The Green Party opposes the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill. We believe that it will come to mark an historic occasion. It will live on in infamy in the annals of this Parliament. Last week in the general debate I advanced a critique of the Creech report and its recommendations.
I do not wish to repeat those criticisms, suffice to say tonight that this report was politically driven and not politically informed. It failed the basic standards of organisational and managerial professionalism. In particular, the statutory arrangements in this country impose five functions on regional councils. They are: resource management, biosecurity control, river management, land transport, and civil defence.
The Creech report focused excessively, almost exclusively, on one part of one of those functions and condemned the council to death. But that is already history. What we are addressing tonight is the response of the Government to that report, and to the Canterbury water situation. In a more fundamental manner, what we face here is the relationship between central government and local government, and what that means for democracy in this country. This is not a light matter. It is concerned with two fundamental issues—economic growth on the one hand, and good governance on the other.
The stated problem, as advanced by the Minister when introducing the bill, is "the longstanding systemic issue in regional governance." "Intervention"—said the Minister—"can only occur if there is serious failure", and he said that this has occurred. So what does the bill do? It abolishes the elected council, establishes a new appointed commission, and gives that unelected body extra powers. That is the classic example of shifting the goalposts. We condemn a democratic body for alleged ineptitude that derives from weakness in the powers granted to it, and then we set up an undemocratic body and grant it the powers its democratic predecessor had always needed. That is not only devious, but it is dangerous to this nation's constitutional health.
We need to be careful in this country because our constitutional integrity is quite fragile, compared to most other countries. We have no codified constitution. We have no Upper House. We do not have a clear separation of national powers. We have no federal division of authority, but rather, a strong centralised Government. It does not take much in these circumstances to generate a momentum whereby power becomes excessively concentrated. We can all remember the New Zealand Government, not so long ago, that was described as an elected dictatorship. Jim Anderton said in this debate that he had never, in all his time in this House—over quarter of a century—seen anything like this. Stamping out the tender plant that is local democracy can be done, even with the best of intentions.
This Government believes it is doing the right thing, as Jacqui Dean said earlier today. So did Tony Blair when he invaded Iraq. That was on the principle of humanitarian intervention, grotesquely misconstrued. So did Bainimarama when he took out the elected Government of Fiji, at the end of a gun. That was on the doctrine of necessity, grotesquely misconstrued. What is to be the doctrine on which the leader of this nation, with his two lieutenants, Ministers Smith and Hide, rest their intervention? What grotesque misconstruction will eventuate? Will it be the doctrine of frustration—frustration over the obstacles that democracy, sustainability, and the precautionary principle place in front of economic growth? Or will it be the doctrine of corporate efficiency—a truth that will not be denied, either in Auckland or in Canterbury?
If it is the latter, how many regional councils will go under the guillotine for alleged inefficiency, before this Government and its supporters are satiated? Environment Canterbury came in last, out of an alleged 84, in the most recent regional survey. In fact, that is misleading. There are only 12 regional councils, so it is a sleight of hand to trumpet 84 councils and Rodney District Council, incidentally, is not a regional council and it was not for 5 years. Of the 12 regional councils, one had to come last. There is a reason why it was Canterbury. It is because water is the most sensitive issue in New Zealand right now, and Canterbury is the most sensitive region for water. One does not need to be a rocket scientist or even an Environment Canterbury reviewer to recognise these truths.
So which is the next regional council—that which came in 11th—to get the eagle eye turned upon it, in the name of corporate efficiency? How are we to judge the nature of this intrusion into the nation's democracy? Let us turn to the regulatory impact statement and see what it says: "Elections are a right and privilege of any citizen in New Zealand. The suspension of such a right should only be considered in exceptional circumstances. Such a decision is correct to sit with Parliament."
The regulatory impact statement continues: "Targeted consultation"—note the word "targeted"—"was undertaken during the statutory investigation of ECan … However, there has been no public consultation on the proposals … The short timeframe available … has not allowed for a comprehensive assessment of risks and alternatives. This increases the risk that intervention could be incorrectly targeted and/or could require subsequent amendment to address unforeseen circumstances."
This is an extraordinary impact statement. It was prepared for the Ministry for the Environment. It is a brave action, for clearly the Ministry is not happy with what is going on. Will it too be disbanded, and on what principle—a lack of loyalty to the leader? Yet that is not all, because the Minister proposes to proceed under urgency. The impact statement states: "This, alongside the proposal to limit appeal rights on decisions/recommendations made by commissioners … potentially alienates Canterbury rate payers and the general public from decisions made on natural resources in the Canterbury region. This raises equity and access to justice issues." This is perhaps, as Jim Anderton has said, an unprecedented situation.
Here we have a situation in which a Government department is fighting to defend the principles of democracy and natural justice, which are historically and constitutionally the responsibility of central government to defend, but it is central government that is stamping them out. The ratepayers and the general public of my province are being alienated from decisions made over their natural resources, raising issues of equity and justice. This is the kind of thing that citizens tend to rebel against.
Well, there is news for the Ministers and also for their leader, Mr Key, who appears to be losing his footing: the ratepayers and the general public of Canterbury have taken roughly 2 hours to get their act together in the face of this threat to their natural rights. A group of Canterbury citizens is organising already to picket tomorrow the offices of four National MPs in Canterbury—MPs Brownlee, David Carter, Wagner, and Adams—and they will leave this letter at their doors.
It reads as follows: "No taxation without representation: an open letter to Canterbury National MPs.
We the undersigned are writing to utterly condemn the National Party Government's decision to abolish the democratically elected and accountable regional Council in Canterbury and replace it by unelected commissioners responsible only to central government. Moreover, this has been done without the slightest consultation with the Canterbury public.
This is an outrageous and completely unwarranted destruction of local democracy and also a sorry degradation of democracy for New Zealand as a whole. It seems to signal a determination to favour sector interests over the welfare of the public at large.
We pledge never to vote for a party which has such a flagrant disregard for our sovereign rights as citizens to elect and recall our democratic representatives at the local level.
From May 1, councillors we elected in 2007 will no longer be working for us, we expect to find in our next ECan rates bills that the proportion of our rates which went towards their salaries has been rebated accordingly from 1 May.
If central government chooses to abrogate our democratic right to choose our own local decision-makers, then it is central government's responsibility to pay for the unelected decision-makers it chooses to put in their place
We look forward to hearing the National Party's assurance that this will be the case before 1 May."
Thank you.
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