Dyson Ruth: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: General Debate[Sitting date: 25 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13710. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I would be very disappointed if you did not Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a real pleasure to talk in this general debate this afternoon but I am really disappointed in my subject. I have not seen very often in this Parliament the kind of inconsistencies and misleading that the Hon Nick Smith has indulged inin the last 2 weeks and I say that it does a disservice to the whole of this House. The reputation of this Parliament should be important to all of us. If a Minister ends up doing something that is not right then I think it is incumbent on that Minister to front up and say so.But what we have seen is that the Minister of Conservation was briefed clearly on a draft submission from the Department of Conservation that it wanted to make—and actually it is its statutory obligation to make—to the board of inquiry looking at the proposal for plan changes to do with theRuataniwha dam. It was concerned about it and it wanted to make a submission expressing its concerns particularly about the water quality and the impact on native fish. That is its responsibility. It briefed the Minister. He has consistently denied knowing of the existence of that submission. How could a Minister be briefed on a submission raise concerns about it ask for a copy of the full submission before it is submitted and then deny its very existence? That is not credible.Today I was very disappointed that the Minister was not able to join us in the House to answer questions and I think that my disappointment was matched only by the disappointment of Nick Smith’s colleague Tony Ryall who was clearly disappointed that he was passed the parcel—an absolute hospital pass—in trying to justify the inconsistency that I just referred to. Minister Nick Smith has said that he did not give the Department of Conservation an indication of what its submission should be. Yet the deputy director-general—not a junior staff member; a competent well-regarded professional—sent an email out to her senior colleagues saying: “The Minister has expressed concern about our submission. He wants to see a final copy of it. You should send it over tomorrow because I am out of town.” I am quoting from the email Mr Assistant Speaker rather than referring to you. Then she said: “He has expressed concern and might want us to let the determination about the water quality be made by the EPA.” It was a clear indication from the Minister about what should be in the submission and what should not and again we have had the Minister denying that.The denial of knowing about the submission is clearly not credible. The Minister had a briefing he expressed concern he asked for a full copy and then he said that he did not know of the existence of the draft submission. That is just totally unbelievable. It just cannot be true. He then said that he did not have any influence on that submission at all. As I have just said if you line that statement up against the statement of the deputy director-general from the email that was sent which is now on the department’s website that statement clearly is not credible either. And this afternoon we have had further revelations of Ministers riding roughshod over their departments in relation to this very same proposal theRuataniwha dam. Had David Cunliffe been allowed to table the documents that he sought leave to table which was denied by the Hon John Banks then that would be out in the public domain. I certainly hope he is able to table those in the future.The Ministry for Primary Industries another Government department expressed concern in its draft about theRuataniwha dam proposal about the phosphorus management about the lack of industry best practice about the economics of the proposal and about the nutrient management system—very similar concerns to those expressed by the Department of Conservation. The ministry no doubt reported that to its Minister. What did its final submission say? Its final submission omitted everything about the water quality and went from the draft submission saying that the economics of this proposal are very dodgy very risky to saying that this is a very solid proposal on economic grounds—a miraculous U-turn.