Woods MeganDr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you to the speaker Ian McKelvie who has just taken his seat for giving a far more constructive contribution on the bill than many of his colleagues did; it is much appreciated. I just want to run through the reasons why—the four reasons that the Opposition has put up—they cannot support democracy and the restoration of democracy in the Canterbury region.The first argument is that it is unnecessary: that the current arrangements and the mixed-model that we have in Canterbury are OK and that it is a return to democracy. Well I have said it before and I will say it again—you cannot be a little bit pregnant. This is not a mixed-model of democracy; this is the Government appointing people to run Canterbury. I do take note of the speech that the member Ian McKelvie who has just taken his seat gave because he gave a speech that reached far beyond Canterbury. He talked about how this is a necessary and desirable tool to use outside the specific conditions of Canterbury which the Government has continually used as its justification for the 2010 sacking of our regional council the failure to return democracy in 2013 the failure to return democracy in 2016 and the failure to support the restoration of democracy.The current model is not fit for purpose. No member who has taken to their feet on the other side of the House has given a single justification for why it is that Canterbury should be treated differently from the rest of the country. The closest we got was with the member who has just spoken who basically made the case for rolling this out across the country rather than confining it between the Waitaki and the Clarence rivers—that he seemed to see some things there.We also heard and we heard it in the first contribution from a Government member which was repeated some concerns that iwi representation had been achieved through this legislation although the last speaker was not so keen on that himself—so maybe that is another split and division within the National Government. But what we did see and what we have consistently said is that yes there could be something really good that has happened in Canterbury in terms of Ngāi Tahu's representation around the Environment Canterbury table and we are up for that conversation at select committee; it is something that does need to be worked through with officials. It is something that some work needs to be put into and worked through. So to say that you cannot vote for this because it would do away with iwi representation is utter nonsense. That is not what we have said and we have been very clear in that all the way through.Paul Foster-Bell then raised an argument—it was often raised—that it is democratic: otherwise you are saying that district health boards (DHBs) are not democratic. Well there are very different circumstances: first of all a regional council is spending a locally collected rate and not centrally collected taxation. This is as simple as taxation without representation. A very fundamental part of what we are meant to believe in as elected members is that we do not have people just appointed to spend money that is collected from citizens as a levy or a rate or a tax; that we do have something called elections which are usually quite useful. The other very different set of circumstances around the DHBs is that that is a consistent system that is rolled out across the country. What we have here in Canterbury is a bespoke set of circumstances for Canterbury that no case has been made for—the way in which we are represented has not been justified. So that does not stack up.Then there was quite a lot of slippage with what the speakers were saying. They started out saying that the changes in this bill are not necessary because the mixed-model is doing it but then we heard speech after speech about how democracy is just too risky"—I think those were the Minister's words—for Cantabrians to be allowed to get their sticky little fingers on because they might muck it up because we have something very different there and they have to protect the gains that were made. So what is it? Do we have a democratic system? Is that why the members opposite cannot vote for the bill? Or do you want to continue an undemocratic form of government in Canterbury?The allegations of dysfunction are unfounded. The reasons why the council was originally sacked do not stack up. This is a chance for elected members of Parliament to vote for the restoration of democracy to the region of Canterbury. I encourage Canterbury members around this House to vote for their region and not for their party. Thank you."