Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15406] 
Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 2 September. 
Part 4 Panel of Commissioners ( 
continued 
)  
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 Just before the rising of the House last Thursday evening the last Labour speaker was the Hon Jim Sutton the member for Aoraki which is the area where this particular legislation is to take effect. I could not believe my ears when the Hon Jim Sutton who also happens to be the Minister of Agriculture informed the House that he thought hydroelectricity and the generation thereof were in a much higher sphere than agriculture in terms of the national good. Let me just say this on the side: one can always tell when Labour members are on the way out and about to resign or retire because they do not care how much damage they leave behind for Labour candidates coming in. Members should just pause for a moment and think about what the honourable member said—this is the Minister of Agriculture a Minister in this current Government. He said that in relation to the national good the generation of hydroelectricity was of far greater importance than agriculture. That defies belief and it is certainly manna from heaven for the incoming National candidate who will clearly win that seat. 
Let us have a look at the detail of what that Minister was proposing. He said that it is far more important that as little as 2 percent— 
Brian Connell 
: 1.7 percent. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: —1.7 percent of the flow of that river—the amount promised by an Order in Council in 1969 to the farming group at the top of that catchment area—is spilt over a hydro dam than it is used for irrigating that area. In keeping with that sentiment he then voted down the very good amendment of my colleague Nick Smith that would have meant that the agreement entered into in 1969 was honoured. That is a disgrace! Members on the other side of the Chamber should take a call and explain to this Committee what the Labour Party Government and the Minister of Agriculture mean by that and why the Minister thinks that is a sustainable policy for that area. 
Further when we have a look at what happens in Part 4 and the regulation around the panel of commissioners that is to be set up—a water board—to allocate the water from the upper Waitaki we see it will be so bound up in regulation that it will not be able to make a decision anyway. So in this part the Labour Party Government sets up a Labour-appointed quango because it does not trust the local authorities to allocate water on a sensible basis which somehow or other in terms of the national interest takes preference to agriculture—that is the bit we cannot understand—then binds that panel up in so much regulation and Wellington-dictate that it cannot make a decision as to what might or might not happen anyway. So the question out of that for those of us on this side of the Chamber who have not been close to the issue—some of my colleagues have been—is why this process is necessary. Why is this bill necessary? In the first place why is this panel necessary and why are all the clauses under Part 4 necessary in terms of controlling what that panel may or may not do? 
I would be interested if the Minister in the chair the Hon Marian Hobbs took a call and explained that away because I do not think it is possible to explain first of all why this group has to be set up and also why the regional councils or the district councils cannot be trusted. They are currently going through a local body elections process whereby all of this could be sorted out in an open democracy particularly under the power of general competence that was introduced by her Government. So why can they not sort it out? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I have some corrections. I actually have what my honourable colleague Jim Sutton said here the other day. When he quoted material about the benefits for the upper part of the catchment he was not giving his opinion but quoting from a study. If the member looks at the study he will see that. 
The second thing is that I have just heard the last speaker show he is completely confused about Part 4. That part in the original legislation was about setting up a panel. There was a board to make the policy around the issue of water allocation and a panel made up of people from the local community to hear the different applications. In Supplementary Order Paper 244 that panel is wiped—it is gone. In other words what that member was talking about—the decisions going back before local bodies—is in the Supplementary Order Paper. In this legislation we are dealing with the setting up of a board but not of a panel. Part 4 is about dismantling the panel. 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 I would also like to address some of the issues under Part 4 that the Minister for the Environment has just discussed but I cannot do that without putting into context some of the comments the Hon Jim Sutton made when he took a call on this part. Let us be very clear that Jim Sutton took a call last week and affirmed—whether or not it was his opinion—that one cumec of water was more valuable to the national good if it were used for electricity generation than if it were used for irrigation. That demonstrates the Minister’s ignorance and it is why he should not be the Minister of Agriculture. All the studies I have seen and I am sure the Minister in the chair has seen show very clearly that one cumec of water if used for irrigation generates about five times the return achieved if it is used for electricity generation. That is a very clearly established fact. 
