Eckhoff Gerrard: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Eckhoff Gerrard: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:619;Page:15297] 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 I certainly appreciate being given the call. In my opening remarks I say to Opposition members that they are being very unfair to the current member for Otago. Gavin Herlihy is a first-rate member. He has worked tirelessly for that area and I think they are being grossly unfair to criticise Gavin Herlihy’s work. [ 
Interruption 
] What? I am sorry do members mean he is not the current member? Oh dear! Well I see Gavin’s Herlihy’s name a lot more in the newspaper than I see David Parker’s name so I just assumed that Gavin Herlihy was still the member for Otago. Gracious me I must be wrong about that. 
When I look at Part 2 it just sends a shudder through me entirely. I note that the Minister is to set up a water allocation board. I and everybody else in this Chamber saw the appointment of a ministerial reference group. The group was supposedly fair and representative and it has come out with a recommendation in its report that has again sent shock waves throughout the country. The group was appointed according to the Minister from men and women of outstanding quality. I am sure that individually some of them probably were but their report is a shocker. I have not the slightest doubt that the water allocation board will be made up of sycophantic political appointees appointed by the Minister. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Labour hacks. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF 
: They will be Labour hacks who have had some association with water—because they once drank some with their whiskey or something or other. That is the most worrying aspect of this legislation. If the names of the board members were known to us all we could make a judgment call on that but quite clearly the Minister will appoint her people to the Waitaki Catchment Board in order to get the result that she and the Government want. Exactly the same thing applied with regard to the reference group; that Minister certainly got what he wanted. 
I emphasise just how hugely important water is. Water in the South Island especially in the area to the east of the main divide is as important as the land itself. Without water much of our farming would not survive. Yet potentially the board could well take away from the farming community especially its ancestral traditional cultural and social connections. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: What about customary rights? 
GERRARD ECKHOFF 
: Well it could take away customary rights as well. Where have we heard all those things before? If those sorts of aspects apply to Maori then they must apply to the people of the land at Kurow in North Otago and in the catchment area of the Waitaki River. Water means a huge amount to the people of that area. We have just seen a real battle on that issue. As my colleague Mr Ken Shirley has pointed out we still do not know what Mr David Parker thinks. I am told that Mr David Parker is the member for Otago. Apparently he still has not made any comment on this particular issue to say whether he is in favour or agin. The people of Otago do not really know that. We constantly emphasise that point. 
Quite frankly the regional council has come out with a pretty reasonable plan for our region; the council has forgotten more than the Minister will ever know about this subject. I personally would not mind this legislation quite as much as I do if the allocation board members were to be derived from the regional council or were to be appointed by it. That would be reflective of the region. But that is not to be the case. This bill is a totally inappropriate way of handling a very very vital issue to the people of Otago: the allocation of what is known as “blue gold” to the people of our region. The issue is of massive importance. 
There is another aspect of this part that is hugely disturbing. I see that the Minister can remove a member of the board for what is called “misconduct”—whatever that may be. Does “misconduct” mean disagreeing with the board or disagreeing with the Minister? Would that be construed as misconduct?