Clendon David: South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Clendon David: South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 05 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7187. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 In my few minutes I will focus on clause 5 and particularly on the proposed amendment where the Local Government and Environment Committee to its credit belatedly endeavours to install the principle of consultation into this bill the South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill. Clearly consultation is something that has been sadly lacking in the development of this legislation—most particularly in terms of consultation with Maori with tangata whenua. I am astonished by the closing remarks of the speaker who has just sat down Maggie Barry in terms of one particular iwi or hapu and I will come to that shortly. 
This proposed amendment is too little too late. One can hear the echo of the stable door slamming and the horse has long disappeared over the horizon. It is too little because all that it actually requires the council to do is to consult with every iwi authority about the transfer of this asset from public ownership into private ownership. The bill does not require it to go below that level. It is too little and it is too late because the core decision the key decision has long since been made. 
I think it is worth referring to the generally accepted principles of consultation that have evolved and developed particularly since the early 1990s around environment law resource management and local government law. One of the key propositions arising from an Environment Court ruling is that consultation involves the statement of a proposal not yet fully decided upon listening to what others have to say considering their response and then deciding what will be done. It is that notion of a proposal being not yet fully decided upon. Clearly in the case of this bill the key decision has long since been made. It is right there in the core purpose of the bill: to establish a process by which the council may obtain the authority to transfer the asset effectively from the community and into private hands. Further the principles of consultation also require adequate information about the proposals to be given in a timely manner. Consultation should not be treated as a mere formality. The parties are to approach consultation with an open mind. 
This legislation fails on all of those tests in terms of the engagement or rather the failure to engage or consult with affected tangata whenua in the Taranaki region. The evidence for that is very clear. It is contained in the submissions to the bill. The Taranaki Iwi Trust one of eight iwi in Taranaki with an approximate area of interest from west of New Plymouth around the coast to Opunake and inland into the mountain to Taranaki maunga say in their submission that “… given the lack of consultation engagement and involvement in the development of the Bill the Trust does not have all relevant information in respect of the specific details relating to the management and operation of the Scheme.” The trust goes on to say: “The Trust was not consulted or engaged with at any stage regarding the development of the Bill.” 
We heard from Dr Smith who endeavoured to substitute volume for content. We heard constant reference to community. Maori the tangata whenua make up a pretty significant chunk of the Taranaki community. They have been utterly ignored and excluded in the development of this bill. There is no consultation. There has been no engagement. It is there in black and white from a significant iwi with whom the Crown is engaging around Treaty settlements of course. 
The trust does acknowledge that two marae have had some marginal input into this. They make the point that those two marae have got the right to determine their own futures but they make the point very clearly that this does not constitute consultation or engagement with the trust the mandated body for Taranaki iwi. 
Similarly the runanga of Ngati Ruanui with a very similar submission on behalf of 7000 uri 16 hapu and 10 affected marae make the equally clear point that they are kaitiaki of this area and they oppose this legislation in its entirety. They make the point that this bill has the potential to affect a sea change. The notion that assets that involve water which are known to be under Treaty claim known to be subject to Treaty claims could be transferred from public ownership to private ownership is a very significant and potentially a very dangerous precedent. They go on to say that “Ngaati Ruanui raises serious concerns about the South Taranaki District Councils consultation with iwi about this Bill. In the last 10 years iwi has not been given an opportunity to discuss or be involved. This Parliament and the Crown should not continue this exclusion.” 
These are fairly clear-cut fairly unequivocal statements of exclusion of failure to consult and of failure to engage in a process that has been going on for 10 years or indeed 12 years. It is unacceptable. This harks back to the 1970s and the 1980s when Maori were routinely ignored in decisions about land and water use and allocation and so much else besides. Ngati Ruanui again notes that “the development of this Bill has for many years been debated and constructed by the South Taranaki District Council. … meaningful discussion could have been undertaken with the iwi of South Taranaki. No such consultation has occurred. … The Council failed in this duty to consult with iwi.” And we must agree entirely with that. It is clear-cut; it is straightforward. 
The remarkable statement that the former National speaker made was that Nga Hapu o Nga Ruahine iwi gave some sort of sign off to this legislation. I would like for the member’s benefit and for the benefit of the House to quote from the submission to the select committee from Nga Hapu o Nga Ruahine holding a Crown-recognised mandate to represent the iwi and hapu: “We oppose the Bill in its current form. … there has been inadequate consultation with local tangata whenua by the Council in developing this Bill.” 
How one can derive from that the proposition that somehow these hapu support this legislation is frankly beyond me and I do wonder where that assertion came from. I would love to hear some defence of it or some support for it. So clearly this bill has failed to engage with iwi. It has been over a decade in the development. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
DAVID CLENDON 
: I am pleased to take these final few minutes just to reiterate some of the points I made earlier about the very poor process of the development of this bill which is one of the major reasons why the Greens are opposing it despite having supported it at its first reading. 
We have heard some rather rose-tinted opinions from the Government benches as to the engagement of the community and others and the community benefits that will flow from this legislation overlooking the fact that a very very significant part of that community—that is the Maori community of Taranaki—has been ignored excluded overlooked and not engaged with and those are terms that are taken directly from the submissions offered to the select committee by the affected party. 
The Taranaki Iwi Trust insists that the engagement with the marae that have signed off—the two marae out of who knows how many—did not constitute consultation or engagement. This has been a project some 10 or 12 years in the making. We have read repeatedly from iwi and hapu indeed who ought to have been consulted that they simply were not engaged with and in this day and age that is an unacceptable process. 
It is true that there is some credit to be given to the Local Government and Environment Committee. It has now belatedly inserted an amendment to clause 5 which at least will allow for a modicum of consultation. Sadly it will be only about the detail of the process. The key decision has already been made which is contrary to those basic principles of consultation that I referred to earlier which is to say that consultation should be undertaken before the final decisions are made. Clearly in this instance the opening phrases of the key provisions of the bill indicate that the single large decision—the fact that this asset will go from public ownership into private ownership—has been agreed to and made and there will be very little opportunity to reverse that by interested iwi and hapu. 
I suspect in fact that there will not be a great deal of pick-up on this opportunity to be consulted with or to engage in a consultative process by Maori in this area simply because it will be so marginal to the key issue at stake which is whether or not those assets ought to go from public hands and into private hands. There are the issues around the precedent it could set for Treaty settlements and for the privatisation of water assets that undoubtedly will be part of the Treaty claims that are in train now reminding us that some of these entities that have made submissions have been recognised by the Crown. Thank you.