King Annette: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
King Annette: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5303. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 This bill should be called the “National Party Deception Bill” or perhaps the “Broken Promises Bill” or maybe the “Destruction of Democracy Bill”. Instead it is called the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill. It sounds reasonable does it not? But it is part of a National Party plan a pattern and an agenda against local government in New Zealand. It is yet another attack on local democracy and it follows a pattern that has emerged from the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill currently before the Local Government and Environment Committee. I realise that bill is not the current Minister of Local Government’s bill but he must have been worried to inherit a bill that was based on myths false figures and a handful of egregious examples. 
Now we have this bill with its fancy title. But what is the reason for it? Well why will the Minister not release the report that this bill is based on? We have got a regulatory impact statement. That is going to be the evidence we are going to use for this bill. But the Minister has refused to release the report. Why Minister? What has the Minister got to hide? What has the Government got to hide that it cannot release a report that is making such a significant difference in an area that has already been struck with so many decisions that lack democracy? Where is the evidence for the need for this bill? 
Even his own Government department’s regulatory impact statement states in paragraph 97 “given the progress made by the Commissioners there is no apparent reason for continuing this level of intervention which was used in response to ECan’s previous serious and systemic dysfunction.” So his own regulatory impact statement says the extension of the commissioners’ term would continue to deny Canterbury residents the opportunity to vote for representation on Environment Canterbury and it says there is no apparent reason for continuing with the current arrangements. Even the commissioners themselves the very people appointed to run this organisation said that they would prefer an option that was a transitional option one that transitions back to democracy. 
But let us step back a little and look at the promises the Government made to the people of Christchurch. On 30 March 2010 the then Minister Nick Smith decided to get rid of the 14 elected members and replace them with seven appointed members. This bill he said would empower commissioners “to rapidly bring the region’s resource management framework into line” and solve the problems. That was said 2½ years ago. We accept there have been earthquakes in Canterbury but what this Minister has done is to add another 4 years to the rapid change that was meant to happen in Christchurch. So we end up with around 6½ years in the transition back to full democracy in the Canterbury region. But let us just remind the House what the then Minister said. He said this: “but whatever the circumstances the next regional council elections in Canterbury will take place no later than those scheduled for late 2013.” No ifs no buts Mr Carter from your previous Minister. He said that whatever the circumstances the election would take place no later than 2013. I read the Minister’s response to questions from my parliamentary colleague Grant Robertson last week where we saw the reinterpretation of what Minister Smith had said. A broken promise is a broken promise. 
It was a promise that we now know was based on a lie. You see the Government has a plan to reduce local democracy in local government. You need only to look at this bill to see ministerial muddling in just about everything. This bill is anti-democratic. There will be no election in 2013 as promised. The people of Canterbury went out and they believed the Government which said there would be an election. They accepted what was happening because there was going to be an election. There will continue to be no appeal of the commissioners’ decisions to the Environment Court—having it look at the decisions that have been made by those commissioners. There has been no consultation with the Canterbury community. The regulatory impact statement was very strong on this point to the Minister. It said to the Minister that it restricts the ability to present a community view because there was not community consultation. In fact even Treasury was upset at the lack of consultation. Treasury said that it did not believe there had been enough consultation with other stakeholders particularly with Government departments. 
So there has been no Crown-led consultation process with Canterbury stakeholders and the communities. Well did we not just have a debate around the lack of consultation and the roughshod way the people of Canterbury are being treated? Surely Minister if you live in the area and have any idea of what is happening in your community you would know that one thing you would have to do was to go out and consult over this bill to remove democracy until 2016. So there was no consultation. 
This bill the Minister said is going to provide effective efficient stable governance and will support the earthquake recovery and provide leadership. Well Minister let me tell you what your message is to Cantabrians: none of them—none of them—are capable of providing effective efficient stable governance. That is the message to Cantabs—none of them are able to provide that. The next message is that they are all incompetent conflicted mentally unstable or dumb because none of them are capable of being elected to a body to continue the work that has been done by the commissioners. That is the message to Cantabrians. It also tells Cantabrians that none of them have leadership qualities. You see everything I am telling this House is the reason why the Minister said we needed this bill but no Cantabrian has those skills. They are not capable. It is not possible for them to do this job. It has to stay in the hands of a few commissioners. What an insult. I say to Cantabrians they ought to rise up and tell Carter he is wrong. He is wrong. Why does he not consult? Why does he not release the information? Why does he not give the people of Canterbury an opportunity to have management over their own affairs? 
The bill enables the commissioners to adopt a second-generation land and water plan and fully implement it. Why not let the local people adopt the second-generation plan? This work should be completed by October 2013 and the work that is carried on should be done by the local people themselves. In fact Minister read your own regulatory impact statement because the regulatory impact statement said the commission had addressed the systemic problems within Environment Canterbury. It said it had addressed the problems and now we hear from the Minister that we must continue on with the arrangement we have. 
This bill does require the Minister to review it in March 2014. Why not start reviewing it in October 2012 and ready this organisation for election in October 2013? If the real agenda is amalgamation of the Canterbury councils put it on the table now because I suspect that is the real agenda—amalgamation of the councils across Christchurch. It has been reported to us that this is the Government’s agenda and delaying it until 2016 enables the Government to put in place a structure for amalgamation. 
Well Labour members say that this bill is unnecessary. The Minister could have come back with an arrangement as proposed by his own department a transitional option one that would have some elected and some appointed—something that Nick Smith the former Minister said on 2 July this year that he supported; that Federated Farmers supported; and that the Fish and Game Council supported. It would have been a short-term fix. It could not have been permanent because unlike the district health boards which get Government money the money for the regional councils comes from local people and local people should be making local decisions. We will not support this bill.