Burns Brendon: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Burns Brendon: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:661;Page:10075] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 What a conclusion to a shameful day for this Parliament. That Minister who has talked about people’s integrity being questioned used his last speech on the bill to question the integrity of other people including myself. This bill is an absolute travesty from beginning to end. It is based on a specious review which interviewed fewer than 20 stakeholders in 1 short month with a conflicted chairperson of Environment Canterbury’s performance which had improved immeasurably in the time between the review’s taking place and the end of the time frame it was looking at. 
I thought the Minister was on record as saying he wanted better water quality in New Zealand. This bill does absolutely nothing to deliver on the promise that he made repeatedly when in Opposition and in the early stages in Government. Earlier today I asked a question of the Prime Minister on the issue of what he wants to see and what he is on record as seeing. I have now tabled that reference. I quote from written question No. 291 from Dr Russel Norman in which the Prime Minister stated that when earlier this year he spoke of looking forward to seeing water schemes built in the South Island this year he was referring to the Rangitata South scheme as well as to some of the specific water storage schemes identified in the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. 
So there we have it. There is the agenda of this Government on paper. The Government wants to see new projects next year. That is what this bill is about: enabling those projects to happen rapidly and in a context where there are no new environmental frameworks or safeguards being put in place by this Government. During the course of question time too my question was rejected on the basis that it could not be authenticated by reference to Dr Smith’s comments in today’s  
Timaru Herald 
. Let me quote the  
Timaru Herald 
 of today: “Dr Smith said part of the reason he replaced the council with commissioners—rather than appointing a commissioner adviser to oversee water management issues as ECan suggested—was he was wary of the outcome of the October elections. ‘ECan put forward a negotiated solution but one of the downsides is that there was no guarantee the commissioner-adviser would have the same powers come October’ ”. 
What he is saying is that he did not want to trust the voters of Canterbury to have their say about who should decide on the functions of their regional council on the allocation of water in their region. He wanted to have control of that via commissioners. That is what this bill is about. It is the replacement of a democratic council function by executive fiat—the Fiji solution as it has been referred to in the House. There is no requirement across this bill for consultation with the public of Canterbury. What we have is the requirement for commissioners to issue public notices from time to time. Where will we see these commissioners replacing the functions of elected councillors? Where will they go out and meet with people who have issues about their rates the need to replace their fireplaces and the need to improve the city’s bus service scheduling or timetables? 
I ask the Minister where those commissioners will be. They will be cloistered in Kilmore Street in the headquarters of Environment Canterbury. They will be paid I wager the thick end of $1000 or more a day. A commissioner will be getting five times what an elected councillor would be getting. Will we get five times the value? Will they go out to talk to their constituents or will they sit there and implement the Government’s agenda? What they will do is become isolated in that castle in Kilmore Street and “ECan” will become “ECan’t” in terms of any connection with voters. That is what they will do. There will be nobody there to look after the interests of Canterbury voters. There is nothing in the bill on the question of commissioners having to meet the public hold public meetings or establish consultation groups so that they can get some window of view on what the people in Canterbury want from them. We are talking about these people being in place for up to 3½ years without any reference to the community they are supposedly serving at five times the pay rate of the people whom they have replaced. That is what this bill is about. There is no consultation mechanism whatsoever. 
It is disgraceful for a Government to put in place an enduring replacement for 3½ years whereby people will sit in splendid isolation in an ivory tower and have no contact with the voters or reference to them. There will be no requirement to consult to gauge or to go and see them. All the power rests with the Minister for the Environment and he says “Trust me. You can be assured that I’ll look after the interests of Canterbury.” Well I do not trust him and I do not believe he has the power anyway. This is another victory for Rodney Hide. This is doing to Canterbury what he has done to the super-city in Auckland. It is a two-fingered salute to the people of Canterbury as he has done to the people of Auckland. Talk about democratic process. At least in Auckland there was a select committee hearing. We have not had even a flicker of democratic process here. This bill has been rammed through under urgency without any consultation whatsoever other than the 20 groups talked to by the review group and the Ministers trotting round and having a brief conversation with some of the councils. That is what it has come down to: Rodney Hide has won the day. I suppose we can congratulate him on that but it is at the expense of the voters of Canterbury. We have to ask who will be next. Will it be Wellington Waikato or the Bay of Plenty? There will be an agenda that follows on from this. Mark my words! 
I want to comment on the Maori Party which after opposing the bill’s introduction has supported it on the specious belief I believe that it will improve the representation of Maori in whatever replaces Environment Canterbury. On the experience of Auckland that is a fond fond hope. Members of the Maori Party held out for Maori representation on the Auckland super-city and it was not delivered. Rodney Hide made it an issue basically that he was going to win or walk and so much for mana enhancement for the Maori Party. Its nose was dusted on that one and I suspect we will see the same outcomes in Canterbury. There will I think be a Maori commissioner appointed. That is implicit in the bill I suppose. I suspect that we will see somebody from the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. I think we will probably see Alec Neill appointed. 
H V Ross Robertson 
: What? Not Alec. It can’t be Alec. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: Oh yeah they will give him a job I would have thought. But that still does not address the issues because the power will still rest with the Minister. There will still be conflict in the fact that the Canterbury Water Management Strategy embodies a whole range of principles that will not be upheld by this bill. I noted the chairperson of the Water Rights Trust said last night that there would be war if the Canterbury Water Management Strategy was not implemented and held to. Well we will see. There have certainly been plenty of protests around Christchurch already today. There were 300 people at a rally on Monday before last on this issue at short notice. People in Canterbury are very one-eyed. They are feisty and they believe in their institutions and they hold to them dearly. This Government takes that on at its peril. 
The Canterbury Water Management Strategy states that it will uphold principles concerning the environment. This bill is going in absolutely the opposite direction. I note the Minister’s crocodile tears for the staff and councillors at Environment Canterbury. He brings in a bill to dismember them and then says oh he is sorry and he really feels for them. Talk about shallow! As for his references to a step change—we keep hearing that phrase “step change”—I ask where the step change is in terms of the delivery of the improvements we want to see in environmental outcomes in Canterbury. Nothing is happening to do that. There is nothing in this bill and nothing signalled. The Minister has put a lot of faith and hope in the Land and Water Forum which will report at the end of July and it was based on the same sorts of principles that the Canterbury Water Management Strategy tried to uphold and patiently negotiated. Those principles are being put at extraordinary risk by this bill and we will see the outcomes of that in short order. 
As for the idea that water management has been holding back Canterbury members have to acknowledge that Canterbury has been leading the charge in terms of economic growth across the country for quite some considerable time. It has produced nearly half the national growth in the dairy industry over the last 10 years. So we are not being held back. We are at risk of seeing opportunities thwarted because the costs of water management will be stitched back to the people of Canterbury. They have lost their vote. Shame on this Government I say.