Kedgley Sue: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee 
Kedgley Sue: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:661;Page:9985] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 First I agree entirely with Brendon Burns who said earlier that the regional council Environment Canterbury will not be reinstated. It is an open secret that this Government is trying to get rid of the regional councils in New Zealand; we know that. Getting rid of the regional council in Canterbury is just its first foray. I predict that that council will never be reinstated. This is the end of regional councils in Canterbury. We will never see a regional council in Canterbury again. 
All over the world it is common for dictatorships—it is their hallmark—that do not like what democratically elected representatives are trying to do to get rid of them. That is what happened in Fiji. Bainimarama did not like what some of his democratically elected representatives were doing so he got rid of them. That is exactly what has happened here. We have a coup d’état in Canterbury. I took the trouble to look up what the definition of a coup d’état is. It is the sudden unconstitutional getting rid of a Government usually by a small group within the existing Government. That is exactly what has happened here. It is a bloodless coup d’état. It has happened in a completely unconstitutional way through the actions of a small group within the existing Government using time-worn techniques. 
What are the time-worn techniques? First of all one goes about discrediting the democratically elected council. First the Minister for the Environment got the Creech report from Mr Creech who is one of the Minister’s mates. He is a former deputy leader of the National Party. Mr Creech dashed around Canterbury over a period of 3 weeks and interviewed 20 people. He came up with a report that seeks to discredit the regional council a democratically elected council; the report says it is so inefficient that we must get rid of it. Mr Creech tried desperately hard to say there was a statutory basis for dismissing the elected councillors but sadly for Mr Creech despite his very best efforts he was unable to find any statutory basis for dismissing them. In fact he was forced to conclude—poor man—despite his mission to utterly discredit Environment Canterbury that it was meeting its legal obligations under the Local Government Act. The report states that “the governance of ECan is functional and enables it to meet its statutory obligations.” So there was absolutely no statutory basis for getting rid of the council whatsoever. The Minister acknowledged when briefing us yesterday that he was not able to use the provisions of the Local Government Act to get rid of Environment Canterbury so he has had to have recourse to this legislation. 
The other point is that Cantabrians need to be aware of the bigger picture here. What we see is not just the hand of Nick Smith and the National Government but also the hand of Rodney Hide. What is ACT’s agenda? ACT’s agenda is quite explicit. Like all new-right Governments ACT members want to shrink democracy. They want to privatise and corporatise as many aspects of democracy as they can. They have done that with the governance of Auckland. They have produced a coup d’état in Auckland. They have corporatised Auckland. The situation in Canterbury is eerily similar. There is a pattern and now they have done it to Canterbury. It is the same sorts of time-worn techniques: discredit the council by saying there is a huge problem then summarily dismiss it without any statutory basis for doing so and replace it with hand-picked political appointees—and I can imagine who the rest of them might be. 
Cantabrians need to be aware that this move is part of ”Rogernomics Part 2”—and it is good to have Roger Douglas here listening to this because that is what it is all about. ACT realises that it is thwarted in this particular electoral cycle in its ambition to sell off the State-owned enterprises to privatise them at the governmental level. It is not able to do it in this term of Government. It will be done in the next term of Government if National is re-elected. So ACT has turned its attention to local government and that is where it is focusing “Rogernomics Part 2”. Rodney Hide the Minister of Local Government is quietly going around New Zealand and getting rid of as much local government as possible. ACT has got rid of eight democratically elected councils in Auckland; now it is getting rid of a democratically elected regional council in Canterbury. What will be next? Where is the next excuse to get rid of yet another layer of democratically elected councillors and replace them— 
Jacqui Dean 
: Oh come on! 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: This is exactly what the National Government has done. It is an indisputable fact. The Government has got rid of eight democratically elected councils in Auckland. Now it has got rid of a democratically elected regional council in Canterbury. That is an indisputable fact. And it has got rid of it by unconstitutional means. 
What really surprises me is that it has managed to fool many people in Canterbury just as it initially fooled many people in Auckland. Many of the mayors in Canterbury have gone along with it. All sorts of personal agendas are at stake. They have gone along with it in a cavalier fashion saying: “Oh who cares? We have just wiped out another layer of democracy. Who cares? It is just democracy.” Democracy is what our ancestors fought for and women fought for the vote. People all around the world are fighting for democracy but we have just cavalierly dismissed eight democratically elected councils in Auckland and now we are dismissing this council and the people of Canterbury are saying: “Oh well what does it matter? We’ll just replace them with some political appointees with some political hacks that will do the Government’s agenda. We’ll just get rid of the council—no problem.” But we will never get back that layer of democracy. 
The regional councillors were proving a bit inconvenient for the Government. They were not ramming through its agenda of getting hold of the water in Canterbury and building large irrigation dams. Because they were inconvenient they are to be wiped out and replaced by politically appointed commissioners so that the Government will be able to implement its agenda very explicitly without any obstacles. The Government goes around the world saying how terrible what has happened in Fiji is when exactly what has happened in Fiji is happening in Canterbury. It is happening with the passage of this bill. 
Jacqui Dean 
: Not true! 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: It is exactly true. I guarantee that the people of Fiji will get to vote before the people of Canterbury ever get to vote for a regional council again. The people of Canterbury will not get to vote because the regional council will never be reinstated. The people of Canterbury need to wake up. This is the agenda. It is “Rogernomics Part 2”. It is an agenda to wipe out layers of local democracy to privatise and corporatise the remainder of local government and to enable this Government to impose its will on the people of Canterbury. It is as I have said a coup d’état—an unconstitutional getting rid of a Government by a small group of people. That is the definition of a coup d’état. That is what this is. 
It was very interesting to see the letter from the people of Canterbury. It points out that there should be no taxation without representation. The letter refers to the “outrageous and completely unwarranted destruction of local democracy”. In respect of replacing the councillors the writers of the letter say that if they are not going to have a voice in local government then they will not pay for it—they will not pay their rates. The letter states: “If central government chooses to abrogate our democratic right to choose our own local decision makers then it is central government’s responsibility to pay for the unelected decision makers it chooses to put in their place.” That is what those people are intending to do.