Nash StuartHon STUART NASH (Minister of Police): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. This is a pragmatic piece of legislation and we do support it but we support it with one caveat and Dr Smith has alluded to this; we just need absolute clarification before we're going to take it all the way through. That is that it will depend on ensuring that there is documentary evidence to demonstrate that the eight iwi affected by this bill will have formally endorsed it. Under the Treaty settlement these eight iwi have been given the first right of refusal as Dr Smith alluded to on land covered within this bill. Therefore the expectation from Labour members is that the sponsoring member of this bill and the Tasman District Council will provide evidence that formal endorsement has been received from the eight iwi boards. The House needs to be assured that it is not creating a new grievance or potential breach of a Treaty settlement by supporting this bill. I'm assuming—I'm hoping—that this will be very easy for the honourable member to obtain and that he will present it to this House because the honourable member did outline the fact that this needs to pass before Christmas. That is obviously up to the—Rino Tirikatene: Iwis up.Hon STUART NASH: Iwis up? OK well that sounds good. My colleague Rino Tirikatene has said that that has come through but we just need to see documentation that's all. Not that we don't trust you at all but we just need to ensure as the honourable member will be well aware that this is actually signed and sealed and we're not going to end up in a position we don't want to be. A lot of our places and a lot of the really beautiful sunny places around our country—the rural places like Hawke's Bay like Tasman—grow fantastic wine have brilliant tourism the highest sunshine hours in the country but also because of those variables we have industries that require a whole lot of water. In these regions there are basically three things that we have absolutely no control over. One of them is the climate the second one is commodity prices and the third thing is exchange rates. Again Nelson's very much like Napier. If the climate is right—i.e. you get the right amount of rain there's no frost—if exchange rates are favourable and commodity prices are high then the regions absolutely boom and it's fantastic. It's happened in Hawke's Bay in the last couple years and it looks like it's going to happen again. But the problem is if you get those variables if there's no alignment or if even one of them is out of sync then it can have quite a significant effect on the domestic economy of the particular region. Now if we can mitigate the risks around climate then what we can at least do is mitigate the risk of a regional slump because what happens is horticulture you know can't—you get a drought and basic things don't grow. That's the bottom line. This is mitigating that risk and that's why we support it. The Waimea Plains is one of New Zealand's major horticulture areas highly dependent upon irrigation and currently freshwater resources I understand in the Waimea Plains are approximately 64 percent over-allocated. It doesn't matter whether you get one or two or three years of sufficient rain; that is just not sustainable. It is just not sustainable. So if we can do something that is economic—you know we can't create a millstone around the neck of ratepayers—and environmentally friendly because again we can't end up building something that destroys the environment or has an adverse impact on the environment and also creates jobs then we should be looking to do this. I think this is one of those schemes that have great potential to tick all of those boxes.Without the dam based on the potential cuts to water allocations the productive irrigable—sorry irrigatable land I apologise—Hon Ruth Dyson: Irrigatable or irritigable?Hon STUART NASH: Oh it depends if it's Dr Smith or it's—yeah. It's estimated to possibly reduce from 3800 hectares down to 705 in a worst-case scenario. So we're talking about business as usual down to a significant drought and if we believe climate change is real and I absolutely do and obviously Dr Smith does—Hon Nathan Guy: What about Ruataniwha?Hon STUART NASH: Do you want to talk about Ruataniwha? Am I allowed to address that Mr Speaker?SPEAKER: Well there was an interjection but as long as the member doesn't take too long over it.Hon STUART NASH: The member makes a good point. The thing about Ruataniwha is that there was no economic business case that said that this was going to be sustainable. There was no economic business case. If there had been an economic business case that said Yes this is going to create value it's going to create jobs and it's going to be good for the environment." then we would have supported it. I was asking for this for five years and no one could give me a simple business case that said "If this is not going to create a massive debt that the ratepayers of Hawke's Bay are going to have trouble"—SPEAKER: OK. Now back to the bill.Hon STUART NASH: OK. Now back to the bill. Dr Smith alluded to this as well. The Hon Shane Jones the first—whatever he calls himself—member of the regions or whatever—Chris Bishop: Matua Shane.Hon STUART NASH: Matua Shane. We were after forestry. One of the things we know about forestry—and you just have to go down to the wharf here in Wellington let alone any wharf around the country—is that there's a whole lot of logs heading across without a cent of value being added. I have visited Nelson Pine Industries probably three or four times and it is an exemplar of how to take raw logs and add significant value. They employ over 200 people even though it's a state-of-the-art mill. It is a fantastic piece of regional infrastructure and it shows that you can do things incredibly well in the regions—Hon Ruth Dyson: If you do it properly.Hon STUART NASH: If you do it properly—good point Ruth Dyson. What they have said is that without the dam—and again we're talking worst-case scenarios but in this era of climate change and certainly inconsistent climate—they face up to 100 days a year with insufficient water to operate. You don't have to dig very far or have a vivid imagination to understand the impact that would have on the region's economy let alone a major piece of regional infrastructure let alone on wood processing.I do think that perhaps Dr Smith glossed over a little bit of some of the significant criticism that the select committee heard on this—because there was criticism and let's be open and honest about this. The criticism came from the fact that there were people who believed that the council had not adequately consulted. It's my experience that it doesn't matter what councils do if someone is against a project or there is a group that are against a project it is a very easy charge to throw out there that the council hasn't consulted. What I do understand though is that the council has said that they held over 200 public meetings and let's be honest there has been about 17 years of consultation on this. So there's been a lot of consultation. It's been through the wringer more than once—in fact as we know the council actually voted this down. I think on 28 August this year they voted it down. There was such a hue and cry that the council thought "We'd better take another look at this." They came up with another funding model and then it snuck through with a whisper.The fact that it wasn't unanimous on the council—in fact they lost the initial motion on 28 August by one vote and I think they won it by one vote when they re-voted. So there are a number of councils who you would argue and you would hope are incredibly engaged in this who have got all the information in front of them and who have gone through all the modelling. There were still a number of councillors who had reservations to the point where they did not vote for this bill but what we do know is that the select committee said they accepted the fact that there had been enough robust consultation to satisfy in their minds that it didn't need to go back any further. So that was good to hear.The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society was opposed to the bill because of concern over the precedent around the use of conservation land—obviously they had a big win at Ruataniwha. This does set a precedent but I'm not uncomfortable with that. The reason I'm not uncomfortable with that is that we need to where practicable take a pragmatic approach to this—i.e. if the conservation land is of significant value then we don't want to give that away. There is no doubt about that. But where it's conservation land and it can be supplemented with other land or swapped or where there is a pragmatic solution then we should always look to find that common ground especially when we're talking about a scheme that is going to enhance economic productivity and growth in the provinces. Of that there is no doubt but I understand Forest & Bird's stance. They came in and said "We're not against this"—which was good of them—"but there's the principle behind this." They are a very principles-based organisation. The committee heard their view. The council heard their view and decided that OK this needs to move forward from that perspective.There were others of course—Fish & Game New Zealand. Dr Smith said that Fish & Game were for this. They did have concerns about access to the land—and again I know that at Ruataniwha it was one of the major concerns as well—is the public going to have access to land that perhaps they had access to beforehand? [Speaker yawns] Sorry I hope I'm not keeping you up Mr Speaker!SPEAKER: Well I think it's fair to say that the member's not very exciting.Hon STUART NASH: I've spoken for 10 minutes on this. All I would like to say is that we are supporting this bill. It is a pragmatic bit of legislation. As mentioned my fellow member Rino Tirikatene said that condition had been sorted. That's all good. Let's get this through and let's get Nelson humming."