Sio William: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sio William: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 27 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8268. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Mangere) 
: 
 I have to agree with many of my colleagues that the title of the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Amendment Bill is the wrong title for this particular bill for a whole range of reasons. I have got a list here of the bulk of the people who took the time to make submissions and who oppose this bill. So I would say that it is the wrong name for the bill. Probably a fitting name would be—as the member who spoke earlier Grant Robertson said—the “Environment Canterbury (Denial of Democracy) Bill” because when you look through the submissions every single submitter whose name I have here raises this issue: that their democratic right to elect their own representatives is being denied. Despite the promise made in 2010 this Government is now ready to break that promise. Another fitting name for the bill would be the “Forgotten Cantabrians Bill” because clearly with this bill it seems that this Government has no intention to value the people of Canterbury and to value their right to elect their own representatives. A better name for the bill would be the “More Irrigation Bill” because this bill is not about the management of water; it is more about more pollution and more division within the people of Canterbury. 
The bill could probably be more fittingly named the “Taxation without Representatives Bill”. If I look through the submissions a primary concern raised by the people of Canterbury is that despite their elected representatives being removed forcibly by this Government under the original Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Act 2010 they continue to be forced to pay for the commissioners. So here again under this bill the Government is telling the people of Canterbury that they do not have the right to elect their representatives in 2013 despite that explicit promise. Instead they are going to have to wait until 2016. But if the Government has broken the promise for 2013 how can the people of Canterbury have confidence that this Government will keep that promise for 2016? In the meantime while that right has been taken away from them they continue to be billed for the cost associated with those appointed by this Government. 
Another name could be the “Entrenched Government Commissioners Bill” because the Cabinet papers that we have been able to access say clearly that the right thing to have done there was to hold these elections early and not to entrench the Government-appointed commissioners. Yet what the Government is now doing is amending this bill and entrenching the attitude that the people of Canterbury do not know any better. The Government cannot trust the people of Canterbury to elect their own representatives. Therefore Big Brother the John Key - led National Government knows better. Therefore the people of Canterbury will not have the opportunity to elect representatives so a fitting name would be the “Entrenched Government Commissioners Bill”. 
But I think that the name of the bill that would resonate more with the people—not just the people of Canterbury but right across New Zealand—is the name that this bill could rightly be called: the “Broken Promises Bill”. Time and time again we have seen example after example of how this Government makes promises and then does not fulfil them. As I said earlier the shame of it all is that if an ordinary citizen were to write and sign a document saying “I promise to do this.”—as was the case with this Government; it promised in 2010 that local elections for Environment Canterbury would take place in 2013—and then break that promise they are liable for court action. They are liable for a fine. They are liable for a jail term. Instead what we now see is that the Government can get away with breaking the promise because it will change the legislation. That is not the only broken promise. And this is the sadness of this whole case. How can the people of Canterbury and how can New Zealanders have any confidence in this bill that elections—