Parker David: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Parker David: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:661;Page:9950] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 First I respond to one of many inaccuracies spoken by Dr Smith. He just told the House that the last Labour Government did not produce any national policy statements or national environment standards. He is wrong. In fact I think I was responsible for bringing forward one on electricity transmission. We also advanced a national environment standard on telecommunications. We substantially advanced the national policy statement on water quality which now languishes because Minister Dr Nick Smith has put it in the too-hard basket thrown it to the water forum and said “I’m not going to implement that.” Just watch it will never see the light of day even though that is the instrument that the National Government could use next Cabinet day next Monday if it wanted to and have a national policy statement implementing improvements to water quality through the whole of New Zealand inserting rules in every regional plan through section 55. 
Where is that national policy statement on water quality now? It is sitting in the Minister’s office gathering dust because he does not have the courage—I am sorry I withdraw and apologise for that—he does not have the gumption to implement what everyone in this House knows is necessary which is a policy instrument between the Resource Management Act and regional plans which gives effect and improves water quality. That would be a meaningful step to improve water quality from next week and it would do what we all know is necessary when we have increased intensity of agriculture therefore more fertiliser and more animal effluent flowing into waterways. With every increase in intensity we have to have more care taken by the landowner. That is what that national policy statement would do and that could be implemented by Cabinet on Monday. There would be no need for this outrageous legislation in respect of water quality. 
I shall deal with the issue that he also raised of water conservation orders because in my opinion that is one of the most egregious parts of this legislation being passed under urgency with no opportunity for people to submit upon it. Dr Smith says that water conservation orders ought to be under the jurisdiction of this commissioner. He needs to look at history. Why did this Parliament legislate for water conservation orders back in 1981? A quarter of a century ago our predecessors legislated in this House for the introduction of water conservation orders because the effect of each little slice being taken of more water being taken from rivers is very hard for regional councils to oppose and the effect is that there is just a little bit more another slice of the little bit left in the river taken out for every new application. 
So the prior Parliament said there are some rivers in New Zealand that are too important for that to happen to and the Water and Soil Conservation Act was amended. That was way previous to the Resource Management Act and water conservation orders were put in there. They have stood the test of time for 25 years and they are not overused and they are not abused. There is a very powerful gatekeeper both in terms of the board that the Minister appoints plus appeal rights for the Environment Court to ensure that they are not overused. In Canterbury they have not been overused but it is true that most rivers in Canterbury are far too low in their flows in summer. Some rivers like the Ashburton River just about dry up. Indeed some of the rivers go to ground; they have so little water in them because they are sucked dry by irrigators. The rivers that are the exception to that in Canterbury are the Rakaia and the Rangitata and the only reason that they are the exceptions to over-abstraction is that they have water conservation orders. Those water conservation orders were fought for through many many years of effort by interested groups and those cases went all the way from the original tribunal to the planning tribunal—now the Environment Court—to the High Court and to the Court of Appeal before those issues were settled. People took those issues to the Court of Appeal and what is Dr Smith doing in this legislation? Without any submission process for New Zealanders to object he is saying that those water conservation orders can now be varied by the commissioners. There is no political accountability of the Minister which there is under the current legislation— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Yes there is. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I take that back I accept the member’s word on that. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: You can’t do that. He’s the last person you would take the word of. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I will check that. The decision maker stops being the Environment Court essentially that makes a recommendation to the Minister and it now becomes the commissioner. That is wrong. Conservation orders sit in a separate part of the Resource Management Act. They have their own code in Part 9. Regional councils are bound by them. This new entity that the Minister is setting up today as a replacement for the regional council but slipped in the legislation means that rather than that replacement being bound by water conservation orders that body has the ability to vary them. That is wrong. 
I say something also about what is going on here. Underneath this we actually have demand from farmers for unreasonable amounts of water from some of our rivers. The Minister said he is worried about that and he thinks they have to be curbed. He says that but then he does the opposite. What he is doing is allowing farmers to get more water out of these rivers. There are already provisions in the Resource Management Act that allow water conservation orders to be changed. Anyone can apply to have them varied and if the Minister thinks that that ought to be looked at it can be; it goes to a board and eventually the Environment Court and a recommendation comes back to the Minister. They can be changed. So why then this change? It is not necessary. The only reason can be because Federated Farmers who have always been opposed to water conservation orders were the protagonists. Right up to the Court of Appeal they fought these things and now they are having a win through their buddies in the National Party. 
I want to read out the Court of Appeal judgment made in 1987  
Ashburton Acclimatisation Society v Federated Farmers Inc. 
 because they were the two protagonists in the Court of Appeal. The decision states: “The basic contest was one between conservationists who wished the flow and characteristics of the Rakaia to be conserved and farmers who wished to take water for irrigation.” That is what is happening again. Farmers want more water for irrigation. Dr Smith is pretending this is for the protection of the environment when actually the opposite is what he intends and the opposite is what will occur. 
I say one final thing and it is about the habit of this Minister and this Government to use loaded names in the titles of bills. The Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill—it really does sound like the Operation Enduring Freedom of George Bush. These loaded names in legislation do not fool anyone. I say to describe what it is—“Temporary Commissioners” they are not even very temporary. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: 3½ years. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: They outlast an election cycle which is disgraceful but this loaded term “Improved Water Management” really smacks of the sort of propaganda that we had from George Bush in Operation Enduring Freedom and it does not fool anybody. 
The other thing that is happening here is that Dr Smith has said this will be a precedent for change in other areas. I am told that someone attended a press conference that the Minister held and asked whether the changes being made in respect of water conservation orders effectively falling under the regional plan rather than sitting above it were likely to be applied in other areas in New Zealand and I am told that at the press conference the Minister confirmed that it may well be a model for other areas. He is shaking his head to say that that is not so. I hope he is correct I tell the Minister because I was not there. 
But this policy really is terrible. I think that it is very sad that after 25 years of battles in trying to assert reasonable minimum flows for at least some of our outstanding rivers in Canterbury—the only ones that are not severely abstracted as a consequence of excessive irrigation pressure—we have this Government undermining the conservation orders that are on the few rivers that are already protected in Canterbury. That is on top of the Government’s inability to advance the national policy statement on water quality—high-quality work from Judge Sheppard a former Principal Environment Court Judge—which is sitting on the Minister’s desk waiting to be implemented. He could do that through Cabinet on Monday but he will not. 
This is all wrong. There are problems in Environment Canterbury; I do not deny that. We do not deny that. But there were less drastic solutions to those problems which are no excuse for the inaction on water quality or the draconian steps that have been taken in respect of water conservation orders.