Logie Jan: Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 13 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7136. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. It felt wrong helping out my National colleague Nuk Korako after that contribution but I just could not help myself. I am really pleased to have the opportunity to rise and take a short call in support of the more comprehensive contribution that was made by my colleague Eugenie Sage where she I think eviscerated the Government’s arguments for this bill and exposed its true purpose in outlining the history of this bill.We have heard several times from National members and also from New Zealand First members who were saying that the councillors were removed from Environment Canterbury because they were not doing the job that the people put them there to do. Well I would say still it is the right of the people to decide whether they were doing the job they put them there to do or not. It is not and should never be the job of people sitting in Wellington on these Government benches to decide whether a local council or a regional council is doing the job for its people. It is the heart of democracy that the people themselves get to vote and express their will.If the people of Canterbury had been unhappy with the functioning of Environment Canterbury they would have removed those councillors and replaced them with people whom they believed would deliver on what they wanted. That is how democracy works and it seems to be a fundamental failure on behalf of this Government to misunderstand that very basic principle.The Green Party has a proud history of supporting democracy and particularly participatory democracy at a local level. We believe that the more perspectives that are gathered the better the decision. We believe that the more people who are directly affected by a decision and who are involved the more likely you are to get a better decision.Appropriate decision-making is one of our charter principles and it is so important for us because we know it is really hard to protect the environment and create a fair society without good democracy. The arguments that have been put forward for getting rid of Environment Canterbury council members were that the decisions were taking too long and it was getting in the way of economic progress i.e. irrigation.Well actually that is the case in point. When Nick Smith from Wellington and from these Government benches decided that the economic priorities of his Government overrode the considerations and the complexities that were happening in that local community he undermined democracy and put the environment at risk. We are seeing so clearly now that while this commission is in place and people are appointed by this Government to prioritise economic growth and irrigation we have seen a decline in water quality.Hon Dr Nick Smith: Rubbish!JAN LOGIE: We have. That is the reporting as we have heard from my colleague Eugenie Sage who outlined the struggles that Environment Canterbury was working within and the constraints around having no national plans and that it was dealing with more irrigation proposals than all the other councils combined with no support from central government. It was got rid of and commissioners were put in place and as a result we have declining water quality. I suspect there have been more irrigation permits given. The Government’s agenda is being met but the needs of the environment and the community are not being met.I would also like to just touch on one of the aspects of this. The Government through the Minister Nick Smith has said that he can justify this by saying: “Well DHBs are mixed models. This is just like a DHB.” Well this is not because the point of comparison is not district health boards. This is a regional council and the point of comparison is other regional councils. What you are doing with this bill is singling out Canterbury. You are turning Cantabrians into second-class citizens and that is completely unacceptable and unjustifiable.