The Minister for the Environment then spoke about my colleague Mr Ardern and his apparent lack of understanding of this part. That is not correct. If there is any confusion it is because a very late Supplementary Order Paper was introduced. When Project Aqua was off the agenda the Minister essentially lost interest in this bill. She found herself in a position where she may in fact have acted illegally by calling in all those consents because there was no national good in her doing that. So what happened in effect was that Part 4 was completely gutted. The Minister essentially said that she had no interest in it any longer and that she would put a line through all those components and put all the responsibility back on to the regional council without the Government taking any responsibility at all. 
The regional council has reacted to that. There is some argument which I support that if the regional council has not done its job then a mechanism should be put in place to make sure that that does happen. I have to say and it is no secret that I think Environment Canterbury is the worst-performing regional council in the country but I say to the Minister that we should fix the problem not treat the symptom. Putting in place this type of legislation does not address that issue. If we have a look at clause 55 for example which deals with the Official Information Act as amended we see it now makes reference to a “Panel of Commissioners for the Waitaki Catchment”. Environment Canterbury wrote to all members of Parliament I assume—because I have picked it up—“The commissioner panel appears to have the status of a local authority but the bill”—and section 55 is referenced—“applies the Official Information Act to the panel rather than to the appropriate Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act. I think it raises a very good point. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: It’s been deleted. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: I say to the Minister that I know it has been deleted now but that was because the council drew it to her attention not because she or her advisers thought it was a good idea. That type of thing really concerns me. Some of the other clauses that the Minister has been calling out will be deleted—and I agree with her—raise other questions. Clause 42 “Comparative consideration of applications” will be deleted as will clauses 46(1) and 46(5) which essentially deal with costs. The question now is how somebody or who will pay for the cost of any comparative analysis. I can tell members without fear of contradiction that the cost will be paid by not the Government but by the ratepayers of the Environment Canterbury region. That is the damage this bill will do now. 
The Minister has lost interest in the bill. She will sit in the chair shake her head and say that this bill had nothing to do with fast-tracking Project Aqua and that it was all about water allocation across the Waitaki region. If that is her answer why then is the Minister not doing the same on the other main rivers across Canterbury like the Rakaia Waimakariri or Rangitata rivers? Why is the Minister not intervening and putting in place some legislation around them? 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 We have just heard the Minister for the Environment emphasise the fact that the panel of commissioners—which is the heading of Part 4—is to be expunged before it even gets off the ground. That is not a bad thing in itself. This entire bill is all about setting up a committee; that is all it has done from the outset. It has proposed setting up two committees actually—the board and the panel. The setting up of an allocation committee is all that this bill is about. There has been all this brouhaha noise and huff and puffery from the Government just to set up a special committee. 
ACT has said from the outset that this legislation is a nonsense and is just a fast track that the Government is setting up to try to accommodate the State-owned enterprise Meridian Energy’s Project Aqua. The Government’s line has been that the bill has nothing to do with Project Aqua that Project Aqua is absolutely ancillary and that this bill sets up a necessary allocation plan in any event. Over a year ago when the bill had top priority in the legislative programme successive Government Ministers said that they had to ram it through but the day that Project Aqua was mothballed and canned this bill was mothballed and put on the back-burner. It has bounced along the bottom of the Order Paper for nigh on a year yet the Government has the temerity still to pretend that it has never been about Project Aqua. It would be too embarrassing for the Government now to totally withdraw the bill which is what should happen. 
Part 4 highlights the point: it is just about an allocation committee. After the Water and Soil Conservation Act 1967 was passed we had a dedicated Waitaki catchment commission. It did water allocation plans. Like a lot of bureaucratic plans they have all been shelved. Since the passing of the Resource Management Act in 1991 and the establishment of regional councils Environment Canterbury has had the specific task—the specific legislative responsibility—of doing a water allocation plan. We do not need the committee that is proposed in Part 4. We have a statutory body there. The fact of the matter is that Environment Canterbury has chosen to abrogate its responsibilities. If a statutory body chooses to ignore and abrogate its responsibilities one does not rush to Parliament and bring in a whole new statute to set up another body. That is just nutty. 
