Meeting with Ministers frank discussion of future for regional council

Environment Canterbury’s chairman Alec Neill, deputy chair Jo Kane, Cr Bob Kirk and chief executive Dr Bryan Jenkins met with Environment Minister Nick Smith, Minister of Local Government Dr Rodney Hide and key ministerial staff, Sue Powell (Environment), Deborah James (Internal Affairs) and Simon Beattie (press secretary to Nick Smith) on Tuesday night March 16.

Cr Neill noted the frank discussion between the parties and said councillors had a good opportunity to talk through how their suggestion of a negotiated agreement, employing a commissioner-advisor and advisory group and retaining the democratically-elected council structure for all functions other than water, could operate.

“We reiterated the value of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy and the need for the Government to ensure it has a legal mandate if it is to deliver the protection to water which many communities are demanding. The regional council has agreed to impose a rate on behalf of the territorial councils which are the partners in the strategy, an increase of 4% on the existing regional council rates bill, to fund the restoration programmes outlined in its first steps.

“Hand in hand with those cultural and environmental restoration programmes is the need for the water executive to advance sustainable delivery of water resources to benefit our communities economically and socially. That is what the mayors want and that is what the regional council and central Government also wants. We have much more in common around water and its sustainable management than has been portrayed recently.

“We heard the Ministers concerns around the strategy and believe these can be surmounted through a mandating programme as well as by implementing the reforms of the Resource Management Act and the work of the Land and Water Forum which this Government has initiated.

“We now have to wait to hear which of the four options put forward by the Government is taken up. Option three – removing the council entirely and appointing a number of commissioners - is not favoured by the majority of regional councillors and we believe the communities of Canterbury would also be uneasy with this choice. It was clear to us that the Government is well aware of the political risks involved in removing locally elected community representatives for any period of time.”

Cr Neill said much of the work being done by the regional council would continue to be done regardless of the governance structure. “Much of what Environment Canterbury does has to be done because it is a legal requirement and because the council’s own long term council community plan has laid out a contract between the council and its people under the Local Government Act. That commitment has to be maintained in some shape or form for a governing body to have any hope of succeeding in meeting social, economic, cultural and environmental bottom-lines.

“The territorial councils and mayors seem to have the impression that the appointment of a commissioner will automatically improve the relationship between Environment Canterbury and themselves when we know they have significant and ongoing non-compliance issues with consents around stormwater and sewage. It is hard to see how that tension and the need for all councils to comply with the Resource Management Act, like every member of the community, would alter with a commissioner in charge.”

He was hopeful that the Government decision would be soon and that staff and other groups would have a clearer idea of where the organisation was heading leading into this year’s proposed Local Body Elections and beyond.

ENDS

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