Brendon Burns

The Prime Minister should explain why ECAN review head Wyatt Creech was being officially briefed about Canterbury water issues long before he was appointed to do so, says Labour’s Water spokesperson Brendon Burns.

In Parliament today, Brendon Burns asked Prime Minister John Key if he had been briefed on the December 20 2008 irrigation forum in Christchurch attended by three of his senior Ministers promoting irrigation for Canterbury.

“Briefing Mr Key is logical and appropriate. What’s not is that emails released under the Official Information Act show former National Deputy Prime Minister Wyatt Creech sought a briefing on the irrigation forum two days after it was held.

“Mr Creech’s cosy email to Agriculture Minister David Carter’s political advisor wanted a ‘comprehensive picture’ of RMA/water issues nearly a year before he was appointed to head an ‘independent’ review of Environment Canterbury in November 2009,” Brendon Burns said.

“It’s now clear that the 2008 forum, six weeks after the general election, was instrumental in the Government’s move in March this year to sack Environment Canterbury’s elected councillors and hand Water Conservation Orders to Government-appointed commissioners.

“The forum of irrigators, with the doors closed to any voice for the environment, discussed removing Water Conservation Orders and speeding up resource consents for large-scale water storage/ irrigation schemes

“John Key today confirmed The Press story of last week that the Government will consider putting taxpayer money into such schemes in Canterbury. The lead agency for such projects is the Ministry of Agriculture.

“I think it is important for Mr Key to explain why David Carter’s office was asking MAF to brief Mr Creech about water and RMA issues in Canterbury nearly a year before Cabinet appointed him as an ‘independent consultant’ to review ECAN.

“Was Mr Creech being lined up 11 months early for an already pre-determined ‘independent’ review role? He was clearly in cahoots with David Carter and John Key should explain why this was allowed to happen,” said Brendon Burns.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Media Release. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.