Robertson Grant: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Robertson Grant: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:661;Page:10053] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I will take up where the member who has just resumed his seat left off and ask the Minister in the chair the Hon Dr Nick Smith to take a call specifically on the Hurunui water conservation order. We have to think seriously about what this bill is doing in terms of a process that is well and truly under way. For the benefit of the Committee I point out that hearings are set down for the Hurunui water conservation orders to start on 31 May. They are set down to begin. A process is in train whereby people have begun and are now part of a process yet this bill walks in during the middle of that process and states that the process is all over and completely discarded as a result of this legislation. Government members need to stand up in the Chamber and acknowledge that that is what they are doing. A hearing is set down to begin on 31 May for 6 weeks to resolve once and for all issues to do with the Hurunui water conservation order and this bill will totally remove the ability of the Environment Court to hear that. It will weaken the legal test as Russel Norman has just said. The water conservation order will be re-notified. 
At the end of this it will be the commissioners who will have a massive job on their hands anyway as a result of what is being done in this legislation who will have to hear it and issue a decision. That decision will be able to be appealed only on a point of law so in fact in this bill we are completely changing the way in which this very important water conservation order is being dealt with. No one from the Government has been prepared yet to say that they are taking away the legal rights of a number of people and a number of groups who have been involved in a process for some considerable time on this water conservation order. Nobody from the Government seems prepared to stand up and say that that is what they are doing. They are taking away legal rights and the announcement has already been made today— 
Simon Bridges 
: That’s what you did on the foreshore and seabed. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: That is right I say to Mr Bridges we have heard announcements today on the Foreshore and Seabed Act on which people have campaigned in the past on the issue of people’s rights to due legal process. What is happening about due legal process here? What is happening about the water conservation orders that are already being discussed for which a process is already in place? I would ask respectfully for the Minister in the chair to take a call to clear this up and ensure that we have an understanding here. But for the Hurunui water conservation order—that process—where hearings are already set down to begin on 31 May has that opportunity gone? Is that the situation we have? If it is we will be putting people who have been in this process in a very difficult position. 
I will also pick up the point that Russel Norman made about the question of what the test now is. The ability to impose the national park equivalent on rivers has gone. That seems to have gone for Canterbury but not for the rest of New Zealand. So now for Canterbury we have a different set of rules from the rest of New Zealand in terms of conservation orders. I do not think this bill will lead to any streamlining of the process around the water conservation orders. In fact I think it will make it more difficult because the role now falls to the commissioners who have an extremely busy process in front of them in terms of taking on the responsibilities of Environment Canterbury and now they have this particular water conservation order put in front of them. 
The process was meant to be completed by mid-July. The hearings would have been over and the court would have reported by mid-July. Now we have a bill in which the Environment Court has been totally taken out of the process and the commissioners will take over. First they will give the conservation applicants 30 days to amend their applications then the amended application will be followed by an additional public submission period even though there has already been a complete public submission period anyway. The commissioners will hold a hearing during which they will be required to take no account whatsoever of the special tribunal that the Minister for the Environment has already set up for the Hurunui water conservation order. Then the decision of the commissioners after they have heard this evidence can be appealed only on a point of law. 
So we are reducing the rights of a number of people who have already been heavily involved in this process who have already made submissions and who thought they were part of a process. This legislation is pulling that away. There are overall concerns about water conservation orders and what this will mean for them across the Canterbury region; but I would like a response specifically around the Hurunui case from the Minister for the Environment because there is a great deal of concern out there from a number of people involved in that.