We should address the basic problem of why the regional council that was charged with the responsibility did not do its job—that is point No. 1. Both the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Local Government had some responsibility to address that but no they did not choose to do it. Call-in powers and all manner of statutory powers are given to a Minister to use when local bodies abrogate their legislative responsibilities—and this is a classic case of where that is the point. I do not know whether the Minister in the chair Marian Hobbs has even written to Environment Canterbury to ask where its water allocation plan is. Did she think of perhaps writing to tell it to get on with the job and to say that if it did not she as Minister would give it a shake-up? She has the powers to do that. No instead she came to Parliament with a whole new duplicate replicate body of bureaucracy—with another governing body and another committee. Now she is so pleased with herself because she has turned those two new committees into one new committee. That is the essence—whoop-de-doody—of this Government’s activity in relation to the Waitaki catchment water allocation procedures. 
The National Party member who spoke on this was quite right. What is special about the Waitaki? The Government has told us that the bill has nothing to do with Project Aqua. Why not apply this measure to the Waimakariri Rangitata or Rakaia rivers? Why does it apply just to Canterbury? I ask the Minister why we do not have these plans and special little allocation bodies all over the country. That would be consistent. This is a foolish bill and ACT will oppose it. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 Everything that is flawed about the approach of the Minister in the chair Marian Hobbs to resource management law is typified in Part 4. I simply tell the Minister what a diabolical mess she has made of this issue and of resource management law. It is quite extraordinary that we have had the 9-page Supplementary Order Paper 244 from the Minister and we have yet to hear any Government Minister give an explanation of it. I ask the Minister to look at the explanatory note of that Supplementary Order Paper. It is the most congested and the smallest explanatory note that I have ever seen for such an extensive Supplementary Order Paper. It could read: “I Marian Hobbs stuffed up.” That would be quite honest; that would be upfront. Instead we have had to listen to a whole lot of weasel words from the Government about its approach on this issue. 
I want to put some quite serious questions to the Minister about what has happened to Part 4. The Minister told us that this bill had nothing to do with Project Aqua. She said that this bill was all about the proper management of resources in the Waitaki River catchment area. So why did the bill have to include a panel of commissioners 10 months ago and not now? Why when the Local Government and Environment Committee went through a very extensive process on the submissions did all the Government members say that we had to have a panel of commissioners? What has changed since then? Why did we suddenly receive Supplementary Order Paper 244 2 weeks ago which stated that the panel of commissioners was no longer required? It is a gigantic and an expensive flip-flop and that is just so typical of the problems that this Government has with regard to resource management law. 
Next I ask the Minister why on earth given all the public concern about delays in the processing of resource consents—and I note that Part 4 will now be labelled “Processing of applications”—she and the Associate Minister David Benson-Pope are saying that we need to speed up the consent process and that there are too many delays. I say hear hear to that. But what will this bill do in terms of reducing the delays and the bureaucracy of the Resource Management Act? It will make things a whole lot worse. Some of the poor old cow-cockies who have dealt with consents for very minimal amounts of water—as contained in schedule 2—lodged their applications in early 2003. They had to wait for the Minister’s call-in last year and have now had to wait almost 12 months for this bill to be considered. They will then have to wait another 12 months while the board develops the plan and only then will their consent applications be considered. I say to the Minister that if that is speeding the process up I would hate her to slow it down! I say that members of Parliament and people all over the country will be concerned about that. 
I come to the issues faced by the farmers of the Waitaki. What occurred during the Minister’s absence from the Chamber last week when we had a debate on that matter was quite disgraceful. I want the farmers in the upper Waitaki catchment area to know how flawed the Government’s position was. Its position was that it would not support my amendment to take into account the promises that were made to the farmers in 1969 because that would interfere with the court process. That is what the Government said. But the very provision of that amendment was to state that actually the court should have to take those promises into account. I would hope that the Minister will come to her feet as the Minister responsible for the bill and respond to those concerns. 
The last point I wish to make in respect of the processing of applications is that people who get resource consents need to have certainty. Those who have applied for resource consents in the Waitaki River have been put through hell by this Government’s policy and the expense that it has caused. 
JILL PETTIS (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 51; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 244 in the name of the Hon Marian Hobbs to Part 4 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 74 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 45 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendments agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 4 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 75 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 45 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Part 4 as amended agreed to. 
Schedule 1Further provisions applying in relation to Board 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That schedule 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 75 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 45 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Schedule 1 agreed to. 
