections or is this something that is going to count only in Canterbury? Are there special rules for Canterbury? I want to know whether this is something that the Government is planning to roll out in other places in the country. If the real fear that the Minister has is that we will lose institutional knowledge and skills there are alternatives other than denying Cantabrians the right to control their region. There are many things that the Government could do rather than rush to this decision. For one institutional knowledge is carried through by staff and commissioners could have been employed in some way to sit alongside elected members. So the Minister’s justifications simply do not stack up.The Minister was quite right when he said that this is legislation about the regulation and management of water use in Canterbury and he derides the last council and talks about what a bad job it did. I think that so much ink has been spilt showing how this was actually just a justification that the Minister manufactured back in 2010. Actually the Government had a target of 80 percent of the rivers in Canterbury being swimmable. Back in 2010 74 percent of them were swimmable when our council was sacked. Today only 67 percent of Canterbury rivers are swimmable. Is this the blue-green future that the Minister is proposing—that we have a reduction in the swimmability of our rivers? I want more. I want to actually have a commitment to having swimmable rivers and not to have set in place a process that is going to ensure that we do not have them.Treasury told the Minister that he was not putting forward a solid case and that he was not putting forward a range of options—Hon Dr Nick Smith: Rubbish.Dr MEGAN WOODS: —to be consulted on. It is in the regulatory impact statement Minister. It is there in black and white. Treasury told you that you needed to put out a range of options. It is a pity the Minister did not read it at the time or his discussion document may have actually had more impact. Cantabrians made it clear at that point of the process that they did not want this imposed model from the Minister as the way of governing our future. We have a fantastic future in Canterbury. It is part of our restoration. Let the people of Canterbury—