Dyson Ruth: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Dyson Ruth: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:661;Page:10048] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 I am quite pleased with the Minister for the Environment’s contribution. I hope that he will say a little more because he might then understand that as well as being frustrated and very angry at having our votes stolen from us we are even more angry about the idea of having our water stolen from us. Taking away our vote is frustrating enough but taking our water will make us really upset. If the Minister continues to engage as he just did in what I think is a considered way then we may eventually get to the point where he will understand our concerns. Instead of just riding roughshod over them instead of just wiping them aside and making smart alec contributions to the debate he might start thinking about some of our amendments and the contributions we are making because a lot of them are being made in good faith. 
In this contribution on Part 3 I will focus mainly on the water conservation order issue. A lot of people understandably do not understand what a water conservation order is. They do not have a particular interest in the environment or they do not live in Canterbury where water is a very hot topic for us. We are very keen on water and on improving its quality. A water conservation order has been described as being like a national park for rivers. That might not be such a great comparison to bring at the moment given what the National Government wants to do with our national parks listed on schedule 4. I am not accusing the Minister of wanting to mine in our water conservation order areas but we never know. Down the track he might decide that these are not very important either. 
Hon Member 
: They want to mine water! 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Mining under the riverbed would be a more logical place than mining the water. 
My understanding of the changes—and it has been quite difficult to fully absorb the content of the legislation given how late we received it and given that we have been debating it continuously with the exception of question time without any select committee consideration or the benefit of any public input through a select committee process—is that we now have a water conservation orders regime whereby the appeal process to special tribunals and the Environment Court has been entirely axed. The Minister for the Environment has nodded. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Replaced. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: That is pretty sad. We do not have recourse to special tribunals or the Environment Court now in terms of water conservation orders. 
My second understanding—and I will be pleased if the Minister wants to confirm this by nodding by sign language or by taking a further call—is that the criteria for a water conservation order established under the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill is different from the current criteria for water conservation orders. I am not quite sure why that would be. Why would we have two different regimes running parallel? It would be sensible if the Government decided that one set of criteria was not robust enough or that the threshold was not high enough was too high or whatever and that it wanted to change it. That should be a ministerial prerogative. But in my view a Government would not sensibly have one regime for some rivers around the country and another regime for others. If the criteria are now different under the Environment Canterbury area—the Canterbury Regional Council catchment area—then I would really like to know why that is the case. 
I mentioned in a contribution to an earlier debate but it is more relevant to Part 3 the fact that despite the Minister going on and on about the lack of a water management strategy the strategy is in schedule 1 of this bill. That is the first confusion I have. The Minister has also been very clear that he wants to make sure that the water management strategy is implemented that it moves on and that it has some legislative grunt yet this bill which is going through under urgency is all about Canterbury water management but the implementation of the water management strategy is not in it. It is about as shallow as a puddle after a brief bit of rain out on Lambton Quay. One could not get shallower than the attention paid to the Canterbury Water Management Strategy in this document. 
I tell the Minister in the chair the Hon Nick Smith that he has lost a huge opportunity. I agree with him that the Canterbury Water Management Strategy should have legislative grunt and should be put in the part but where is it? It is outlined in schedule 1; it tells us all about it. It tells us that we believe in motherhood and apple pie and access. It tells us that we want our water to be of a high quality and drinkable. We want it to be wet and we want to be able to use water for recreational activities. Wow that is gobsmacking news! I ask where in this bill it tells us how we will set up the committees and how we will ensure that all those different groups that have worked together on the Canterbury Water Management Strategy stay working together and improve what is happening to our water in Canterbury. It is nowhere. There is a big hole in this legislation in that regard and it should be fixed. 
The commissioners will be required—this is very tough—to have regard to the vision and principles of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. Well that will sort it out will it not I ask the Minister. By goodness let us get Dame Margaret Bazley to have due regard to the vision and principles of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. It is a bit like national standards. That will fix everything will it not; after that it will all be all right. Once Dame Margaret has had a quick browse through the Canterbury Water Management Strategy and has had due regard for it then we should be all right. There should not be any problems with water management in Canterbury! It is really frustrating that with legislation like this being abused though it is through being rammed through under urgency with no select committee process we still have an opportunity to put in the law what needs to be in the law and the Minister has missed the chance. 
In relation to the regard that is being required to be paid to the water management strategy the final point I make in this contribution is that I do not understand the different levels of regard that are required in this legislation. The commissioners are required to have “particular regard” to the Canterbury Water Management Strategy but with regard to statutory planning documents such as regional policy statements national policy statements and the regional plan—plans documents and policy statements that have been through a really rigorous public process—they have only to “have regard”. Why are there two tests? Why is there one test for “have regard” and another one to have “particular regard”? 
I am happy that the Minister is getting some advice. I can understand that when a bill is thrown together in such a shoddy way with very little consideration of any cross-Parliament support on such an important issue and then totally bypasses the select committee process and when the House goes through under urgency on the bill from I think 5.30 last evening until 10 resumes again at 9 this morning and then goes through until 1 p.m. with a brief adjournment from the debate for question time from 2 until 3.15 and here we are at 25 minutes to 4 still debating it the Minister would not even know that there are two thresholds for consideration. The first is for the Canterbury Water Management Strategy which commissioners have to have “particular regard” to and the second is for the statutory planning documents which they just have to “have regard” to. 
This is a really shonky way of trying to improve a serious situation in Canterbury. People across the political divide agree that we have a problem with the amount of water that people need for their lives for their business and for their development and the amount of water that we have to give. There is a further debate about what if we even had more water that water should be used for—whether it is best to use it in the way possible. Nothing in this bill helps us to address those fundamental issues. 
It is a really good opportunity in respect of which the Minister must have slept in. The bill came knocking at his door one morning and said: “Here I am. Here is the legislative vehicle available for you to drive a way in to help sort out the water management issues in Canterbury.” The Minister just rolled over and went back to sleep and completely missed that vehicle. The only bus that he got on was the “Let us sack the Environment Canterbury councillors” bus. That is all he did. Although sacking a whole council might make the Minister feel better and might make him feel like he has a bit of power it is a disgraceful thing to do. It is disgraceful when the so-called independent report of a group chaired by Wyatt Creech—who we cannot say is about as independent from National as one can get—came back with the view that despite all the anecdotes despite all the stories and despite all the political scaremongering that had been generated by self-interested people in Canterbury and South Canterbury there was no basis for doing this.