Schedule 2Resource consent applications and notices of requirement for designations to which Part 4 applies 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 244 in the name of the Hon Marian Hobbs to schedule 2 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 75 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 45 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendments agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That schedule 2 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 75 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 45 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Schedule 2 as amended agreed to. 
Clause 1 Title 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 What we have here is a shonky piecemeal approach to resource management law. The approach taken by the Minister Marian Hobbs is one that adds costs uncertainty and delays. I put it to this Parliament that Marian should be put on Helen Clark’s— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member will use the full name of the honourable Minister or the name of her portfolio. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The Hon Marian Hobbs the Minister for the Environment should be put on Helen Clark’s ministerial death row alongside George Hawkins for the incompetent way in which she has managed resource management law. What we have here is quite dishonourable. The Minister came to the House with this bill and said it had nothing to do with Project Aqua. Then the moment Meridian Energy pulled the plug on Project Aqua the bill was completely rewritten. Now I am not going to go so far as to say whether the Minister was telling a porky the first time or the second time but she has not been consistent. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member will be seated. The member is a long-serving member of this House and has been for a number of years. He has held senior positions. He knows that he cannot use that word. The Speaker has ruled accordingly. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I am not sure whether the Minister for the Environment had it wrong the first time or the second time but her positions have been so grossly inconsistent that she owes the people of North Otago and South Canterbury an explanation because both things cannot be true. 
I also have to say that it has been grossly unfair on Meridian Energy. It is a State-owned enterprise but it is reasonable that people know what the rules are. What this Minister has been doing is continually changing the rules. One hundred million dollars has been put into Project Aqua and because of this Minister’s shenanigans this has resulted in that money being lost to the public purse. She must bear the responsibility for that mess on her desk. 
Then we come to the issue of the total lack of honour that this Government has shown to the community of the Mackenzie Basin. It was absolutely clear in the evidence heard by the select committee that commitments were given in good faith to the community at the time the upper Waitaki hydro development took place. It was absolutely clear that those commitments were given. This was an opportunity—the one honourable decent thing we could have done in this bill—to say to that small community: “Governments can be trusted.” Well Labour Governments cannot. I am referring to the way in which Jim Sutton weasel-worded his way around his obligations to his constituents in respect of that 1969 Order in Council and the commitments that were made on an ongoing basis throughout that period. 
I see in today’s newspaper that Rob Talbot has confirmed that he as a former local member remembers very well the commitments that were made to the community and I want to know why it is that Labour administrations are not prepared to honour the word of previous Governments. Why are they not prepared to have put on to the statute book of New Zealand that when it comes to allocating the water from the Waitaki River they should have to take into account commitments made by previous Ministers? What is it about Marian Hobbs and her colleagues that they want to disregard those sorts of commitments? I will tell members why. It is quite simply this: they are the shareholders of Meridian Energy. They have a complete conflict of interest. Marian Hobbs and her cronies are more interested in the balance sheet of Meridian Energy than they are in justice or in any terms of honesty and integrity in dealings with the Mackenzie Country community. I say that her management of that issue will cost this Government the seat of Aoraki. [ 
Interruption 
] “We will take it because of the honourable way in which we have taken that community.” says Mark Peck who has walked away. He knows he is stuffed in Invercargill. He knows he is a goner. The seat of Aoraki will be like Invercargill and will come into National’s hands next year because of the Government’s mismanagement of this important issue. 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 Speaking to clause 1 I want first to go back to the issue that has been raised in this Chamber with regard to what is so special about the Waitaki. What is so special that in clause 1 it demands its own amendment bill? What is so special about its place in the Resource Management Act? The answer lies in the fact for those members who were there in Oamaru and have spoken to people since then that the farmers from the upper Mackenzie Country from Mayor Stan Scorringe of the Mackenzie district to the people of Kurow and right down the river—all of those people—regard the Waitaki River as a very special place indeed. That is part of the reason why New Zealand First has given its support to the revised bill that is before the Committee at the present time. In the course of the earlier deliberations of the House and the select committee firstly we became aware of the tremendous knowledge of the Waitaki that Meridian Energy had garnered; secondly alongside that the work that was done by Environment Canterbury belatedly perhaps but it was there; and thirdly the work of the Ministry for the Environment. 
