Peters Jim: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Peters Jim: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:620;Page:15548] 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 When New Zealand First considered the Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill we had three components in mind. The first is that this bill is concerned first and solely with water allocation. Secondly we believe that the rights of existing permit or consent holders which included Meridian Energy irrigators and traditionally recreational users are paramount in any framework or plan. Thirdly we held from the beginning and throughout the whole of this process that the in-stream values that characterise this river must above allbe paramount in any framework or now plan. We are aware that the normal resource consent process goes through in this case two regional councils but also involves some district councils. We also are aware that Environment Canterbury which has authority for most of the area under consideration had no water plan for this river but had before it over 60 resource applications awaiting a hearing. 
I will pause for just a minute because the issue of time is important with regard to the rights and to the matters of the Order in Council which I will traverse later. But what are the facts of the situation with regard to Meridian Energy which is a significant user of water and supposedly the reason for this bill particularly with regard to the upper Waitaki Valley? In 1991 Environment Canterbury granted consents to what was then ECNZ and is now Meridian Energy for all its activities on the Waitaki River after—and this is the point—a lengthy public participative working-party process. I am assured absolutely by Environment Canterbury that the working-party that looked at the issues in 1991 received no objections from anybody. After that Environment Canterbury adopted an interim policy that covered the matter of the minimum flow of the lower Waitaki River and set about preparing a plan. It also has assured me and assured the Minister as well earlier this year that at that point it stopped because there was no demand and furthermore there was a very strong feeling that a water plan was not required. It may be that territorial issues between Otago and Canterbury were also an influence at that time. So when this bill came to the House there was no residual water plan; there was a regional policy statement giving some guidance but there was no facility in hand at all to consider the complex matters that were going to become the matter of a potential consent. 
When the bill came to the House—and I want to emphasise this point—New Zealand First did not support it. Our support as a party came after the excellent work done by the select committee in changing almost completely a number of the core issues in the bill. We felt that the bill that came back to the House provided a more adequate process to determine the use of water in the catchment area to develop a water allocation framework and to provide for the issues with the main issue being the limited available water supply in the catchment because of the range of applications but also because of the amount of previous use. 
We acknowledge the importance of renewable energy for the Waitaki catchment as well as irrigation the natural in-stream issues recreational community fishery issues and not least NgaiTahu concerns which were all defining features of what the allocation would be in the regional plan. Under the Resource Management Act the “first come first served” basis is not designed to compare the merits of comparative applications for water. It requires only an effect-based assessment or impact for any proposal. That is the major issue that is still to be determined and if it is not determined in the course of the development of the regional plan then unsolved problems will be left. There has to be a determinative solution as to what is the process or the case for comparative applications for water from the same stream or the same stretch of water. 
We would have preferred it if this part in the final review which came back after the Supplementary Order Paper had had some input from the public. I know that groups like Waitaki First would have much preferred it if the Local Government and Environment Committee had considered the matters considered by the Committee of the whole House. It felt that the select committee would have given those matters more serious application and would have come back to the House with a far better bill than the one we are now looking at and I am quite sure that would have been so. The Government of the day in its wisdom decided to bring the matters directly to the House. We lost the opportunity to consider in a semi-private or public forum some of the expert advice that we could have called on before this became the bill’s final form. I understand the reasons why those matters were brought here but I believe that we missed a valuable opportunity to really get it right. The Waitaki First submissions earlier on were anxious that we did get it right for the sake of its river. 
But what does this bill do for us finally? It establishes a Waitaki Catchment Water Allocation Board and it establishes a plan and a process in a 12-month period. We have had some call for alternatives and I refer to the present regional natural resources plan which is before the region right now. I have said previously in the House and I will say it again that the earliest expectancy that that planning could become operative in any sense would be in 2008-09. If this bill is passed today within a year from now a proposed regional plan for the Waitaki catchment could be in existence and every would-be user would have to “give regard to” that proposed plan as from that date. That surely is a far better operative proposal for the future than any other that I know of. May I say that the people I have spoken to the people of the upper Waitaki catchment valley—the farming community there the would-be irrigators and those associated with the length and the breadth of the river—see that as a far more desirable step than anything else that has been mentioned here or in other places. 
Brian Connell 
: What about Federated Farmers? 
JIM PETERS 
: Federated Farmers may have said otherwise. Their submission which has been around this place relates back to what they feel is the unfinished business of the Order in Council and I will come back to that towards the end of my speech. It is the only unsolved issue so far as I am concerned. 
What this regional water plan will do is put into effect what was stated in the Tasman District Council case with Carter Holt Harvey and that was that regional councils need to manage water bodies and stream flows to reflect and this is the important point the current environment—that is in 2004—and that the allocation of water should provide equal opportunities for all users to access the resource and we would applaud that. If the regional planning commissioners would also set as their major objective the enabling of access to water while safeguarding and protecting in-stream values then that would be something we would look forward to with pleasure. We know that Environment Canterbury has the material and data including historical knowledge of the Waitaki catchment dating right back to 1928 and beyond. We know that high-quality data and investigation were provided in the application that was submitted by Meridian Energy to Environment Canterbury. We also know that the recent work of the Ministry for the Environment and others provides a huge body of knowledge which now needs to be sorted out assembled disseminated and finally put into a regional plan. In so far as New Zealand First is concerned we look forward to seeing that plan. If the plan is in accordance with the new revised clause 14A with those four major components if it attempts to look at the issue of an allocative framework as well then we will be very satisfied and I am quite certain that those people who are most concerned about their river will also be satisfied. 
The final matter is that the life of the river inherently needs to be preserved. It is for public use; it is for private use; but most of all the river itself is important. It is important that those in-stream values are recognised in a final regional plan. New Zealand First supports the passage of the bill and looks ahead to Environment Canterbury doing its job.