Kedgley Sue: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee 
Kedgley Sue: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee 
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SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 The previous Chairperson the Hon Rick Barker asked us to be very focused in our comments on this part and it is extremely easy to be focused on Part 2 because it is the heart of the bill. This is where the coup d’état takes place. Part 2 is called “Replacement of governing body of ECan”. This is where we strip the 14 democratically elected councillors of their powers. As a previous speaker has pointed out it would be an illegal act to do so because there is no statutory basis for doing so. This bill is making legal what would be an illegal act: namely replacing the 14 democratically elected councillors of Canterbury. 
Hon Member 
: Rubbish. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: Some of my National colleagues are saying “Rubbish” but that is the truth. The Minister acknowledged yesterday in a briefing to Opposition members that there was no statutory basis to get rid of these 14 democratically elected councillors so he had to use this bill to do it. 
The other extraordinary thing about this part is that it gives the politically appointed commissioners who will be there to implement the will of the Minister the powers that the democratically elected councillors have been begging for for years. What is also extremely interesting in this part is that the terms of reference for the commissioners are not in this bill. This is the critical thing: what will their terms of reference be? What will they be up to? It is not spelt out. It is just left to the Minister after the bill has been rammed through Parliament to decide on the terms of reference. The reason is that he does not want us or the people of Canterbury to know ahead of time what the terms of reference will be. 
As the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society has said this is a bill to fast track the building of dams in Canterbury. That is what it is all about. I predict that one of the terms of reference will be to facilitate the building of dams in Canterbury. By giving terms of reference such as these the two Ministers will basically be able to implement their agenda. I make it absolutely clear that the purpose of this bill and the replacement of the democratically elected councillors with commissioners is to ram through the building of dams. The councillors were sacked basically because they were getting in the way of agribusiness and irrigation companies. They were annoyed because Environment Canterbury was getting in the way. It was stopping some of their big water projects. Just as Bainimarama found that democracy was an obstacle to the implementation of his plans in Fiji this Government has also found that the democratically elected councillors were an obstacle in the way of implementing their irrigation plans so it has abolished democracy in Canterbury. 
The other thing of course is that at any time the Minister for the Environment may amend the terms of reference for the commissioners. At any time with no reference to democracy or to this Parliament the Minister can change the terms of reference for the commissioners. If the commissioners do not do exactly the Minister’s bidding then they can be got rid of under the provisions in this part of the bill. They can be dispensed with if for any reason they do not completely implement the Minister’s agenda. 
The Minister accused us all of being hysterical in his earlier intervention. That is the Government’s favourite word. It said that Opposition members are hysterical over mining they are hysterical over this bill and they are hysterical in everything that they do. The Government must think that everyone in New Zealand is hysterical. But we are not hysterical—we are simply angry. Did the Minister really expect us to sit politely by to yawn and to say: “Oh well never mind. We are just getting rid of another layer of democracy in New Zealand.”?