Smith Nick: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Smith Nick: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15411] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 What we have here is a shonky piecemeal approach to resource management law. The approach taken by the Minister Marian Hobbs is one that adds costs uncertainty and delays. I put it to this Parliament that Marian should be put on Helen Clark’s— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member will use the full name of the honourable Minister or the name of her portfolio. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The Hon Marian Hobbs the Minister for the Environment should be put on Helen Clark’s ministerial death row alongside George Hawkins for the incompetent way in which she has managed resource management law. What we have here is quite dishonourable. The Minister came to the House with this bill and said it had nothing to do with Project Aqua. Then the moment Meridian Energy pulled the plug on Project Aqua the bill was completely rewritten. Now I am not going to go so far as to say whether the Minister was telling a porky the first time or the second time but she has not been consistent. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member will be seated. The member is a long-serving member of this House and has been for a number of years. He has held senior positions. He knows that he cannot use that word. The Speaker has ruled accordingly. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I am not sure whether the Minister for the Environment had it wrong the first time or the second time but her positions have been so grossly inconsistent that she owes the people of North Otago and South Canterbury an explanation because both things cannot be true. 
I also have to say that it has been grossly unfair on Meridian Energy. It is a State-owned enterprise but it is reasonable that people know what the rules are. What this Minister has been doing is continually changing the rules. One hundred million dollars has been put into Project Aqua and because of this Minister’s shenanigans this has resulted in that money being lost to the public purse. She must bear the responsibility for that mess on her desk. 
Then we come to the issue of the total lack of honour that this Government has shown to the community of the Mackenzie Basin. It was absolutely clear in the evidence heard by the select committee that commitments were given in good faith to the community at the time the upper Waitaki hydro development took place. It was absolutely clear that those commitments were given. This was an opportunity—the one honourable decent thing we could have done in this bill—to say to that small community: “Governments can be trusted.” Well Labour Governments cannot. I am referring to the way in which Jim Sutton weasel-worded his way around his obligations to his constituents in respect of that 1969 Order in Council and the commitments that were made on an ongoing basis throughout that period. 
I see in today’s newspaper that Rob Talbot has confirmed that he as a former local member remembers very well the commitments that were made to the community and I want to know why it is that Labour administrations are not prepared to honour the word of previous Governments. Why are they not prepared to have put on to the statute book of New Zealand that when it comes to allocating the water from the Waitaki River they should have to take into account commitments made by previous Ministers? What is it about Marian Hobbs and her colleagues that they want to disregard those sorts of commitments? I will tell members why. It is quite simply this: they are the shareholders of Meridian Energy. They have a complete conflict of interest. Marian Hobbs and her cronies are more interested in the balance sheet of Meridian Energy than they are in justice or in any terms of honesty and integrity in dealings with the Mackenzie Country community. I say that her management of that issue will cost this Government the seat of Aoraki. [ 
Interruption 
] “We will take it because of the honourable way in which we have taken that community.” says Mark Peck who has walked away. He knows he is stuffed in Invercargill. He knows he is a goner. The seat of Aoraki will be like Invercargill and will come into National’s hands next year because of the Government’s mismanagement of this important issue.