Smith Nick: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Smith Nick: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:619;Page:15289] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 One of the particularly ugly aspects of this Government is that if one challenges any aspect of its programme—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. We just heard the Minister of Conservation casting aspersions on the Hon Nick Smith. He called him ugly. I do not believe that that is acceptable in this Parliament. If the member did not take offence I certainly took offence on his behalf and I believe that Minister Carter should stand withdraw and apologise for making such a silly and offensive remark. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I certainly heard the member in the first instance refer to the word “ugly”. Did the member refer to that word in relation to a member personally? 
Hon Chris Carter 
: Beauty I guess is in the eye of the beholder. I withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I assume that my time will be taken from the beginning given the interruption. 
My point is that one of the particularly ugly aspects of this Government is that if they are challenged on any aspect of policy and they cannot win the intellectual argument they simply resort to personal attack. They do it with persons outside the House; they do it within the House. I do not take offence. I take it as a compliment that I am so effective in my role in Opposition that they are not prepared to have the debate on the issues but resort to those sorts of personal insults. 
I want to systematically go through each of the points the Minister has made and test whether they are true. The first thing he said was that this bill is due to the fault of the National Party and the Resource Management Act. Let us just reflect on that. 
The Resource Management Act was passed in 1991 by National and voted for by the Labour Party at the time. Labour had actually introduced the bill and passed its first reading and a good part of its second reading. Furthermore National introduced a substantive amendment bill in 1999 that significantly reformed the Resource Management Act. When Labour came to office it threw that bill out. Labour passed another bill just 12 months ago and at the conclusion of that bill passed in May of 2003 it said the Resource Management Act was all fixed and there would be no further problems. 
Then lo and behold Marian Hobbs was sacked and David Benson-Pope came into the job. He says he will fix all the problems in the Resource Management Act with a bill that he will be taking to Cabinet next week. I say to the Minister that that is a strange sort of record. How can there possibly be any credibility in his claim that it is National’s fault? It does not stand up to scrutiny. 
Then we have the claim that this bill when the Minister introduced it had nothing to do with Project Aqua. 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: That’s right. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The Minister in the chair says that that is right. Yet the Minister only 10 minutes ago when addressing the bill said it had to be radically changed because Project Aqua had been withdrawn. Are those statements consistent? 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: Rubbish! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The Minister did. In speaking on Part 1 he said the reason we have this Supplementary Order Paper is that Project Aqua has been withdrawn. How can the Minister say in one breath that this bill has nothing to do with Project Aqua and in the next breath say that we have to have an Supplementary Order Paper because Project Aqua has been withdrawn? That again makes no sense. 
Then the Minister said the reason we need this bill is that we need a plan for the Waitaki River and it is the only way it can be achieved. Again the Minister is very solidly mistaken. All the Government would need to do and we know from the estimates that the Government has put up $3.5 million for the development of this plan is to tell the Canterbury Regional Council that it will put up the money on the proviso that the council delivers a plan under the existing Act. The bill would not be required at all. 
In the substantive question members on this side of the Chamber ask why the people of Canterbury are going to vote on 9 October for a new regional council when already this bill will say that the council cannot do the job. Already this Government has decided it has no confidence in the Canterbury Regional Council to do its job and write a plan. The further point is why a plan for the Waitaki River? Why not the Rangitata River the Rakaia River the Ashley River or the Ashburton River? Why is it this particular river? The Government cannot pass special legislation for one particular river without giving this Parliament very concrete reasons as to why it is doing so. 
If there is a flaw in the Resource Management Act and the Minister believes that all rivers should have a management plan—and there might be some substance in that argument which was eloquently put by Jeanette Fitzsimons—let us have a bill that requires all rivers up to a particular size to have a management plan within a particular period. That might make some sense. But why just this river and just this region? 
We cannot have the Minister of Local Government in the Chamber talking about the powers of general competence and who says that we trust local government and then have a bill that takes the powers away and gives them to a group of people who will be appointed under Part 2. I say to the Minister that it makes no sense. He has been caught out time and time again misleading the intent of this bill and the reasons for it. I challenge him to take a call and answer some of those fundamental questions that this Parliament needs an answer to if this legislation has any merit.