Dalziel Lianne: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:661;Page:10064] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I apologise for my late call; I had not realised that the previous speaker Dr Kennedy Graham was going resume his seat so quickly. I want to make a preliminary comment on the title of the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill because when I referred earlier in the Committee stage to the regulatory impact statement—which is relevant to all aspects of this bill including the title clause and commencement provisions—I said that statement had not been tabled in the House. I apologise to members for saying that because of course it was tabled in the House as a result of a new procedure that has been in place only this year. I have discovered that although the Government made the very stupid decision to take regulatory impact statements out of bills it has decided that when a bill is being debated under urgency the regulatory impact statement will be tabled in the House. But the Government did not tell anyone about that; nobody was informed that this was a new process. So I apologise for saying the regulatory impact statement had not been tabled but I do not apologise for my reference to the utter stupidity of the Government’s saying it is interested in regulatory reform when a regulatory impact statement is now no longer published with the bill itself. 
It is absolutely vital that people acknowledge— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: The debate is on the title. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: The regulatory impact statement is entirely relevant to both the title and the commencement date which is— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Clause 1—the title. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: We are only up to clause 1. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Clause 1 only. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Clause 1 is the title. What I have a problem with—and this is mentioned in the regulatory impact statement—is that the title “Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Act 2010” has a problem in it. It says “Temporary Commissioners”. That may be a misnomer or it may not be— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: My apologies. I said we are on clause 1; we are actually on clauses 1 and 2. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: That is what I had thought. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: My apologies. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I was referring to the commencement date as well as to the title. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I will take that into account. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I am sorry. I was referring to the regulatory impact statement having an impact on both the title and the commencement of the bill which is what I said earlier on. I withdraw my apologies for getting that wrong but the point I want to make is that the title refers to “Temporary Commissioners” so there is the whole question of what this legislation is intended to lead to. The use of the words “Temporary Commissioners” makes it sound as though the only purpose of the legislation is to fill a temporary period of time between the sacking of Environment Canterbury as we know it today and the appointment of these commissioners on a temporary basis in order to improve water management. That is the way I read the title of the legislation. 
But when we read the regulatory impact analysis—and the Minister in the chair the Hon Dr Nick Smith still has not addressed this issue—we discover that in fact a bit of an experiment is going on in Canterbury. The analysis states: “However … because any national level decisions … have the potential to undermine the government’s New Start for Freshwater policy programme and the work of the Land and Water Forum it is considered preferable for any intervention to have a narrow Canterbury-specific focus”—which it does in the title of this bill; it refers to Environment Canterbury—“in the first instance.” The language “in the first instance” suggests that this measure is not temporary in the sense that we would normally take into account. This is temporary in the sense that it is the forerunner of something else that is to come and that is not a return to Environment Canterbury. I bet anything one likes that when we get all of the background documentation behind this set of decisions we will find out that there is more to this than meets the eye. 
Here is the big whammy as far as the regulator impact statement goes: this report states that “The results of any intervention”—that is here in Canterbury—“could provide useful information for decision-makers on the outcomes of the New Start for Freshwater policy programme and potentially an opportunity to trial alternative policy settings in a confined context.” We are being trialled here; we are trialling alternative policy settings. We have called this bill the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill but we do not know what that will mean in the long term because it is quite clear that we are trialling alternative policy settings in the confined context of Canterbury. I ask what that will mean for the rest of the country. What will it mean for other regions? What will it mean in terms of all the other issues that were raised in the report of Wyatt Creech but that we have not had the opportunity to fully debate in this Chamber as we have gone through this part by part debate? 
I think these are extremely serious issues that the Minister ought to address even in the context at this late stage of the debate on the title and the commencement date of this legislation.