Jones Shane: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Jones Shane: Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:661;Page:10058] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chairperson for that very sensible call on your part. This is the first time as a consequence of being dragged away on other business that I have had a chance to reflect on this very ugly example of the denial of the democratic rights of our people in the Canterbury region. At the pith of resource management in New Zealand has been a marriage between participatory democracy and resource management and this bill especially Part 3 fits a broader story. The story is to strip step by step decisions made by democratically elected representatives delegated down to officers and move it more into a corporate style of resource management. 
I need look no further than clause 36 “Power to end moratorium” and no doubt a moratorium will be in place as the burgeoning number of farmer-based applications come to the fore. This is actually a day where the current Government is rewarding its power base—that is those members of that particular economic cluster otherwise known as the farming community who have continued to treat water as a free unlimited resource. Obviously once this moratorium comes off—and it will come off; I see that the Minister has the power to direct the commissioners to end the moratorium—the Minister will be under enormous pressure enormous incentive to open up that valuable source of wealth to the investors in that area. But that is judging the moratorium decision only in a very narrow way. It fits a broader picture—that is to move more decisions away from local and regional government and put them in the Environmental Protection Authority; to move more decisions away from the area of Tamaki-makau-rau and give them to shadowy non-accountable corporate directors. 
Underlying this change is not really a concern about the environment; underlying this change is a loss of confidence by the current Government in that system of governance—that is in relying on those members of the public who step up and undertake democratic obligations only to have the ground cut from beneath them. It might be said that they have been an abject failure and they have to go. In actual fact the failure here is the existence of unelected and non-accountable commissioners who will actually end up doing the bidding of central government. So the failure is that there is no more confidence on the part of these Ministers in that tenet of local government—democracy where people in a certain region are entitled to elect their members and make resource management decisions that reflect the preferences of the region. 
That idea is deeply embedded in our system of governance in New Zealand so it would be fantastic to hear from the Minister in the chair the Hon Dr Nick Smith as to why when and how that power will be used when he or she overrides the commissioners. The narrative as outlined by Gerry Brownlee by the Prime Minister and by Mr David Carter—I have nothing to add other than what the Greens have said about Mr Carter—informs us that water is to be unblocked and used exclusively for an economic purpose that is the provision of goods and services from the application of water. No sensible participant in this debate wants to see the economy shrivel but the fear is that the unmitigated arrival of new applications over time will see a further degradation of quality. 
We cannot rely on those advocates from the farming community who influence and drive the decision makers in this Government. They have demonstrated through the Dairying and Clean Streams Accord that the modest progress that has been made is actually undermined by a deeper attitude. That attitude has been seen today in Manawatu and in other parts of the country. It seems to me that the overarching sense of their entitlement in this area—to treat water as a free good but have no obligations to the rest of society—will be exposed.