Shirley Ken: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Shirley Ken: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:619;Page:15293] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chairman and I firstly congratulate you on your elevation to the Chair. May I say that it would be splendid if you were elevated to the Chair behind it at some time in the future too. 
I am very pleased that the member for Otago took that call because I appreciate the sensitive position he is in. But hearing him come out with the statement that he neither supports nor opposes Project Aqua—neither confirms nor denies—I would advise him to talk to some of the union officials. There are plenty on his side. There is the old union song: “Which side are you on boy? Which side are you on?”. That member needs to determine which side he is on because his electorate will not thank him if he continues to sit on the fence on a matter that is so critical to it. All one does when one sits on the fence in that manner is upset everyone. 
Part 2 is the guts of the Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill. When one analyses the bill and reduces it to its basic essential elements all it does is set up a committee. The whole essence of this furore and fuss is setting up a big elaborate committee. That committee has the job of allocating water. We have had a regional council that has been entrusted with that responsibility since the regional councils were established way back in 1989. They did not do it for political reasons so what makes anyone think this committee will have any more success given that it will face the same problems? 
The member for Otago said that Environment Canterbury is delighted to have the body there. Of course it is because it has abrogated its responsibility for nigh on 15 years and now the Government has stepped in and has fast-tracked special legislation. Make no mistake about it it was all about fast-tracked special legislation for Project Aqua. 
 We have had amazing utterances from the Minister for the Environment Marian Hobbs. I heard Nick Smith say in this debate that she had been sacked. I have not caught up with that news. I know that she is often missing in action but I had not realised that she had been sacked as Minister for the Environment. I had not heard anything out of her. The last comment she made was that the Resource Management Act was “beautifully worded and beautifully crafted”. At that point Labour had Mr Benson-Pope do a review of the Act to see just how beautifully worded and crafted it was. 
But be that as it may this bill is a nonsense and it is unnecessary. If one wants to persist with an administrative allocation of water there is already an existing structure that has had that responsibility for nigh on 15 years. Prior to that there was the Waitaki Catchment Commission that had that same job. It has done catchment allocation plans in the past. I have looked at them they are still in existence and they will not be much different from what this new committee established by this bill may at some point get around to doing. 
I will get back to the subject of the Minister for the Environment. The Government claimed that it was not rushing this bill through but the select committee members will remember that when we were hearing submissions down in Kurow we got a copy of the Ministry for the Environment’s newsletter. In the newsletter the Minister for the Environment was calling for nominations to this allocation board prior to this legislation even being passed. That was over a year ago. I wonder what happened to those nominations. I wonder how many she received. She said that she was not trying to rush the bill through; she did not even have the legislation passed and she was calling for nominations for this allocation board. That is clearly a nonsense. 
Another aspect of this bill was made clear in this debate. It was again about Part 2 with regard to clause 6(2). The initial bill stated that the board must complete its function within 9 months. That was 9 months ago.