Clyde dam bill ‘venomous’

Press, 1 September 1982, Page 12

Clyde dam bill ‘venomous’

The Government’s legal approach to the Samoan citizenship issue was correct, unlike its “venomous” action over the Clyde dam, said Labour’s spokesman on constitutional affairs, Mr Geoffrey Palmer, on Monday evening.

The Citizenship (Western Samoa) Bill did not break any of the International Covenants on Human Rights to which New Zealand was a party, Mr Palmer told a Christchurch Council for Civil Liberties meeting. Legislation to implement the agreement between the New Zealand and Samoan Governments signed on August 21 was needed as a matter of domestic law.

, “It appears to me that as a matter of international obligation the New Zealand Government is bound to secure that legislative change,” he said. “It is correct in terms of legal principle.” . This certainly was not so of the Government’s approach on the Clyde dam issue, Mr Palmer said.

"The Clyde dam represents a new constitutional invention of the most venomous sort,” he said. It could best be summed

up: “We are the Government. We play under different rules. We change the rules if they do not suit us. When you lose, we win. When we lose, we win."

Mr Palmer accuses the Government of promoting intimidation of the courts with the threat of legislation. The independence of the courts was being undermined. The Clutha Development Empowerine Bill was “an affront to the rule of law,” Mr Palmer said.

Had the Government approached the dam issue as it had dealt with the Samoan issue, the following would have happened:

“The Government would have abided by the High Court and Planning Tribunal water right decisions.

“It would then decide the procedures under the Water and Soil Conservation Act were in need of amendment

and this would have been done.

“The objectors to the high dam at Clyde would have won the fruits of their victory but new rules would apply for new dams,” Mr Palmer said.

The Secretary of the Canterbury Trades Council, Mr Leon Morel, told the meeting that workers at the dam site recognised that they’ were being blackmailed and “used as political pawns."

The issue had become known within the trade union movement as “a deal of the rats and mice,” Mr Morel said.

Bringing in foreign contractors would have a “downstream” effect because “the most effective workforce that has ever been assembled in New Zealand is going to be disbanded.” “The Ministry of Works is the most effective New Zealand work-force,” Mr Morel said.

Workers had had “the rug pulled out from underneath their feet,” and this was “particularly horrendous” because the Government had repeatedly “thumped” trade unions with the message: “You shall obey the law.”