Dyson Ruth: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Dyson Ruth: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:661;Page:9942] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 “Stepping in” is one way of putting the Government’s intervention in our democratically elected regional authority; some people might say “stomping all over democracy”. That is what Amy Adams—who is getting more and more like Jacqui Dean by the day—Nicky Wagner and David Carter are doing to our fundamental rights in Canterbury. The Canterbury members on this side of the House and members of the public in Canterbury are not at all impressed with the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill. It is an absolute outrage and a breach of our democratic rights. We have the right to elect good or bad councillors. We have that vote. That vote is being taken away from us and our water is being taken away from us because Nick Smith has decided in a purely political ideological move to snuggle up with Rodney Hide—if members can picture that briefly; that will probably be more than long enough—so that they can have total control of our water management and all the other regional council functions through an undemocratic politically appointed bunch of commissioners. 
It is absolutely gobsmacking. I have had so many emails texts and phone calls and I want to share one with members. A woman I know who lives in Rolleston texted me at 2.49 saying that she had rung Amy Adams’ office in the Selwyn electorate and her office in Wellington only to be told that her staff had been given no idea at all about the removal of the regional council and had no idea at all whether Mrs Adams would be voting for it. Listeners have just heard her speech which was written by Aaron Gilmore and they will have no doubt at all that Amy Adams supports a bill being rammed through this House under urgency to take away the democratic right of people in Canterbury to elect our own regional council. 
People have watched amazed at what Rodney Hide has done in Auckland—the fact that he can just ride roughshod over the views of so many good Aucklanders—yet the Government did not give us a chance to even have a say on this bill. It is being rammed through under urgency without one single moment of select committee consideration. It is a done deal. We only know the name of one of the councillors replacing the council Dame Margaret Bazley who will be the chief commissioner. None of the others are even known. In fact the Minister for the Environment was so desperate to get this bill into the House that he was still scrambling around with the details before he gave us a briefing at 11.30 this morning. The copy of the bill we got this morning still had “Draft” written on it. It is shonky work in this House to ram through a bill under urgency to take away our democratically elected representatives. 
The bill takes away that right but it also takes away the right of the public to have a say. If it had been put to the test a lot of people might have said the same sort of nonsense that Amy Adams said—who knows? They would have been entitled to do that at a select committee. That is what democracy submissions and hearings are all about. But people have not had a chance to even talk nonsense. They are allowed no contribution at all. 
I was at a meeting recently where another Canterbury member of the National Party the Hon David Carter was present. He described the Creech report as coming to the conclusion—and these are his very words—that there was terminal dysfunction at Environment Canterbury and therefore it had to go. I quote from the Creech report— 
Aaron Gilmore 
: What page? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Page 51. “Almost all external parties interviewed had a negative perception of ECan’s governance. There is a widely held view that councillors are polarised at times”—good heavens that is gobsmacking news to those of us in Parliament—“that they are quite dysfunctional as a group. There is insufficient leadership and the council is too busy protecting individual / Party perspectives and fails to pay sufficient attention to … the Region.” That is what the 20 external parties reported to Wyatt Creech and his report team. He says: “Our investigation did not bear this out.” He could not have been clearer in his rejection of the politically motivated criticism of Environment Canterbury. I heard one Environment Canterbury councillor say quite recently that it was very difficult to operate in an environment where there was often either a 7:8 vote or an 8:7 vote. Well that is politics. People disagree with each other. 
Nicky Wagner 
: Not in local government 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I say to Mrs Wagner that it is not party politics; it was exactly the same when she was a councillor. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Oh she forgot that. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: She has absolutely wiped the history books clean. Mrs Wagner who was an elected representative—as I told the House we have the right to vote for whoever we want—has forgotten that she was elected to the very same council she is now allowing to be completely gutted. 
Wyatt Creech’s review team went on to say: “The Review found that while the process for debating strongly opposing views has been marred by poor behaviour and reflects past grievances in some cases the governance of ECan is functional and enables it to meet its statutory obligations. Mostly the tensions that exist arise from differing political perspectives and not from any fundamental dysfunction.” That is the organisation that was described by David Carter in a statement that can only be described as a lie and a complete misrepresentation of the Creech report as are the comments that are being propagated by the National Party this afternoon and this evening. Wyatt Creech’s report said that there were political differences and there was bad behaviour but the council had fundamental ability to carry out its statutory functions. The Minister’s response to that report is to say that at last he has his opportunity to get rid of his former colleague Alec Neill—he is gone yet again. The temptation for Nick Smith to do that must be pretty strong. What Nick Smith has done is entirely politically motivated. It is to get rid of locally elected democratically elected councillors and have appointed commissioners who will then be able to take over the total control of our water allocation. 
One issue above all others inspires passion anger and parochialism more than the Crusaders and that is our right to care for our water. [ 
Interruption 
] Members opposite have no understanding of what has been developed through the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. The member from Selwyn could not even refer to it by its correct name. We have been involved in that strategy as representatives for that area and every single party on a very broad perspective—a very broad spectrum of those interested in water management and water rights—has signed up to the strategy. 
This is the opportunity to put it into legislation. The Government could have taken up the offer that I made in front of National members of Parliament and in front of the Canterbury Employers Chamber of Commerce for there to be no party politics when it came to legislating for the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. But what devious behaviour does the Minister resort to? He is sliding it into legislation that does not give the public any opportunity to contribute. It does not even give Cantabrians the opportunity to come and say that they are proud of their water management strategy. There will be no select committee process at all. 
At the front of this legislation is the abolition of our democratically elected councils. That was a bad thing to do and I use that word advisedly. The Minister knows that he would have had cross-party support for legislation to ensure the smooth transition to a statutory basis for the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. The Government should not be replacing democratically elected regional councillors with appointed commissioners. It is a breach of process and it is a breach of our democracy.