 We thought the opportunity should not be lost to address the issues that are paramount in regard to the Waitaki River and other rivers and that is what really are and what should be the qualitative methods of water allocation for this day and into the future. In that regard one needs just to speculate that if we go back to the Soil Conservation Act 1967 which talked about “promoting and controlling multiple uses of water” and move to the 1991 Resource Management Act which was concerned with “promoting the sustainable management of natural and physical resources” one might pause especially in view of the speeches already made in the House and consider why Environment Canterbury or any other regional council may have delayed throughout the 1991-99 period. 
Regional councils along with district councils were expecting more national guidance. Instead we know that we had one the national coastal policy statement and no other. Whilst we have heard an impassioned speech from the Hon Dr Nick Smith his Government was in power throughout that time and there was only one national statement of guidance in regard to the coastal plan. That could be a very very sound reason why Environment Canterbury has not until recent days picked up the ball and run with it although it is doing so now in a very prominent manner. I say that because as we have said in the House we are now happy with its regional natural resources plan. It is a very very extensive plan and the Waitaki issue sits very well into that. 
From the first we have preferred and have stated throughout this whole debate that the Canterbury Regional Council and the Otago Regional Council should be the groups that hear the matters relating to the Waitaki River. Therefore we are very very pleased indeed that we have come back to that situation today where their board is going to take up the matters that are before the Committee now. 
That is particularly so because there are major matters of concern in regard to this river. The model that this board could develop for a modern water plan not related to the 1980s or 1990s could be one that looks ahead particularly in view of the fact that it is acknowledged now that if the competing demands for the water in that river were to be satisfied that would cause a quandary and a problem for years to come. To that degree we have been pleased to give support to this. We are pleased to support the work being done by the Canterbury Regional Council and if members took the time to go into their website or talk to the council and see where it is in 2004 they could see why I have every confidence that it will come up with something that will be far faster under this process than one could envisage if it had waited until the end of the natural resources plan which will probably be 2008-09 and then fitted the Waitaki catchment into that. 
We are very pleased to support those people from Waitaki who have said to us over and over again: “Please do not let the matter go. Please make this a matter of concern because we want a modern approach for this day and age to our water our river in which all users but not least the instream values of the river are acknowledged first and foremost.” 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 In addressing the title which as we all know is a very narrow and confined debate I must first rebut the comments made by Mr Jim Peters of the New Zealand First Party. Mr Peters is a very fine and diligent man who worked very hard on the Local Government and Environment Committee but the reasons he just gave to the Committee for why New Zealand First is supporting this bill are absolute hogwash. He said a reason was that up and down the Waitaki River people regard it as a very special place. People feel like that about every river in the country. People up the Clutha feel like that. People up the Aorere the Motueka the Rangitikei the Rangitata— 
Lindsay Tisch 
: Or the Waikato. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: —or the Waikato feel like that. Rivers are wonderful things. I love rivers and people who live up and down river valleys have huge respect for them. So to say that that is a reason why in the Waitaki they need special legislation is absolute hogwash. 
The only other reason he gave was that it was because there is a tremendous depth of information on the Waitaki. That is true. We used to have the Ministry of Works doing all of the hydro design. It had 400 full-time people working in the water and soil division gauging the rivers and measuring the flows. The New Zealand Electricity Department did a huge amount of work. All of that is true but it is the same for the Waikato which is also a controlled catchment so just on that point the member’s argument is absolute hogwash and New Zealand First cannot explain away its position with those arguments. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: I am pleased that in debating the title we no longer have that somewhat farcical situation where we used to be strictly confined to the words in the title and we used to get all sorts of reinventions of what the bill should be called. With the new Standing Orders the title debate is much more broadly based than it used to be and that helps the debate. 
The ACT party is staunchly opposed to this bill. We say that it is unnecessary. We cannot understand why the Labour Government has brought it to this House. We know that it was all about Project Aqua and now that that scheme has been put on the back-burner or abandoned there is no need for this legislation if indeed there ever was. I do not believe there ever was. The key thing is that this is an amendment to the Resource Management Act. The Resource Management Act has generic provisions that provided for regional councils to bring down water allocation plans. They were charged with that responsibility. The Resource Management Act was meant to be part of deregulation. It was meant to be part of empowering and enabling local communities. It was borne out of a rejection of the National Development Act and dictates from central government. But this bill that is before Parliament now which this Labour Government is determined to ram through against better advice is very akin to the former National Development Act and all the problems that that brought to our country. 
