Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill

We finally come to the Committee stage of this member’s bill after a long, long delay because of the very fragile numbers the Government has on it. First, I want to raise concerns about the preamble that is proposed. If there is any debate around New Zealand’s resource laws, it is that they lack the clarity we need to provide for clearer direction to the courts. Yet the preamble to the bill has the words: “this land is a fish”, for example. I would like to know from somebody how the passing of a law that states: “this land is a fish” will improve the quality of the management of our environment.

National’s concern about this bill is that it is all about politics and not about improving the quality of New Zealand’s resource management laws. We already have the extensive Resource Management Act. We have national policy statements, regional policy statements, and district policy statements, and now this bill will require local area plans. How does having five tiers of wordy documents somehow result in better management of a precious area like the Waitakere Ranges?

When I read through decisions of the Environment Court, and when I read through the extensive decisions that are made by regional and district councils, I say, over and over again, that there is a pleading for Parliament to be clearer about its intent. When I read the pages of the preamble about the history of the Waitakere Ranges, I ask how that possibly provides greater clarity in the law. How does saying: “the land is a fish”, which would be perfectly proper to say on a marae or in terms of a religious context, provide greater clarity? I cannot believe that we are intending to put into law the sort of nonsense rhetoric that we see in the preamble to this member’s bill. Can any member opposite tell me how the courts are to make sense of a statement like: “this land is a fish”? Do members in the Labour Party really believe that the land is a fish?

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: I think the member said something about spiders once.

Darren Hughes interjects and says something about spiders. Well, that would be more sensible than some of the things that Labour is proposing to put into the law.

I simply plead with this House and say that if we are to improve the country’s environmental performance—and the report on the state of the environment shows we have some big challenges—then this sort of law will not somehow result in an improvement. I tell the House that it just adds to the bureaucracy. It just adds to all the frustrations that New Zealanders feel about this current Government. It adds to all the concern about a whole lot of bureaucrats and a whole lot of council officials having a word game at the expense of New Zealand taxpayers and ratepayers. We need good, concise environmental laws that say what we mean and mean what we say. But that is not what we see in the preamble to this bill.

This bill makes worse all the problems and concerns that New Zealanders have about the Resource Management Act. When the Ministry for the Environment came before the Local Government and Environment Committee it said it did not support this bill and did not support this sort of piecemeal approach to the reform of the resource management laws. [Interruption] Dr Cullen wants me to digress and talk about the mess that this Government has made of the Ministry for the Environment.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I call the honourable member Dail Jones.

💬 Hon Members: Welcome back!

Thank you very much. I have some experience with the Waitakere Ranges area, having been the constituency member of Parliament for a good part of it for 9 years, a long, long time ago; from 1975 to 1984. Having lived or worked in the area from 1975 to 2008, I am very familiar with the area involved. I went to the meetings on this bill held by the Auckland Regional Authority, a meeting at the Bruce McLaren Hall, and a meeting at the Henderson High School. I was able to speak at the first two meetings but at the Henderson High School meeting, run by the Greens’ organisations, they would not permit me to speak, even though they knew I was there. That gives some indication of the attitude of the promoters of this bill, including Mayor Harvey, who was present at the time.

The Waitakere Ranges park is 17,000 hectares. It is safe. Nothing can happen to the Waitakere Ranges park, because it is owned by Aucklanders. All of us in Auckland own it; it was bought by Aucklanders over time, in the traditional way. The founders of Auckland bought it piecemeal, acre by acre as it was then, and now 17,000 hectares are owned by Aucklanders. So no changes can be made to that park unless Aucklanders and the Auckland Regional Council want that to happen, and I am sure it will not happen, because Aucklanders own it, and that is made clear in recital (6) of the preamble, if the member in charge of the bill wants to read it.

I seek leave for the Committee to be suspended while we take Ann Hartley’s valedictory speech, and then we will proceed back into Committee after that.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none. Therefore, it is in accordance with a decision of the Business Committee for Ann Hartley to make a valedictory statement at 5 o’clock. I will report progress and ask to sit again presently.

Debate interrupted.