Jones Shane: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Jones Shane: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:661;Page:10065] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 I am grateful for the opportunity to add to the great speeches from this side of the Chamber and to isolate yet another egregious example of the errors that riddle the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill. I draw members’ attention to the misnamed proposed bill in front of us. It unwisely uses the word “Improved”. I wonder whether it is a spelling mistake or whether we ought to be dealing with improvidence. The notion that the bill will ameliorate minimise or reduce the negative externalities surrounding the wholesale slaughter of that valuable water resource by the friends of the National Government shows that the word “Improved” cannot stand— 
Paul Quinn 
: Shane I can’t understand you. One syllable words mate. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: I know that self-improvement is needed by that member over there but for fear of inviting an unnecessary level of criticism by the Chair I will overlook his many failings in other places. 
I will come back to why the Minister is so insistent on selling a series of broken dreams to the people who will suffer the burden and pay the costs for this misnamed legislation. When we think of an improvement we are dwelling upon the way in which society can derive maximum benefit in terms of the water resource through this legislation with its ill-fitting name. It cannot stand that the bill ought to be seen as an example of improvement because there will be no improvement in the standards of local democracy. There will be no improvement in relation to the efficiency or the transparency of how a valuable resource will be used in that area so the word “Improved” cannot be applied to that part of the agenda. It will not remind the people from that part of the country how valuable the multi-faceted nature of the rivers— 
Paul Quinn 
: Oh what does that mean? 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: I cannot be held responsible for the absence of an education for the rowdiest member on the Government side of the Chamber; that lies with Anne Tolley. If she could apply her standards to Paul Quinn a few of us might start to take her a bit more seriously. 
However I come back to the name of this legislation. I warn the Minister and in the gentlest of terms I remind the backers of the current Government—who have driven Ministers to take this very dangerous step so that the backers can maximise the exploitation of water for their narrow self-centred purposes—that improvement relates to better stewardship of water. Management is too narrow a term; we are talking about stewardship. I will come to management shortly because there are outstanding issues on which the Committee is required to give due consideration. Unless the values associated with aesthetic ecological and cultural interests are considered and not just the narrow commercial bank-driven pressures that so many of our folk in the farming sector are facing in that part of the country the word “Improved” cannot be allowed to stand. Through this legislation it represents absolutely no positive impact in terms of those other types of interests and values which cannot be monetised. In that sense this legislation is grossly ill-named. 
Let me come to commencement. The Minister needs to acknowledge that the commencement of this legislation foul though the legislation is—we will hold the architects responsible next year; we will ensure that the voters who have been completely stripped of any opportunity to participate unless they are well-heeled supporters of the current Government will have participation opportunities—will not come to pass until the Minister uses his regulatory power. When the Minister starts to use that level of regulatory power there will be only the flimsiest of opportunities for full democratic oversight to be visited upon the Minister’s decisions. So it is not correct for us to allow this commencement section to stand as it is because there is no way of assuaging the deep anxieties there in Canterbury in Te Wai Pounamu as to when this ill-conceived and mean-spirited strike at the heart of our citizens’ rights in that part of the country will commence. There is no way whereby people can be informed through either the mass media or this House about when they will feel the fangs of the friends of the National Government sucking as much water as possible for their narrow dangerous and exclusive purposes. 
This commencement section needs to isolate the time when the Minister imagines himself or herself enacting the necessary regulations to bring these odious provisions into law. I ask when the provisions will be operationalised because the point at which they are operationalised is the time when there will be a call to step up to the plate and protect the resources of this area. We will not know when that regulatory power will be exercised. The families communities and all varieties of stakeholders in that part of the country will not be given as they are in this Chamber an opportunity through their proxies to debate the issue of commencement. It will happen in a very surreptitious and sneaky way in some concealed room near the offices of the current Minister so the commencement provision for these new rules to be imposed on the community is a very sad example of what should have been a transparent and candid display in this Committee. It might be said that that is a very trivial matter and it might be said that that is a minute part of the legislation but people need the certainty to know when they will see their water handed over to the very narrow ill-defined shadowy group of supporters of the current Government that has forced it to overthrow democracy. As a standard of parliamentary democracy it is important that this piece of information is inserted into the legislation; although the addition of the Royal assent in the legislative route is very important the most important thing is actually the time when the Minister through the Order in Council will enact the regulations. 
Although it does not bring any great honour to us as parliamentarians it falls upon us to point out yet another error in this legislation. That lies in the fact that once we focus on the legislation as being hopelessly misnamed we also focus on the fact that the point at which it will become operational is now hidden from the public. This is all about hiding things. This is all about concealing an allocation debate and concealing private property rights away from the democratic glare. Anyone using water ought to be required to face the full glare of a transparent resource management process. Given that improvement will not take place when water is at stake the management will be furtive. The process will be undertaken by clandestine forces that fear democracy. These new commissioners—we do not entirely know who they are other than knowing about Dame Margaret Bazley—will be asked to undertake something in this legislation that will not lead to broad environmental improvement. 
Adding the notion of environment and improvement together I say that we will not get the right result through this piece of legislation. This bill is designed to manage an improvement for a very narrow range of specific stakeholders. It concerns a very narrow range of interest not the common interest. For those reasons I tell members that both of these provisions should not stand. Kia ora tatou.