Street Maryan: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Street Maryan: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8225. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on Part 2 of the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill. I wonder just how much more insult this Government can add to the injuries of the people of Canterbury. It seems that not only the Environment Canterbury debacle but the Christchurch school closures show that the Government for all its using the Christchurch earthquakes as an excuse does not care a jot really about the opinions of people who live in the Canterbury area. 
I just crave your indulgence for a moment because I want to tell a story from Nelson that goes back a couple of years. But it is related to this bill intimately. We all know that Anzac Day services are non-partisan events. Anzac Day services are traditionally moments when we all respect the sacrifice of all of those who gave their lives and were injured in the course of fighting for democracy and freedom. It is extremely rare ever to hear a political speech at an Anzac Day service. Yet two Anzac Days ago in Nelson a returned serviceman of reputation and gravitas in the Nelson area had been asked to be the guest speaker. He started with some of the usual tributes that we pay quite rightly on Anzac Day to fallen soldiers and recounted some of his experience. Then his tone changed and he said that one of the things that he had gone to fight for was democracy and for the freedom for people to be represented by people whom they directly elected. One could hear in the crowd the collective intake of breath amongst the I think more than 1000 people in Nelson in Anzac Park at that Dawn Service. One could hear the intake of breath as they realised where this man was going. He laid very squarely at the feet of the Government profound criticism at the abolition of democracy in Christchurch. This man lived in Nelson. He was not a Cantabrian. He had not been a member of Environment Canterbury. He was not anybody to my knowledge who was intimately involved with any environmental issues in the Canterbury region but he was incensed and outraged that the Government could at the stroke of a pen overturn a democratically elected body and replace it in the way that this Government did. 
It was a shocking speech because as I say we do not expect political speeches on Anzac Day. But it was so profoundly felt by this man and by numbers around him who went up and congratulated him afterwards on being brave enough to mention it and who were distressed and profoundly offended by this Government’s affront to democracy. Add to that then we had—here we go; here is the Nelson connection again—the Hon Dr Nick Smith saying of those changes in March 2010 that “whatever the circumstances the next regional council elections in Canterbury will take place no later than those scheduled for late 2013.” That is now offended against. The promise that he gave unequivocally has been either completely overturned—perhaps despite Nick Smith’s protestations; I do not know whether he protested about it. I do not know whether he protested about the overturning of the commitment that he had unequivocally made but the upshot is that it was overturned. It is difficult to understand. If one cannot take the word of a Cabinet Minister and believe that that commitment will endure then one’s faith in the Government in this Government in the John Key - led Government is profoundly shaken. 
So there is another broken promise from John Key’s Government. It ended up being a lie from Nick Smith. Whether he intended it to be a lie or not only he knows or perhaps some of his colleagues know as well. But it ended up being a lie. At times that member has had a fleeting relationship with the truth but on this occasion I do not know whether it was intentional or not. Whatever the upshot the whole Government now has to wear the fact that that is a broken promise and that the repercussions of that broken promise go far beyond Canterbury. They have rippled out to Nelson. They have rippled across the country because there are more than just the returned servicemen—like Mr John Gardner spoke at the Anzac Day service in Nelson 2 years ago—who have been offended by this. 
I would like to say a couple of words about Supplementary Order Paper 176 in the name of Eugenie Sage. I think this is an important measure. It goes to the points that my colleague the Hon David Parker was making earlier about appeal rights and also to the points that Eugenie Sage made a moment ago in speaking to her Supplementary Order Paper. The regulatory impact statement prepared on the bill notes that Environment Canterbury the Ministry for the Environment the Department of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Justice all considered that there was insufficient justification for continuing the special provisions for water conservation orders in the Canterbury region. In other words they said there was no reason no sufficient reason to continue to exclude the Canterbury region and the water conservation rights applying there from the procedures that exist everywhere else in the country. Eugenie Sage’s Supplementary Order Paper as I understand it would implement the advice of all those groups. It would implement that advice. It would restore to the Canterbury region the water conservation order provisions that apply everywhere else in the country. 
One could argue that the water conservation orders in the Canterbury region are amongst the most important in the country. If we were to rank water conservation orders—and let us not—it would be hard to find rivers elsewhere in the country that required the protection of conservation orders to the extent that these rivers do. So I would urge the support of the Supplementary Order Paper. I would wish that the members opposite would listen to the people who are distressed about the affront to democracy and the whittling away of protection for those precious rivers as my colleague earlier referred to them in the Canterbury region. This bill is an affront on all sorts of levels. It is an affront to democracy it is an affront to environmental protection and it should be an affront to everybody who cares about the protection of our precious and rare environment in this country. Thank you.