There is no point for this bill whatsoever. The Minister in the chair the Hon Marian Hobbs has been totally unable to justify it to Parliament but it seems that the Labour Government has just to churn on because it is in a particular mindset and feels it would lose too much face if it did the right thing and withdrew this bill even at this late stage. 
The point has been made that there are any number of mechanisms for allocating water. Water allocation is important and it will have a growing importance as the scarcity of that resource which we have always taken for granted in this country becomes more apparent. No one argues with that but why the Waitaki catchment? Why not the Clutha River? Why not the Waikato River? The Waikato River is a managed catchment just like the Waitaki. Why not the other big rivers of the country? Or is that the Government’s intention? Will it systematically go round the country one by one and have the “Clutha River Empowering Water Allocation Bill” next month and another one after that. 
There is no justification for this. The ACT party will oppose it. We will vote against it but I would like the Minister just to take one last call at this last stage and tell us how on earth it is required and why it is necessary when all those other existing provisions are there in statute and have been since 1967 with the Water and Soil Conservation Act that was subsumed into the Resource Management Act. 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 The Minister said that the Resource Management Act did not need changing and that indeed it was beautifully written and beautifully balanced. But then what happened? It got absolutely sidestepped for a favoured project. The Minister put all the water applications on hold because—what did she have up her sleeve? She had Project Aqua for the Waitaki River up her sleeve and so the farmers waited. All their applications were put on hold even those for farmers who had been taking water consistently for many years—and still they wait. They are waiting to this day and by all accounts will wait at least another year or more. 
In setting up that water allocation model at the time when we worked through this bill at the select committee it became quite clear that the model could set parameters around different categories of water take which meant that some things could happen automatically. In actual fact if the water allocation model were structured correctly any water take for a hydro project could almost have been a permitted activity within that allocation model. That was one of the things that became clear during the select committee process but as we know there are a whole lot of exemptions to the Resource Management Act. As I have said before there were to have been exemptions from section 32 but at least that was changed. 
So what happened with the Resource Management Act under this particular bill? It was sidestepped. We had ministerial interference and that Act was sidestepped to introduce another bill to create another Act—which sidestepped the Resource Management Act that was so beautifully written and so wonderfully balanced. 
What did we have then? We had the continued interference of the Minister within this bill. It has only partially been removed. It is certainly still there with the establishment of the board and with the Minister setting up the chair and deputy chair and picking the members. As we all know the Minister was advertising for applications for the board during the select committee process—at the very time we were hearing submissions to the original bill. 
We all know as well that the original bill has 55 clauses so with about 29 deleted we are now down to about 26 clauses. We have to ask ourselves why we did not just can the bill. Perhaps the Minister could support Environment Canterbury to do the allocation model and get that up and running pretty quickly so that we could help to look after those farmers who are still waiting for their applications for a water take. 
I agree with my colleagues wholeheartedly about the deplorable lack of support for the upper Waitaki catchment farmers. That has been an absolute disgrace. We had the opportunity through the Supplementary Order Paper from the Hon Dr Nick Smith but that was ignored by none other than Jim Sutton— 
Brian Connell 
: Did Jim Sutton support it? 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: No Jim Sutton did not support it. That is his area—the area he purports to represent—and he did not support protecting the interests of the upper Waitaki catchment farmers and nor did United Future members. For all their grand phrases and time in the area spent talking to farmers they did not support that Supplementary Order Paper either. I believe that that is a disgrace. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: They didn’t walk the talk. 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: No they did not walk the talk. I believe that that is an absolute disgrace but I take my hat off to my colleague for putting such a supreme effort into making sure we all made an effort to support and protect the interests of the upper Waitaki catchment farmers. 
The Minister has interfered throughout this whole exercise. Her Supplementary Order Paper is really quite extraordinary. When we look at Part 4 we see that it has been totally gutted. It has come from 27 clauses down to 10 clauses so we have to wonder. Under clause 50 the “Panel” now becomes the “local authority”. 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 This bill has always been about Project Aqua and no amount of measly weasel words from this Minister in the chair the Hon Marian Hobbs will change that fact. This Government through this Minister was prepared to pervert the processes of the Resource Management Act for its own narrow purposes and nothing will change that central fact either. Rather than fix the Resource Management Act the Government decided to go down this path. 
