O'Rourke Denis: Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 05 April 2016. Volume:712;Page:10162. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): Just following on from what Eugenie Sage was saying I wanted to say first of all about Part 1 of the Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Bill that the purpose is stated as being to establish a transitional elected and appointed mixed Environment Canterbury but actually it does not say anywhere why. Nor has the Minister for the Environment or any other person from the National Party yet explained comprehensively why there needs to be a mixed elected or appointed body. The bill itself certainly does not say that even in the purpose clause. Furthermore clause 3(1)(c) refers to “a majority of members of the Council to be elected” but that majority is usually only one—so it is the least-possible paper-thin majority that is possible and as we will see when we come to discuss Part 2 there will not necessarily always be a majority of elected people either. But that is something for us to discuss later. So really this is not just a hybrid; it is a hybrid that may actually not be in any way at all democratic. In fact you cannot really describe a body that is partly elected and partly appointed as democratic anyway.The point is that the crux of the whole bill is just this: there actually is not any need after 6 years for any appointed members of Environment Canterbury at all. As I have said there is no justification in the bill and nor has the Minister described why that should be necessary in any way that I have heard to be comprehensible and meaningful. When you look at the objectives of the 2010 appointments—fundamentally to make sure that the Canterbury Water Management Strategy was developed adopted and given effect to—then you could say that today as we speak that has actually already been achieved. So again it has been achieved. I mean I live in Canterbury and I am the chairman of the Central Plains Water Trust. I actually take notice of these things and what is there is already so well entrenched that it would simply not be possible at all for that to be done away with either in practice or by any process.There is no reason any longer for the continuation of any commissioners. I would like to hear the Minister comment on that. A return to democracy is in fact essential after 6 years because Environment Canterbury has already lost its credibility as a representative body for the people of Canterbury—it has already lost that. The years have been too long and too difficult for it to be seen in that way anymore. So it is a very serious thing when that happens and it should not go on for another 3 years—to make 9 years in total. It is wrong also to treat Canterbury differently from any other region for such a very long period of time.I will say this. I agree over one thing with the Minister: in 2010 it was necessary I believe for Environment Canterbury to have been replaced by appointees. But in fact 9 years will be far far too long for that to continue without any really robust reason for that. As I have already said without a fully elected body you cannot regard the new Environment Canterbury—the transitional one—as being in any way democratic at all because it is simply not possible for it to operate in that way with so many appointed members.New Zealand First is committed to an effective local democracy which means elected people. It is one thing to dismiss elected councillors way back in 2010 but it is another thing altogether for it to go on for 9 years—that is a tremendously long period of time. In fact the time should have been the shortest possible time because in the Cabinet paper prepared at the time of the Creech report it actually said this: “the explicit intent is for the Commissioners to withdraw and to be replaced by elected representatives as soon as their task is achieved and the present systemic issues are resolved.” As I have already said that in fact has already been achieved. The Government has not explained why the appointment of commissioners should continue to be necessary after 6 years and it needs to do that if it is to have any credibility with this bill at all. So I would ask the Minister to actually stand up right now and give us a full explanation of why that is necessary.