Williams Andrew: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williams Andrew: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8365. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill. Has this not been an interesting week of undermining democracy in New Zealand? Many people around New Zealand watching this broadcast and watching it over this last week will be somewhat flabbergasted and in awe of this Parliament that the undermining of democracy could continue in this country in the manner that it has particularly when the submissions on this particular bill came from so many different sectors that said it was time to return democracy to Canterbury including even the commissioners themselves. Dame Margaret Bazley a very eminent public servant who has headed up the commissioners there and the other commissioners recommended that there be a transition back to a shared arrangement between the commissioners and elected representatives with the intention to then get fully back to elected representatives in due course. That recommendation from Dame Margaret Bazley has been ignored by this Government. A sensible solution by this Government would have been to allow a transition back so that perhaps the knowledge and the expertise that the commissioners have had over the last year or two could be transitioned back to the newly elected people. And there would have been comfort from all sides that it was a proper process and that due course was being allowed to run in terms of democratic principles in Christchurch. 
It was also interesting that the regulatory impact statements from the Department of Internal Affairs and from the Ministry for the Environment also recommended that democracy be returned to Canterbury. Again the recommendations from those departments were ignored. Christchurch City Council itself in its report also called for the return of elections for Environment Canterbury. Again the local authority the second-largest local authority in New Zealand which has been going through a huge amount of pain in the last couple of years has also been ignored in this. 
It was very interesting that one of the most compelling submissions that came to the Local Government and Environment Committee came from David Rutherford the Chief Human Rights Commissioner. He stated: “The Commission considers that no good reason has been provided for extending the present legislation. The lack of public consultation about content—or the continuing need for the legislation—is an abuse of the democratic process and does not reflect the real needs of Cantabrians … In our view”—that is the commission’s view—“the present legislation has the potential to further exacerbate the resentment that has arisen in Canterbury as a result …”. He also said: “Our view continues to be that the undemocratic way in which the original legislation was introduced and its continuance is simply wrong from a human rights perspective.” 
Is it not interesting that when questioned at the Local Government and Environment Committee the Chief Human Rights Commissioner said that New Zealand had gone to war to stop regimes denying people their democratic rights and denying the proper process of a democratic place for people to live in? In this respect he said we were somewhat hypocritical in this country to be pointing the finger at other regimes around the world—Fiji and Zimbabwe were mentioned—while at the same time denying those same principles here in our country New Zealand. That was quite an eye-opener so much so that the members from the National Party who sat there took some offence got a little bit heated and got a bit hot under the collar when the Chief Human Rights Commissioner mentioned that. In fact we were almost wanting him to retract his words but he would not. He stood by his words and he said that New Zealand will have great difficulty in international forums in the future trying to point the finger at others about having the right of the vote for every person in their particular countries when here in New Zealand those same principles are not upheld in Canterbury. 
In that respect New Zealand First has huge doubts about the integrity of this current Government. We have seen what it has done in areas like Auckland. We have seen what it has done in other parts of New Zealand. It does not listen to submitters and we have seen that this week in this Parliament. I am absolutely appalled. For so many bills this week in this Parliament the Government has just wanted to close them down shut them up move them on and not allow proper debate in the House of Representatives. This is the House of Representatives. Government members seem to forget that there are 121 members of Parliament who represent all of the people of New Zealand. They seem to forget that. And they seem to forget that the purpose of this Chamber is to fully debate and flesh out all the arguments the pros and the cons of whatever is being put forward in legislation to ensure that it does receive full fair frank and robust debate. Yet time and time again this week on so many bills of social importance and economic performance and of importance to the lives of people in New Zealand the people sitting on the other side of this House on the Treasury benches have wanted just to stop the debate shut the debate down and not even put up a robust rebuttal or a defence of their position. It is appalling that Government members are not prepared to put to the people of this country any decent argument on so many issues this week on so many bills this week. They are not prepared to defend their position at all. That is arrogance. That is total arrogance. 
The people of New Zealand are seeing the total arrogance and it is appalling. People will remember. We are now 18 months out from an election. That clock is ticking and it is ticking very very quickly. The wheels are falling off and the true face of the National Party is coming through. The arrogance is coming through and this is the latest and one of the worst examples of that. It is denying the people of Canterbury who have gone through so much in the last couple of years the basic fundamental human right to vote. 
 Is it not incredible that we were celebrating the right for women to vote which all started in the uprising in Canterbury and how the women’s vote was so important that a hundred and—how many years ago was it? A hundred and— 
Hon Member 
: 1896. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: It was 1896 or whatever that the women of Canterbury then fought to get the right to vote. They would be rolling in their graves some of those women today—rolling in their graves—if they thought they went through all that to get the right to vote for women only to find 120-odd years later that not only do the women not get the right to vote but also the men of Canterbury do not get a right to vote either. It is unbelievable. What a backward step under this National Government that is. 
Well I can assure you New Zealand First can assure you that under a different Government which New Zealand First hopefully will be part of there will be a return to democracy in Canterbury. We will return the right of every Cantabrian to ask for and have their elected people speak for them in Canterbury not people brought in by the National Party on all sorts of high fees—former Prime Ministers on $1000 a day and the likes of you know the ring-ins from the National Party. That will stop and the local people of Canterbury once again will have their men and women representing them and standing up for the best interests of Canterbury.