 In doing so this Minister and the Government have had a terrible conflict of interest because Project Aqua was the brainchild of Meridian Energy a wholly owned company of this Government which was going to make sure that Project Aqua got up come hell or high water and to hell with the other consent holders down on the Waitaki. I tell members that that is something the National Party and the people of South Canterbury and North Otago will not forget or forgive. 
I have to tell Jim Peters from New Zealand First—a member for whom I have a deep respect—that on this issue I think he has simply got it wrong. He stood up in this Committee and created a perception that he has the imprimatur in working for the best interests of the farmers of the Waitaki Valley—that he alone has been there and got their support for this issue. Well I want to read to that member two lines of a letter that I received: “We are writing to express our serious concern about the Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill as reported back from the select committee. It is ad hoc and a retrograde step.” The letter is signed by none other than Tom Lambie president of Federated Farmers. So Mr Peters should not continue to stand up in this Committee and say that he and he alone is across this issue and representing the views of Waitaki farmers because Federated Farmers are saying that that is not essentially the issue. 
What was happening was that some farmers—with farms situated below what was to be the site of the last dam where the economic use of the water had been expended—were going to be seduced or blackmailed by Meridian Energy which was going to play godfather with irrigation. I cannot blame the people living below that dam site. But on working up the river Mr Peters would have found as I did that many a person said: “No Meridian cannot and shall not get all of this water. We want some of it as well.” 
That brings me to the next point which is about the Order in Council of 1969. My colleague the Hon Nick Smith put forward an amendment and it was a very sad day for the people of South Canterbury when the Minister of Agriculture the member for Aoraki got up and talked against that amendment which was essentially saying: “Please honour the Order in Council—the undertaking that the Crown made back in 1969.” 
Let us put that into some perspective. We are talking about a river that has a mean annual flow of about 340 cumecs. Those farmers were simply asking for an agreement to be honoured that would have allowed them to have 15 cumecs which is about 1.7 percent of all the available water. Meridian Energy said it would play ball below the site of the last dam but above that site it wanted even the snowflakes. That was its attitude and to hell with everybody else. 
So I tell the Minister in the chair Marian Hobbs Jim Sutton and the people of South Canterbury to remember who put the amendment forward to say we would honour that agreement and to remember who talked against it. That is something that goes to the heart of this issue. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to follow on from my colleague who does represent the farmers of that area and their views. Can I start by just running through a brief history of how we have got into this fiasco here tonight. I say first of all that the Resource Management Act was passed in 1991. It was described then around the world as being a fine piece of environmental legislation. 
Jill Pettis 
: Who was the Government then? 
SHANE ARDERN 
: The member over there from Whanganui interjects. What she forgets of course is that it was the work of Geoffrey Palmer. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: How many countries have copied it? 
SHANE ARDERN 
: That is something I will have to wait for Mr Shirley to take a call on and answer but it was described by world environmentalists as a fine piece of legislation. Then of course as time went on it was discovered that perhaps it was not as pure as the driven snow and that amendments were needed. Owen McShane was employed by the then Government to carry out an extensive study of the Resource Management Act and the effects of it on both environmental management and the economy. He recommended 12 significant amendments to the Resource Management Act. That was sent to a select committee. The select committee came back. At that stage unfortunately there was an election and a change of Government. The then incoming Minister for the Environment the Minister in the chair the Hon Marian Hobbs put a red pen through every single one of those recommendations. 
Now here we are tonight debating the Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill. Why was that introduced? Well primarily because a State-owned energy producer or power supply company Meridian Energy needed to do some expansion in its hydroelectricity development on the upper Waitaki scheme. So what happened then? The Labour Government who had put the red pen through all Owen McShane’s recommendations and the recommendations of the previous National Government introduced its own legislation that was very much like the Clyde Dam legislation—which the Labour members when in Opposition had entirely condemned up and down the country. 
