Williams Andrew: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williams Andrew: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8228. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I take a call on the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill. Clause 1 talks about the title of the bill. Certainly in that title where it says “Temporary Commissioners” that must be an incorrect title. We surely cannot believe that if you do away with local elected commissioners in 2010 and do not intend to replace them until 2016—that is 6 years. That is hardly temporary. Not many people would ever look on something as being temporary when it has a 6-year lifespan and shelf life. In that regard it is quite misleading to say that these are temporary commissioners when in fact they are not. 
In 2010 the National Government said that this would be just a temporary arrangement while it sorted out the Environment Canterbury situation. Then Canterbury got hit with the earthquake 1 year later and there were some understandable difficulties there with the major February earthquake suddenly hitting Canterbury which gave some reason to try to consolidate things in Canterbury and get things back on a level footing. At that time therefore one could understand that there was a need for a temporary situation—a sort of holding situation—to try to get things back on their feet. But having now seen 2 years go by—we have just gone past 22 February which is 2 years down the track from the major secondary earthquake in Canterbury—it is quite false to be still talking about temporary commissioners. When we have heard from all sorts of officials and from Dame Margaret Bazley that there should be a transition back to more permanent and elected people getting rid of the temporary commissioners then certainly that is the way that it should be going. 
New Zealanders have gone to war for democracy for the right to vote and to stand up for what is right and proper in a civilised world. Cantabrians are no lesser people in our democratic system. They also deserve the right to have a vote—to go to the ballot box put their name on a piece of paper and say whom they would like to elect. It is unfair for Cantabrians to be stretched out for 6 years and be told this is a temporary situation. After only 3 years already they are saying: “This is enough. We’ve had enough. We don’t need this to continue.” 
What is happening here is that basically the Government is trying to hide behind the commissioners’ situation and the Environment Canterbury situation in terms of the water rights in Canterbury. The Government is using the democratic process and abusing the democratic process to prop up an arrangement it has put in place for water management in Canterbury. That is a great shame because the two do not necessarily meet eye to eye. You have the needs of the rural community and the farming community and the needs out there on the Canterbury Plains up against the needs and the democratic rights of people living in Christchurch and in the greater Christchurch urban metropolitan area. Quite frankly those things are at odds. It is a shame that this Government is basically giving away those rights to ensure that some of those water arrangements are upheld. 
We at the Local Government and Environment Committee were all very disappointed to hear the Chief Human Rights Commissioner David Rutherford say that this was a huge attack on democracy that this was not the correct thing. The people in Canterbury needed some reassurance—they were very delicate. He said that they were very exposed that they were feeling very threatened by their predicament in Canterbury and that the last thing Cantabrians needed was to have their democratic vote and their democratic rights also removed from them. When you are in a difficult situation when you do not have a lot and when you are facing a lot of adversity the last thing you want to lose also is your democratic right. The Chief Human Rights Commissioner said that. He also said—and I know National members of the committee took offence to this—that New Zealand went to war to stop such regimes from occurring in Europe and we cannot point the finger at regimes in Fiji and other places that do not provide democratic rights. The Chief Human Rights Commissioner very clearly said that we stand up for democracy.