Ardern Shane: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Ardern Shane: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:620;Page:15556] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I listened with great interest to the member for Otago. He made some very sensible points in his contribution to the debate. But the interesting thing about it was what the member failed to tell the House today. He did not even acknowledge the fact that there was a major review process in train on the Resource Management Act when the Labour Party took over the office of government and that Labour canned the whole thing. Here we are today with an ad hoc abuse of the parliamentary system—a bill that deals with the water allocation for one river. 
Another point has been overlooked here today. That member certainly did not touch on it. It is the fact that this bill came about in the first place because of Project Aqua. There have been one or two people who have said that that is not so. Well that is absolutely how it was. The bill came about because of Project Aqua. In the investigation of that hydro development $100 million was expended and the project fell over. Then the Minister Marian Hobbs found herself going through a process of putting together legislation that was very similar to the Clyde Dam legislation which of course the Labour Opposition of the day opposed vigorously. Labour said it would never be seen near anything that was as draconian ad hoc Government-driven “think big” and powerful and that was such an abuse of the executive powers as that legislation. But the Minister came down to the House with a bill called the Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill for a hydroelectricity project along the lines of the Clyde Dam. For the benefit of those who are listening out there who will have heard the detail of this issue we will just say to members that they should hang about because it will be difficult for them to back up those claims. 
Let me look at where some of this debate has gone. First of all the value of water is something that we can never underestimate. If we just look at the largest export industry in the country the dairy industry we see that 92 percent of milk is water. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Is the member confused? 
SHANE ARDERN 
: I can tell the member that that is so because I am a dairy farmer. So how does one overvalue water? 
During the debate on this bill the Minister of Agriculture who also happens to be the member for the upper Waitaki catchment area where this legislation will come into effect told the House that the reason why the bill was necessary was that we need to have a very holistic view of what we use water for and that irrigation for agriculture is not as important in the national interest as using water for hydroelectricity generation. That member is the outgoing Minister of Agriculture and the outgoing member for the area where the bill will take effect. One can always tell when Labour members are going out. They want to take about five or six members down with them as they go and they do not care very much about the person coming in behind them either. This issue is manna from heaven for the incoming National member for that electorate. There is no doubt in my mind that this will be a major election issue in that seat and that that member the Hon Jim Sutton will be nowhere to be seen. He will leave the Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues to deal with the problem and he will be gone over the horizon to the next high commission post somewhere in the world—probably in Washington or maybe in the UK if the Speaker has come back to New Zealand by then— 
Simon Power 
: Cook Islands. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: No I do not see Jim Sutton in the Cook Islands. But he will be off somewhere. That is the very interesting thing about it. 
There is a group of people that had property rights written into law by the Order in Council of 1969. The Order in Council was given to them by the Government of the day and it should be honoured. This legislation does not do that. All that it does is to recommend that a body should look at those people’s claim and say whether that was so. There is no certainty in this legislation—and that includes the amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 244 in the name of the Hon Marian Hobbs—for the farmers in the upper Waitaki area. They will be very unhappy with the Government and will certainly be unhappy with the member who made a contribution a few moments ago. The reason they will be unhappy is that although the Order in Council gave them only 15 cumecs of water out of the whole Waitaki River— 
Simon Power 
: How much is that? 
SHANE ARDERN 
: It is a very small amount; it is 1.7 percent of the flow of the river. That is all that those people were after and all that they were promised. Now that is all up in the air because the Minister for the Environment and the local member the Minister of Agriculture have said that an ad hoc process could not continue and that they would introduce legislation for this river so that there was a process in place to allocate water in a more holistic way. In principle that is a sensible approach. But why do we not amend the Resource Management Act so that that happens everywhere for every river right across New Zealand and not just for this river? The member for Otago may consider that as it would make a very good member’s bill. He would make a name for himself in farming circles and he needs to get something in. It would make a very good member’s bill to amend the principal Act so that this process takes place everywhere and not just in the upper Waitaki River. 
A further point needs to be made here. We are right in the middle of a local government pre-election campaign at the moment. The Minister and the Government members who have spoken on this bill are saying they have no confidence in the people of Otago being able to select people from amongst themselves in the local government elections to manage the Resource Management Act process properly so that we do not have to have this ad hoc stuff from Wellington. They are saying people in Wellington are smarter than the people of Otago and that the people down there are a bit thick. They are saying people in Wellington know how to manage the issues in Otago—that the hayseeds from that area will not know how to work that out so they will dictate from Wellington how it should be done. That is an absolute affront to the democratic process that we all sign up to when we enter this House and is a good enough reason on its own to vote against this bill. 
There has been a very poor use of the parliamentary process with regard to this bill. A select committee worked at the bill and came out at the end of the process with a unanimous view of what should happen and the Minister ignored that. She did not accept that. She turned down the report from the Local Government and Environment Committee and came to Parliament with a substantial Supplementary Order Paper. It made huge amendments to this bill and those changes have been foisted on to Parliament without the proper scrutiny of the select committee process. That is not the right use of that process. 
The Canterbury Regional Council has within its jurisdiction the ability to carry out what this Government wants. The question I ask is why this Government has not been able to comment publicly on that or to go to the council directly via its Ministers. The Government could have said to the council that it does not think the council is carrying out its job correctly. It could have given the Waitaki River catchment as an example of that and told the council that if it did not mend its ways then the Resource Management Act would be changed so that all regional councils in New Zealand would carry out the intent of the Government. No Minister or Government member has explained why that did not happen. 
The worst and final point is that Meridian Energy the company involved in the Project Aqua development programme is a State-owned enterprise. For this Government to introduce legislation for one of its State-owned enterprises that provides over and above what anybody else could get in a commercial sense anywhere else in the country is an absolute abuse of our democratic process. It could also be argued that the Ministers involved in that decision had a vested interest in the outcome one way or another. That just about takes me to the point where language could be used that is probably not parliamentary. I see the whip is becoming a little anxious about where I may be going. The fact is that this process is not the correct process. It should never happen and it should not have been allowed to happen in this case.