Connell Brian: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Connell Brian: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:619;Page:15350] 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 I congratulate the member for Aoraki on at least getting to his feet taking a call and addressing this issue. However that is where the praise is going to end because he has in a very calculating way tried to mislead this Committee with regard to— 
Hon Jim Sutton 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The member has accused me of misleading the Committee. He simply cannot do that. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I thank the Minister for raising that and ask the member to please desist from doing so. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: Thank you for your guidance Mr Chairperson. The member has said that that water if taken would be kept in the Mackenzie Basin alone. That is absolute nonsense and he knows it. Stan Scorringe and others have made it very clear that if this consent is obtained the water would be piped through Burke Pass and made available for a significant number of users across South Canterbury. This member for Aoraki has been exposed for being silent on this issue. He has got to his feet today only because he has been chastised by other speakers in this Chamber; he has been shamed into getting to his feet. He has not been an advocate for those constituents of South Canterbury and he knows it. 
I have a question that the Minister should have addressed when he got to his feet. What is more important: a vote for the Labour Party or a vote for his constituents? He is elected by his constituents and he should have been here fighting hard for them on this particular issue—but he was not. 
Jill Pettis 
: His constituents vote Labour otherwise he wouldn’t be their MP! 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: He has been found wanting and it does not matter how much his colleagues might call out in support of him to try to distract me from getting to the truth because the Minister has been exposed on this issue. Nick Smith has done this member’s bidding. He is the member who has put the amendment forward. He is the member who proposed it and the member for Aoraki has been found wanting. 
Mr Sutton said that the Environment Court ruled it out therefore he cannot support it. Well that is an absolute nonsense as well. The amendment that has been suggested makes it very clear that all that is being asked for is for the board to take into consideration the Order in Council that was given as an absolute in 1969. I have to ask the member what value that puts on the word of this Parliament. There is no point in denying that that allocation and that bond was given. 
 Mr Peters knows that it was given. Mr Peters like me would have seen the media reports of the time that made it very clear that a Minister of the Crown made a very clear undertaking that the people of the upper Mackenzie Country when the technology allowed would be able to access those 15 cumecs of water. There is no point arguing that because those people do not have the water they are no longer entitled to it. The facts are that the undertaking was very clear: when the technology became available that water could be used. 
It really makes me cross—and the member for Aoraki knows it because he would have seen it as well—that this bill calls for hardly 2 percent of the available water. A strategic water study carried out by Environment Canterbury in 2003 found that there was plenty of water in Canterbury and provided it was used in a sustainable way there was plenty for everybody. The Minister knows that. I know that the member for the Green Party has also been approached by people from the upper Waitaki area. I understand from those people that the Green member gave serious consideration—if not her word—to coming to this House to fight for them on this particular issue. I understand that she has seen for herself the benefit of water used for irrigation and what it will do to protect the environment of the Mackenzie Basin. I call on the Green member to get to her feet now and to fight for them.