Ardern Shane: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Ardern Shane: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:619;Page:15305] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 It has been fascinating listening to the debate in the last few moments. Two members from two minor parties that are known to support the Government have spoken against the Hon Nick Smith’s amendment. Let us look at the events that led up to that point. What we have in Part 2 which was voted on recently was the setting up of a Labour quango. 
Brian Connell 
: What’s a Labour quango? 
SHANE ARDERN 
: A quango made up of former Labour members of Parliament who no longer have a job after they leave Parliament. Such people will go on a board that decides what happens with water allocation. [ 
Interruption 
] David Parker Jim Sutton and there are a few other candidates I am sure. 
Then Part 3 has screeds of regulation with clause after clause that restricts the board and tells it exactly what it can do. The Hon Nick Smith has a huge amount of institutional knowledge on the whole history of the Resource Management Act and particularly this issue. The Associate Minister for the Environment himself waved a bit of paper around; he gave a bit of the history of it that confirmed what the Hon Nick Smith had said. He did not counter it; he confirmed what the Hon Nick Smith had said which was that an injustice has been done to a very small group of people through no fault of any particular Government. It has happened by accident. Nick Smith has a way of amending it. I ask the Minister what harm it will do to have one small amendment that fixes that wrong. The Minister might take a call and explain that to us. 
The members of the minor parties have said that they have not had time to take the amendment to their caucuses and that they cannot consider it in such a short time. We have passed Supplementary Order Papers in this Chamber tonight that were 9 pages long. One of them was 17 pages long—on the fisheries amendment bill. I wonder how much time those parties spent considering that in their caucuses. Yet there is not time for them to consider one minor amendment to one clause so they cannot support it. It is unbelievable. 
Let me say this to the Minister: here is a chance for this Parliament to restore some of the dignity of this Parliament. Here is a chance to do that. It is often said about members of Parliament that they are dishonourable all of them go with what is popular and they will not do what is right. People say that all MPs go in whatever direction the wind is blowing. That is unfair. There are some hard-working and dedicated members of Parliament who are maligned by that public perception. Here is a chance for this Minister to right a wrong and do members think he will support it? Not on your nelly! 
The Hon Ken Shirley touched on a similar example earlier on—the West Coast Accord. That was passed by none other than Phil Goff under a Labour Government. In perpetuity the Government gave the West Coasters—a minority group once again—some certainty about their future and what they could do with their own property in their own area. What happened when the next Labour Government came in? It screwed the accord up and threw it out—and it was all done in the national interest supposedly. Here is another example of a contract that was entered into by Parliament by the Government—by the executive the 20 Cabinet Ministers of the day—not being honoured and not being carried out. This Government has a chance to fix that up. Will it do it? The answer is absolutely not. I can almost predict that it will not happen although the Minister is not saying one way or another. 
I acknowledge the contribution made by the honourable member Jim Peters tonight. He is a person who has a lot of knowledge about local government and a lot of depth of knowledge in a lot of other areas. I listened with great interest to the contribution to the debate from that member. This amendment would allay a lot of the fears that the member mentioned in his speech earlier on. It would fix some of the problems that the member talked about. He understands the concern here and this amendment would fix it. 
So I ask the Minister in the chair David Benson-Pope to take a call and explain to this Parliament tonight to the affected people and to the people out there who have formed a very bad opinion of what members of Parliament do in this place at this hour of the night why he will not accept this minor amendment put forward by the Hon Nick Smith who is trying to right a wrong that came about through no fault of any particular person—that came about by accident. There is a legal opinion—I was unaware of it until just before—that was given to the select committee that backs that up.