Sio Su'a William: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee 
Sio Su'a William: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:661;Page:10008] 
SU’A WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Mangere) 
: 
 The Minister for the Environment in introducing Part 2 “Replacement of governing body of ECan” said he had made the decision to appoint commissioners very reluctantly. That sort of suggests that there were some viable options for him to consider and I would like to know what those options were. 
Part 2 of the bill really goes to the crux of what we are debating and what this measure is all about. It is about replacing legally elected political representatives with people who will be appointed by the responsible Ministers: the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Local Government. Clause 7 sets out the technicalities of appointing commissioners. The commissioners will be political appointments. They will be accountable to the Ministers only; they will not be accountable to the public of the Canterbury region. The public will not have a say or be able to have a say in the decisions that that political body will be making. In many ways it will be very similar to what we have with regard to the Auckland Transition Agency in the Auckland region. Aucklanders are now up in arms that we have political appointees working behind the scenes and responding to the Minister’s wishes and will and that the public is left out of those decisions. 
I would say that every citizen of Canterbury ought to be angry because of the significant change that will come about as a result of this Government imposing its will on the people of the Canterbury region. This is the kind of action that just turns people off politicians. It gives politicians a bad name because often what the public will see is that when politicians get a little bit of power it goes to their heads. And then what do they do? They impose their will on the people who elected them there. 
But more important the responsible Ministers are taking away local council representation that was elected in 2007. Furthermore this Government will not even allow the people of Canterbury to elect their representatives this year. So for the next while the Government will dictate to the people of Canterbury its will and it will dictate to the people of Canterbury what it wants to do with regard to the environment of Canterbury. 
Clause 8 provides for the replacement day so the Government is to determine when the elected members will be replaced. Clause 9 is the significant clause in my view. It removes the elected members of Environment Canterbury who are holding office. This is the significant change and I ask the Minister whether he consulted with the people of Canterbury about doing that. Was any widespread consultation undertaken similar to what was undertaken in Auckland where the royal commission took 18 months and consulted with people throughout that region? I would say there was not but I would like to hear whether that was an option for the Minister and what his reason was for not undertaking it. I have a letter here from councillor Eugenie Sage who writes: “The Creech report is based on a 3-week review in November 2009—interviews with less than 20 stakeholders.” There were interviews with fewer than 20 stakeholders out of a population of 500000-plus. 
We have to ask ourselves what the reason was for not undertaking broad-based consultation. It sends some really strong messages: firstly that the Minister in the chair the Minister for the Environment thinks he knows better than to do that; secondly that he thinks the officials elected by the people of Canterbury have no brains of their own with which to make political decisions; and thirdly that he thinks the 500000-plus people of Canterbury many of whom would have voted for National are people of no significance whatsoever and should not have a say. The Minister Nick Smith and the Minister of Local Government think they know better than those people and that is what they are saying.