Source: New Zealand Parliament – Hansard
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. Firstly, can I say to the Minister that it would be nice if the Minister actually took to the floor to answer the questions that were, I think, quite reasonably posed by my colleague Simon Court. Those are fundamental to the public understanding of this bill and to ensure that the words that are often spoken by the Government in favour of this bill are not just a deception to make people feel comfortable with what is effectively a massive asset grab from the ratepayers of this country. Those simple questions: can they derive a revenue stream from the assets they own, and can they borrow against those assets? One of the things that is important about that answer will be the debt rations held by local authorities now based on the assets that they are able to control. And “control” is the important word. It’s all very well and somewhat a bit of sophistry to say, “Well, they continue to own them.”, but if they’ve got no control over them and have no capacity to realise those assets in some form at some point, then quite clearly their debt covenants could be affected adversely. I don’t think any of the conversation that’s been talked about by the Government at the moment would go near to sorting that out, so we look forward to those answers from the Minister.
When it comes to Te Mana o te Wai, I think the concept itself is easy enough to understand, but it becomes confused, I think, by the provisions that are further on in the bill, which set out who can in fact make these statements and provide them to the water authorities. So, in the South Island, we’re going to have—should this bill progress—for a period of time anyway, one water authority for the entire South Island. Throughout that area, there are any number of hapū—maybe just the one iwi with a few smaller iwis at the top of the South Island—who are able to provide these Te Mana o Wai statements. My question is: when a body of water that travels across greenfields, effectively, is split across different hapū, how is the authority expected to deal with the expectations stated in those particular Te Mana o Wai statements provided to them? It’s very simple, in my head, to understand the way in which the South Island river structure works, both east and west and south and north, and across all of those there are multiple hapū who will have an interest. In some cases, there will be egress of awa, rivers, that will have the lagoon structures that will cross a couple of hapū and have, therefore, different interests. So the question becomes in my head: how does the authority ultimately rationalise the many Te Mana o te Wai statements that they’re going to be presented with to get some sort of reasonable response to the expectations that those statements are going to prefer upon them? As the previous speaker made clear, Mr Brown in fact, there is an obligation on them to do that. It’s not something they can just tick-box and shove to one side—unless, in fact, that is the intention of the Government, to simply sell the few views by putting it in here but not making it terribly important in the long run.
The question also becomes about the rights and interests in water preserved, clause 9A. Some greater explanation of that, I think, is needed from the Minister, because there are, across the Canterbury Plains, numerous water rights and, across any farming district in New Zealand, numerous water rights held through the existing legislation and responsibly used by farmers. There are also numerous numbers of irrigation schemes across the country entirely designed to preserve the water source to make the best use of it, to capture as much of the rainfall that would provide some fill for the plethora of dams and storage ponds that would exist across the country. Now, all of these, under this legislation, come under the purview of the new water authorities. So the question really is: what is the value, now, of the consents that those people hold? What is the life of the rights? It doesn’t seem to me at all clear in clause 9A that while it used the words, once again, “Rights or interests in water preserved”, there is, in fact, any ongoing opportunity for the length of whatever their consent might be to continue taking the water that the right preserves to them.
Further to that, where is the interface expected to be between the new water authority and something like the Central Plains Water scheme? The Central Plains Water scheme, for those who are unfamiliar with it, has been a massive boon to protecting the aquifers under the Canterbury Plains and has had an enormous effect on the ecology of the of the area—of the two rivers it’s between—
Hon Eugenie Sage: Detrimental, not positive.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Beg your pardon. I was asking a question. There’s someone down there mumbling. I can’t understand. Take the mask off so we can hear what you’re saying.
The point is: how does that scheme, which is being administered very responsibly at the present time and is doing a great job in ensuring that the water resource on the Canterbury Plains is used responsibly—what is the overlay, now, for the water authority? Is the organisation and structure of that particular scheme, and the many other schemes that we could name throughout the country, now subject to the overarching authority from the new water structure or water entity that’s being put in place?
I think one of the things that this bill denies is that there has been a growing awareness in New Zealand of the need to preserve the water resource that the country has, and that will often be, interestingly, on an area by area basis. So if you conflate those two things a little bit, Te Mana o te Wai, which means that a small group in any particular area can have a huge say over how the water resource should be treated but that others who have done a huge amount of work and made massive investments into the structures that look after water in the regions apparently have very little say—and a much lesser say than those who have that other connection. I think that’s something we need to have clarified by the Minister in the House today.
So rather than taking a lot more time, I’ll just go over those questions that I’ve raised. How does the new authority operate in conjunction with, or alongside—or is it over the top of?—existing water authorities that are privately held, essentially, but are held with the proper consents granted by the wider community? How do the individual farm properties that have a water right have any surety that they’ve got some tenure over the consent that they have been granted? Then those two questions from my other colleague Simon Court, asking about the ability of councils to use the asset that apparently they’re going to continue to own as collateral against some of their borrowing, making their debt covenants more viable. And then, of course, the questions: will they continue to be able to get some revenue stream from those assets?
