Ecan Bill: Committee Stages 3: 'What We Say Goes' Continues

I wish to address Part 3 and, in particular, clause 34, which is titled “Imposition of moratorium. ‘Power to impose moratorium on specified applications.’”
It begins “ECan may,”, and on that point I allude back to a point made earlier by Brendon Burns. I attempted to get the same point across before our debate on Part 1 was cut off.
The reference to “ECan” is very sloppy drafting. Throughout the bill, the text is littered with references to “ECan”. Indeed, it is defined in the interpretation clause, but it is a poor use of legal drafting.
It is almost as bad as clause 9, which states that “Elected members cease to hold office”, and that this provision applies “no matter what the Local Electoral Act 2001 or the Local Government Act 2002 may say.”

It is so clearly drafted in haste that it really requires considerable time for revision to be undertaken. But when I look at clause 34 and the imposition of a moratorium, I ask myself why it is that an unelected body would be granted such powers when the elected council was not granted those powers.
The answer we are given, both in the Creech report and now by the Government, is that Environment Canterbury was insufficiently efficient in applying the Canterbury Water Management Strategy and in granting consents.
On the basis of that, I was disposed to undertake some research in comparing Environment Canterbury to the other 11 regional councils and the three unitary authorities to see how the others had done.
There has been a great of concern and apprehension expressed in the Chamber this morning about which other regional councils may go under the guillotine on the basis of the same rather loose, subjective, and partisan criteria that have been brought to bear upon Environment Canterbury.
When we look at the other 11 councils and the other three unitary authorities, we emerge with three general observations. The first is that some councils have a regional water management plan and other councils combine that with a land and water management plan or a more holistic resources management plan.
The second observation is that in every case there seems to be a lengthy process for the introduction of these plans, which involves introduction by the council, followed by a request for submissions, a hearing, and an appeals process, before the plan becomes operational, either completely or in part.
The third observation is that water and resource management plans are “living documents”, and appear in many cases to be constantly subject to updating and variations.
We need to take those three observations very much into account when we reflect on the dissolution of Environment Canterbury, because it was said to have come in 84th out 84, as I said, in the second reading debate. That is misleading, because it came in essentially 12th out of the 12 regional councils.
Let us look at those 12 councils and the three unitary authorities to see where each stands. By my count, of the 15—12 plus three—six have not notified completely water plans. They have either not proposed anything, as in the case of three of those bodies, simply made a statement of water intent, as in the case of one, or simply notified a plan in parts, as in the case of two bodies, Marlborough and Tasman. So we have Canterbury, West Coast, Tasman, Marlborough, Gisborne, and Auckland that have either not proposed a plan, simply made a statement, or simply made a plan in parts. That is 40 percent of the total 15 regional councils and unitary authorities.
To answer the question of Mr Chris Hipkins and others who spoke earlier today as to which council is next, the short answer is that if the council is any one of those other five, watch out, because the guillotine might be coming their way. Thank you.