Woods MeganENVIRONMENT CANTERBURY (DEMOCRACY RESTORATION) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingDr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I move That the Environment Canterbury (Democracy Restoration) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider the bill. We have an opportunity here to rectify a wrong that has been done in Canterbury. We have an opportunity here to put back in Canterbury what exists in the rest of the country and that is a fully democratically elected regional council. Six years after the sacking of our regional council in 2010 Canterbury still does not have a fully democratically elected council. This is not something that I as a Cantabrian am prepared to sit by and watch happen because it simply is not good enough.We entered 2016 with great hope and great opportunity for our region and part of that is us taking back our destiny: us being in charge of our city. We have seen the transitional legislation around the power being given back to the locally led recovery in terms of the Greater Christchurch regeneration. There is simply no justification for continuing this mixed model of democracy as the Minister for the Environment has labelled it. We have opposed the removal of our democratically elected councillors in Canterbury all the way through. We opposed it in 2010 when the council was sacked. We opposed the legislation in 2013 that extended the period out to 2016 and we opposed the legislation in 2016 that put in place this halfway house of having half of our councillors in our region appointed. It simply was not good enough.But more concerning was the Cabinet papers that I read that were going around in the context of this legislation one of which was a document from the Ministry for Primary Industries that was opposed to the restoration of full democracy in 2019 because it saw it as an impediment to its agenda. There is not a universal will in this Government to ever return Canterbury to having a fully democratically elected council and this is not good enough. It is an insult to Cantabrians that we are treated differently to the rest of the country and an insult that the Minister for the Environment the Hon Nick Smith says that democracy in our region carries too many risks. This is from a democratically elected member of Parliament who has the audacity to stand up and say that democracy is risky. That simply is not good enough.My bill had the good fortune to have its moment out of the biscuit tin its number being drawn only days after the triennial elections were held in Canterbury which of course were held under the 2016 legislation that put in place the mixed model of democracy. This saw us have some elected members but the Government appointees continue. This is not something that we are willing to see happen again. It is for this reason that—because this bill was drawn right after those triennial elections were conducted—I have drawn up and released Supplementary Order Paper 251 to signal my intent. The intent is that given that we have had democratic elections for just over half of the positions on the regional council in Canterbury it would be an absurdity for those people who were duly elected to have to go through another round of elections. This bill calls for the holding of elections in a very short time frame after it receives the Royal assent but we would not—and my Supplementary Order Paper has been released—be asking for re-election of duly elected councillors who were elected in the 2016 election.One of the interesting questions of course that has come up and something that was contained in the 2016 legislation is the appointment of iwi representation sitting around the Environment Canterbury table. I think that this is an interesting question. I think this is something that deserves consideration at select committee about how this would fit with a democratically elected council. When speaking to other parties about this I have certainly signalled our intention to remain open to how that may work within the framework. We are not simply looking to put in place exactly what existed in 2010.We can see that there have been some improvements and some things that could improve in terms of going forward into our future and that is that having strong iwi voices around the table that talk about our waterways and that talk about how we are going to protect our environment could be of a huge benefit to our region. That is certainly something that we think would make a very fruitful and a very good topic of conversation at select committee about the best model to do that. Would that be through the way in which it is done under the current legislation the 2016 legislation which allows Ngāi Tahu to appoint those members or would it be through a process of election for those? They are all important discussions that would need to be held at that select committee phase.We do need to make sure that we are putting back in place in Canterbury the very best model of governance of our region and our regional assets that we can have to take us forward into this next exciting phase that we face in our region. So much of the emphasis of the work of Environment Canterbury centres on the irrigation agenda that lies at the heart of why it was that our regional councillors were sacked in the first place. But what we also have to consider is the other functions of Environment Canterbury. I want elected members to be making those decisions about our transport in our region. I want elected members to be thinking about how it is that we can have the best and most progressive public transport system in our region that is going to be integrated into the fantastic rebuild that we are doing.It simply is not good enough that councillors sitting around the table have not been chosen by the people. They have been appointed by the Government of the day. This is not something that I as a democratically elected member of Parliament can ever condone. I cannot understand how it is that fellow elected members can pass legislation after legislation that strips away the democratic representation of an entire region and treats it differently from the rest of the country. By voting for this bill and sending it to the select committee there is a great opportunity to think about how it is that we can put back in place a better model and how it is that we can put in place a model of governance for our region in Canterbury that takes us beyond this Draconian way of looking at our region this top-down approach from Government that if elected members do not do what you want then you sack them and put in place people who will do what you want.This is not the way any of us want our country to be governed and this is not the way that Cantabrians want their region to be governed. I call on Canterbury MPs from across the House to vote for this legislation. Vote for your region and not your party. Vote for the people whom you represent the people who elected you and put you in this House so that you can go back and look them in the eye and say: I have not stripped away your democratic rights yet again. I have stood up for the people whom I represent and the people's rights to have democratic representation." Those members could go back home to their constituencies or to the areas where they are based and they could have their consciences rest easy knowing that they have stood up for a fundamental right of no taxation without representation. It simply is not good enough that we are having this period continue.We are going to see members stand up and hear them say that the legislation is outdated and it has missed the boat. There has already been a Supplementary Order Paper that has been released. We are absolutely open to the question of how best to have iwi representation and iwi input into the Environment Canterbury structure. If members opposite will not take up the challenge to vote for their region and not for their party what I want to hear is their justification for why they are treating their voters differently to the rest of the country. This is an opportunity for us to put in place the best governance structures for the future of Canterbury—one where we can genuinely have a locally led future. Thank you."