Dam Democracy 1982: Thirty-five years on, and the National Party has been making threatening noises about executing another constitutional outrage in support of another dam. With just a couple of statements the Prime Minister, Bill English, and his Conservation Minister, Maggie Barry, made it clear that more than three decades of profound political change have made not the slightest impression on the National Party’s understanding of New Zealand’s constitutional proprieties. If the Ruataniwha Dam cannot be secured by hook, then this government stands ready to secure it by crook.
ABOVE THE CHAINS looped through the handles of the Dunedin
Courthouse, the protesters had affixed a sign. “This Court is now obsolete,
irrelevant, and just a nuisance. Accordingly it is CLOSED until such time as people
no longer expect the law to protect their rights.”
Identical “Dam Democracy” notices were affixed to the
padlocked doors of the Court of Appeal in Wellington and the Christchurch High
Court. All were inspired by the passage of the Clutha Development (Clyde Dam)
Empowering Act 1982. Having proved their case to the satisfaction of the Court
of Appeal, opponents of the Clyde Dam had been forced to endure the sordid
spectacle of Rob Muldoon’s National Government dragooning Parliament into
overturning the Court’s decision. Hence the protests.
Thirty-five years on, and the National Party has been making
threatening noises about executing another constitutional outrage in support of
another dam. With just a couple of statements the Prime Minister, Bill English,
and his Conservation Minister, Maggie Barry, made it clear that more than three
decades of profound political change have made not the slightest impression on
the National Party’s understanding of New Zealand’s constitutional proprieties.
If the Ruataniwha Dam cannot be secured by hook, then this government stands
ready to secure it by crook.
The common thread linking these extraordinary events is the
National Party’s peculiar fetish for state planning and control. Once convinced
that New Zealand’s future prosperity requires the implementation of a specific
set of economic initiatives, the Nats’ adherence to “The Plan” puts the
programmatic rigidity of the old Soviet Union to shame.
In the days of Rob Muldoon, “The Plan” was known as “Think
Big”. New Zealand was going to become self-sufficient in energy off the back of
a number of huge development projects – of which the damming of the Clutha
River at Clyde was the largest. “Think Big” did not stop at vast hydro-electric
schemes and synthetic fuel plants, however. With the additional energy Muldoon
proposed to power steel mills and a second aluminium smelter. The latter was to
be built at Aramoana – at the mouth of Otago Harbour.
The environmental impact of “Think Big” was deemed to be
catastrophic, but Muldoon’s National Government turned both a blind eye and a
deaf ear to the consequences of “The Plan”.
Under John Key and Bill English, “The Plan” is all about the
intensification of primary production – especially dairying. But, whereas
Muldoon was following the economic policies of industrialisation and
diversification promoted by, of all people, the left-wing economic nationalist,
senior civil servant and historian, William B Sutch; the plan chosen by Key and
English represents a reactionary, Federated Farmers-inspired retreat into the
worst kind of price-dependent pastoralism.
Like “Think Big”, the Key-English Plan came with
catastrophic environmental side-effects. The massive expansion of New Zealand’s
dairy industry could only be accomplished by supplying transitioning farmers
with huge quantities of heavily subsidised water. State-funded – and protected
– irrigation schemes formed an integral part of the Key-English Plan.
The constitutional consequences of “The Plan” soon became
apparent. When ECan – The Canterbury Regional Council – balked at signing-off
on the all-too-obvious ecological devastation associated with implementing
water policies aimed at increasing the number of dairy cows in the region from
less than 50,000 to nearly half-a-million, the National Government simply
dismissed the councillors and brought in commissioners. If the needs of
Democracy and the needs of “The Plan” conflicted, then it would not be
Democracy that prevailed.
For the ratepayers of the Hawkes Bay region the story was
somewhat different. The balance of political forces on the Hawkes Bay Regional
Council was (until very recently) narrowly, but firmly, in favour of
constructing an irrigation storage dam at Ruataniwha. That the project would
almost certainly end up poisoning the Tukituki River was not considered a
sufficient reason to abandon the project. Indeed, an official report suggesting
that the intensification of dairying which the Ruataniwha Dam would make
possible represented a threat to the region’s ecosystem was recalled and
rewritten.
In spite of the fact that the Hawkes Bay Regional Council
had yet to secure possession of the land upon which the dam would be built, it
is reported to have sanctioned the expenditure of approximately $20 million on
ensuring that the project went ahead. Such was their faith in the Key-English
Plan.
But, just like Rob Muldoon, they reckoned without the
Courts. The Supreme Court’s decision striking down the Department of
Conservation’s facilitation of the Ruataniwha project – like the Court of
Appeal’s ruling against the Clyde Dam – leaves the National Government facing a
hard choice: uphold the constitution, or, uphold “The Plan”.
It is unlikely that “The Plan” can be legislatively
protected retrospectively before the General Election. New Zealanders are thus
presented with an opportunity to deliver a judgement of their own. In 2017,
Democracy can “Damn the Dam”.
This essay was
originally published in The Press of
Tuesday, 11 July 2017.
