Dyson Ruth: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dyson Ruth: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8370. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 Could I first of all acknowledge Paul Goldsmith the member who has just resumed his seat and thank him for acknowledging the fact that this issue has caused such a lot of concern in Canterbury. I think that was a fair acknowledgment. The member came as a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee and heard the very strongly put opposition to this bill by a large number of Cantabrians. 
In fact of the 95 submissions received on this bill only five were in favour. They were from Federated Farmers two irrigation companies and Ngai Tahu which was significant but significant because of their wish to have a better dialogue and engagement with our regional council rather than their dissatisfaction. They did note that they had never had a good relationship with elected officers before and I think that that is something that we certainly would not support. We wish that Ngai Tahu would have a better relationship with all elected officials but that does not justify not just sacking our elected representatives but sacking them for a further 3 years. 
I suppose what I have been surprised about in listening to this debate through all stages of the bill including quite a fair length of time in the Committee stage is that not one member of the National Government found fit to justify why they had supported making a liar of their Minister who has recently returned to Cabinet the Hon Dr Nick Smith. I think it is really offensive to have a Minister of Cabinet put on the public record—not just as an aside but in a considered and serious way as Dr Nick Smith is wont to do—“whatever the circumstances the next regional council elections in Canterbury will take place no later than [the elections] scheduled for late 2013.” Nick Smith promised that when he was the Minister responsible for introducing the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Act which we are now amending. I think it is an outrage that members of his own party do not even acknowledge the fact that he said that in good faith. 
People in Canterbury believed his promise to us. We thought it was bad enough that we were having our right to vote taken away for a little while but this is just extraordinary. Our faith in Nick Smith has been shattered—not by him but by members of his own party in Government. 
The deceit and the unnecessary need for this legislation has carried on. The first Cabinet paper—which was signed by the Hon David Carter when he was Minister of Local Government and by the Minister for the Environment Amy Adams who was very new to that job at the time—stated that any option except a return to a fully elected council would limit the democratic rights of residents of Canterbury compared with the rest of the country. That is true. They saw that as a problem. 
The Government members do not seem to think it is an issue at all. Taking away our democratic right to vote does not seem to have occurred to them as being a problem. Their outrageous dismissal of our right to vote for our regional council and their saying that the current commissioners are doing a good job beggars belief. It is hard to accept in New Zealand the country so proud of women winning the right to vote nearly 120 years ago that we—an entire region—have had our right to vote taken away from us with this bland dismissal from the Government in such an arrogant and offensive way. It just beggars belief. It is certainly not the only way that Cantabrians—and the rest of the country actually—are feeling stompled over by this Government. 
The other issue that I just want to briefly mention and I certainly have mentioned it in my earlier contributions is the fact that in the regulatory impact statement yet again advice not just from one ministry not just from two but from all three ministries giving advice on this bill recommended that the water conservation orders be restored to the state that every other region has them in. Again this bill takes away that standard process that we have had and in Canterbury the protection of our water is more critical for us than it is for anywhere else in New Zealand. It is the biggest issue in Canterbury and that is why we have seen the Government take away this democratic right. Some of us think that our water needs to be preserved and cared for and protected for future generations because the way that the irrigators are using it up means that we now have rivers that are dry we have aquifers that are polluted and a treasure that we should be able to pass on to future generations is being lost.