Wagner Nicky: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Wagner Nicky: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5305. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill. During the years that I was a councillor on the Environment Canterbury council there was a gentleman called Murray Lane who used to sit in the back of every council meeting. He came to the meetings because he was a member of the Water Rights Trust and he was deeply concerned about the deterioration of water quality and water quantity in the lowland rivers of Canterbury. He actually became a real part of our council’s proceedings and he would often hold up a yellow or a red card when he thought we were making the wrong decisions. But he was totally committed to seeing the council’s water plan completed and he spent hours sitting in that council chamber as we worked our way through the process. In particular he was a keen supporter of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy and he contributed to the progress of that strategy up until the time of his death in 2009. 
We have heard today that there were many reasons why the Canterbury Regional Council was disbanded and commissioners were put in its place. But it was managing the demand for water the hundreds of consents and trying to finalise the water plan that were the most challenging aspects of Environment Canterbury’s work. They sucked up huge time and resources affecting the whole organisation so little progress was made. Since taking over Environment Canterbury the commissioners have made real progress with water issues. They have notified the Canterbury Natural Resources Regional Plan and it is now in an operative stage which is a fantastic achievement and they have started working on a second-generation land and water plan. 
But most important and closest to Murray Lane’s heart they have made real progress in developing the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. The vision of that strategy is something that all Cantabrians have bought into. The vision is to enable present and future generations to gain the greatest social economic recreational and cultural benefits from our water resources within an environmentally sustainable framework. That is something that we all understand and that we all want to see in our province of Canterbury. The strategy is based on a community collaborative process with each catchment designated as a zone. The 10 zones have been established stakeholders are engaged and now after a couple of years of really solid work implementation plans have been agreed by seven of the 10 zone committees and the others are very close. The next step is to bring all that work together and to create the land and water plan and to give the decisions made by these stakeholders by these communities some statutory teeth. 
This is why I support this bill. There has been so much time so much energy and so much work invested in this process from all stakeholders and communities across the length and breadth of Canterbury just to get to this stage and I do not believe that we want to change the model now. If we had not had the earthquakes this work could have been completed so I do not want this work to become a casualty of that disaster. The bill allows for a ministerial review in 2014 and I am hopeful that by that time the work around the Canterbury Water Management Strategy will be complete the community’s vision for sustainable water management will be ensured and in particular the changes that Murray Lane was so committed to will finally be in place.