Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. The ACT Party opposes this bill. It seeks to add up to two unelected representatives to the Canterbury Regional Council and it conflicts directly with ACT's principles that only democratically elected representatives should serve on councils and in Parliament. Environment Canterbury—or ECan Canterbury Regional Council—already has two mana whenua appointees which give advice to council on tikanga to help them with decision making. That appears to be a better way to actually address some of the issues that councils face when they're looking at planning consenting long-term plans and where and how to provide community services for the people that live in that district. That's why this bill won't actually help address any of those issues. What it will do is add two extra individuals to the 14-person council now 16; it will dilute democratic representation; it will essentially override basic democratic principles; it will result in unelected members having the same voting powers as elected members; and it will increase costs to the Canterbury ratepayers. For the ACT Party that is sufficient reason to oppose it.But I want to respond to some of the things that the Hon Willie Jackson said before he departed from the House. Mr Jackson has illustrated the problem with this approach. If the Government proposes to allocate some rights to special classes of people because of who their grandparents were or because of their lineage that takes us back thousands of years back to the feudal history that New Zealanders who came here by sailing ship by steamship and more recently by aeroplane left behind in the countries that they left to come to New Zealand for a better life. And for the benefit of those members who support this bill I want to bring that back to why we're here. It's to make a better New Zealand. We won't achieve that by allocating special rights to special classes of people. That is a form of feudalism.Now we've heard about partnership approaches. That's all well and good. I've been involved in construction project alliances where the client and the stakeholders and people get together and they agree that if you work out a certain course then more benefits get shared amongst the groups that participate. They all have skin in the game. Those participants in construction alliances are appointed to represent their group's interests. Now the difference between that and a democratically elected council is that voters get to choose who represents them. This bill removes the right of voters to choose two of what will become 16 members even though there are already provisions in the law in a law rushed through under urgency by this Government to create Māori wards so that individuals who are nominated and qualified can stand to be elected in those Māori wards—and the Canterbury Regional Council has the ability to do that. But instead they have come and they've asked for this local bill to be proposed essentially to create two additional seats for individuals.Now we can understand why Mr Jackson thinks that's a good idea because he's an old-school class warrior who believes that the pie is only so big and it should be carved up and reallocated according to his vision and to those in power. The ACT Party fundamentally rejects that approach. We do not believe that that is helpful to New Zealanders. We do not believe that the people of Canterbury would appreciate that approach and this Government should not allow this bill to proceed because it divides New Zealanders rather than brings them together allocates special rights and privileges to those that should only be available to elected representatives.