Then what happened? Project Aqua the Meridian project after $100 million worth of taxpayer funds tipped over could not go ahead and would not proceed. So the Government had a look at its bill which had by then been made redundant—because make no mistake that is entirely why this bill was introduced; there are no other reasons for it—and said: “Well we don’t need this heavy-handed environmental amendment now so we’ll put a red pen through it again.” That is where tonight’s debate becomes very interesting. My comments earlier during the debate on Part 4 were about Part 4. The Minister took a call afterwards—one of the only calls she has taken; and I invite her to take another call after I have finished my speech—and said I was wrong because the Government had a Supplementary Order Paper that guts Part 4. Well Supplementary Order Paper 244 had not been voted on at that stage so clearly the Minister was pre-empting what the Parliament was going to do in saying that the debate on Part 4 was out of order. I say to the Minister that while she has time she should have a look at Standing Order 176—and I know that the Chairperson will be very familiar with that Standing Order—and have a read up on it. 
What happened then was an absolute abuse of the parliamentary process—if it had not been bad enough up to that stage. The Minister said I did not know what I was talking about and that Part 4 was not up for debate because there was a Supplementary Order Paper that effectively wiped out everything that was intended in Part 4 and every other part of the bill for that matter. All that this bill actually does is set up another Labour Party quango which will have no teeth to achieve anything whatsoever and it is only for the upper Waitaki River. 
A substantial amendment was proposed to the Resource Management Act. The Minister kicked it out and now we have this ad hoc legislation that will not achieve anything other than another Labour quango. It does not even honour a 1969 Order in Council that supported the farming folk of the upper Waitaki area in taking 1.7 percent of the water flow from that river for agricultural irrigation and it gets worse. 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 The legislation we are debating tonight will become known in the South Canterbury region not as the Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Act if and when it is finally passed but as the “Act of Betrayal”. The people of that region had a legitimate expectation that the Government—whatever Government was in office—would ultimately honour the undertakings that were given albeit 30-odd years ago. We stand in this Parliament with things like the Treaty of Waitangi and select committees that meet at all hours of the day and night to honour promises supposedly given 160 years ago. Now we stand in this Chamber tonight debating whether—and this is the crux of the matter—the Government of the day this Labour Government should honour a guarantee or a promise. It was not a nod nod wink wink type of promise; it was a promise given to the farming community in the region of South Canterbury. As a farmer myself who understands the value of water I say there is no question that this legislation will be seen as I said earlier as an act of betrayal. 
The Mackenzie Country farmers had their expectations raised to exalted levels by United Future. Mr Larry Baldock met with those people and while I was not privy to that conversation the clear inference was that he would ensure that an amendment went through. Dr Nick Smith had an amendment that even the Green Party accepted as being fair and reasonable. Even with some minor adjustments Larry Baldock and the United Future party would not vote in favour of that amendment. Therefore the cast iron opportunity to provide for water for irrigation in that region will now pass from the people there. 
If anybody actually believes that the ministerially appointed committee will honour the agreement or that promise given all those years ago he or she is dreaming. The Government will appoint its own people just as Jim Sutton did with regard to his reference group on access. He knew exactly what the outcome would be when he appointed those people. The same thing will apply when the Minister appoints her people to ensure that her organisation—one would almost call it her subsidiary; it is of course Meridian Energy—gets whatever it wants in terms of a water right and the private people in that region will have to apply for rights. 
As I mentioned earlier water is something that is of massive concern to all of us on the east of the Main Divide of the South Island. One of the reasons why security of water supply is so vital to those people is simply that without the water the land in most cases is quite valueless. This Government is to turn the whole structure on its head in that region by saying that it will reallocate water rights. It will rethink the whole process whereby the farms that Mr Brian Connell and so on come from have always had the security of a water right—until the Government came along and said that it will turn that on its head. 
Maybe I misheard this but I am quite certain that I heard the member for that region Mr Jim Sutton talk about the people who came on the first four ships gaining the rights to water. He does not like the people who came on the first four ships so he is to redistribute those rights to the people. I suggest that Minister Jim Sutton get out of it and bail out of the ship now because he is history. The people of South Canterbury will not tolerate those water rights being redistributed to some johnny-come-lately who fancies being given that opportunity. 
NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Tainui) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 71 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 48 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Motion agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 75 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 44 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
Bill reported with amendment.