Dyson Ruth: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee 
Dyson Ruth: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:661;Page:10019] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 I will pick up on the points that my colleague Lianne Dalziel was making in relation to the amendment that she has moved. That was the first time I was alerted to that amendment during the course of this debate. I think the Minister of Local Government who is in the chair needs to reflect on the fact that this amendment is not frivolous. It was made on the basis of that member being a local resident as I am of Canterbury the area that is affected by the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill which we are debating under urgency. He needs to reflect on the fact that this amendment would strengthen the bill. We fundamentally oppose the bill but this amendment would make it better. I suggest to both the Minister of Local Government and the Minister for the Environment that they look at the amendment moved by my colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel and take it seriously. It would make a bad bill better. 
It would certainly be for us a major step forward in what has been a fundamental breach of process and of democracy in our region. I was listening to the debate a couple of speakers back when my colleagues Chris Hipkins and Grant Robertson took calls and it struck me that a lot of people in other towns will be scared. What has happened is that our elected councillors have all been sacked; they have been given just a month’s notice. The Minister for the Environment will appoint five or seven commissioners—we do not even know the number—to do their job. The Minister on his own will define what their job will be and he is going to decide how much they will get paid. And guess what? We are going to pay the bill! So the Minister can say that he thinks the commissioners are worth a huge amount of money and I predict that he will say they are worth $2000 a day. That is the going rate for this sort of job. It is a lot more than any of our existing councillors get. Then he will say to the people of Canterbury that they will have to pay for the commissioners out of their rates. That is a disgrace. Our elected representatives are being sacked without any recourse back to us. Commissioners are being appointed with no say at all from local people. The Minister by himself will decide who the commissioners are and what their job description is. He will decide how much money they will be paid a day. And we get to pay their consultancy fee. Well I do not think the people of Canterbury will think too warmly of Nick Smith and Rodney Hide but that will not be a particular revelation to anyone. They have never been very high on our list of people who share our concerns anyway. But on this issue it is a fundamental breach of good process and of democracy. 
The other point that I would really like the Minister to address is that I am really puzzled about what exactly the breadth of the work will be. My colleague Brendon Burns alluded to this briefly in his earlier contribution but I ask the Minister to tell the Chamber whether the commissioners will be expected to do the constituency work the bread and butter work the work that keeps the community connected to the regional council. Will they be expected to do that or will we lose all that strength and connection between our regional councillors whom we have now and our community? 
I recently took a complaint to Environment Canterbury to our regional council about a proposed change to a bus route. That is one of the things that members of Parliament deal with day in and day out. We have to talk to the local authority about proposals and about the concerns of our constituents and how we might get a win-win situation. I spoke to the man at Environment Canterbury who is responsible for this issue and we organised a time to meet. He rang me back the next day and said that Councillor Carole Evans would like to be part of the discussion because she is the chair of the transport committee and she was interested in the fact that I and my constituents had concerns. She wanted to be part of that discussion. Will a commissioner do that I ask Mr Hide? Will a commissioner getting $2000 a day of our ratepayers’ money get out of the office in Kilmore Street come out to St Martins drive over Glenelg Spur as Councillor Carole Evans did and say that he or she understands the problem and we will work together to fix it? I cannot see that happening.