Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill

I stand to speak on the purpose of the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill in our mind and the intention that members had when the bill was first introduced, and that of the Waitakere City Council in the long discussions we have had for more than 10 years in the community of Waitakere and west Auckland, as has been stated by members previously. The purpose of the bill was certainly to protect the ranges. As has previously been stated, I do not think that anyone can deny that protecting the ranges is a favourable thing to do. No one in this Chamber would disagree with that, and National certainly would not, either.

But we are not talking about just the ranges. We are not talking about just the area of the regional park, which, as we have stated, should be a national park, anyway. We should be looking at well and truly protecting that area and turning it into a national park. We are actually talking about the foothills, about private land, and about more than 21,000 people who live in that area. What will happen to those very people once this bill is introduced? Those are the questions these people have had for the last 10 years, and I do not think they will be answered when the bill is introduced.

Although the purpose of the bill may be admirable in many cases, it simply will not be achieved through this bill. The ranges and the foothills area will not be any more protected. What will happen is that there will be court case after court case, uncertainty, and language that, quite frankly, leaves everyone in doubt as to what it actually means. That will not help anyone. It will not help the supporters of the bill, quite frankly, and certainly it will not help those who oppose it. The purpose of the bill, although admirable in wanting to protect that area of New Zealand considered to be unique, beautiful, and the backdrop to Auckland City—which of course it is—will not do that.

We hear talk about development being the main reason for the introduction of the bill but if those members actually knew the area, they would know that local area plans are already in place to address development in the very area that this bill covers. There are already caveats that mean there can be no more than one or two houses on a 4-acre block, unless they are there already. So there are already arrangements in place now, because the people of New Zealand and the people of Waitakere love that land and do not want to see either medium or high-density housing up in the ranges, but they do not believe that this bill will help matters. Although the purpose of the legislation may be admirable, having legislation that is, quite frankly, too ambiguous to make sense of, is not the answer for those who seek to protect that area.

How should the area be protected then? We have the Resource Management Act. We have a city council that is elected every 3 years and goes out to the community with its vision for Waitakere City. Those very people who are on our local councils are selected when they go out every 3 years and talk about their vision for the city they wish to serve. They have the means and power to put in place that vision. They do it in consultation with the people and have been doing so for years. They should continue. We have a Resource Management Act that actually addresses these very issues that arise in this document. If there are problems with that Act, and people believe that it is not doing what it should be doing, then perhaps they should look at amending the Act.

Why should a member’s bill address only an issue in a small local area, when there are other ways to fix the problem? No one would say there should be medium or high-density housing in that area. No one would say the land should be carved up for houses to be built on top of each other. But this bill will not prevent that, and that is what those members do not understand. Although the purpose clause may be admirable, in reality we will be in litigation time and time again because the purpose of the bill cannot be fulfilled through this legislation. Another layer of bureaucracy will not solve the problem that those members seem to think is there. If one looks at the boundaries and drives around the boundary for the heritage area, one will find—

I rise to oppose the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill for these reasons. First of all, I say to Mr Jones, or is it Master Jones, who is trying to interject, that we all want to provide greater protection to the Waitakere Ranges, which have high ecological and high landscape values. Anybody who has seen the film The Piano can attest to that, and I have visited the area myself. If we are to protect the ecological and landscape values of the area, we need to be careful because there is something at stake.

This Labour Government wants to involve itself in the private affairs of citizens who own private land in this country. That is what it wants to do. This bill effectively takes away private ownership rights and imposes central government rights. I think that is wrong. Extending the National Parks Act to include regional parks would be a very good idea, but it will not address the particular issue that this bill is pursuing, which is to include privately owned land. That is absolutely wrong. If the existing Resource Management Act and other legislation are not sufficient to enable the city and the regional council to provide appropriate legislation for this area—and none of us denies that that is required—then we need to change the legislation for the benefit of all the communities in this country.

There is no point in having a special law for Auckland and ignoring the rest of this country. We have the same problems in many of our communities. We could look at the coastal development anywhere along the Wairarapa coast or in the foothills of the Tararua ranges or the Ruahines. Exactly the same law is impacting on people who are developing those areas. It is totally irrational, I say to Mr Jones, to be cosying up to and creating a special law for the people of Auckland and saying: “To hell with the rest of the country.” This bill is bad legislation, and the Government is infringing on the property rights of existing owners. If the Government wants to change that, then it must buy the land from them, and then it can have its special, cosy legal arrangement.

This bill is nothing more than an attempt to circumvent citizens’ rights to be involved in planning and management. As my colleagues Paula Bennett and Tim Groser have said, this bill adds yet another layer of bureaucracy to an already well-overladen bureaucratic slate. National stands against that. I think that if Waitakere City cannot stop rampant property development by using the existing legislation, then almost every other local authority in the country must be in the same boat. It is exactly the situation in the Queenstown area, where huge developments are happening around Lake Wakatipu. The Queenstown Lakes District Council has to operate under the same rules as the Auckland Regional Council, the Auckland City Council, and the collection of councils in the Auckland area.

It seems to me that if the people living elsewhere in this country were to be given the same stronger powers that the Waitakere City Council is demanding, then we have to do that for everybody. It seems to me that this area is no more important than the Crown Range down in Central Otago or any other range in New Zealand. Just because it is Auckland it does not make it any more special than if it were in Eketāhuna in my electorate.

💬 Dail Jones: Give the land back to tangata whenua.

There is absolutely no difference, I say to Mr Jones. This legislation is highly unsatisfactory. [Interruption] I refer that member to the New Zealand Law Society’s submission to the Local Government and Environment Committee. The first section asks whether the bill is needed, and states: “In many ways it duplicates other legislation.” If one were trying to make any sort of development in this country, one is totally constrained by local body rules, central government rules, and regional council rules. The whole system is clogged up and nothing is happening.

I want to focus the Committee’s attention on the actual wording of the purpose clause, but, first, I want to look at the clause that was struck out, and compare it with its replacement. Those who have the bill in front of them will see that the wording has changed, because it was considered that the original wording might well take the clause outside the scope of, and put it above, the Resource Management Act. Therefore, officials went away and worked on changing the purpose clause to bring it back within the scope of the Resource Management Act. Clause 3 states: “The purpose of this Act is to recognise the national, regional, and local significance of the Waitakere Ranges heritage area”. No one would disagree about that. It is to promote the protection and enhancement of the area, and so on. The clause further states that to this end the Act establishes the Waitakere Ranges heritage area, states its national significance, defines its heritage features, specifies the objectives of establishing and maintaining the area, and provides additional matters for the various local authorities.

The point is, though, that I think two issues are really important to consider when we are debating this, and they are as follows: if it brings it back within the scope of the Resource Management Act, then why, in their district schemes, cannot the various councils then put a chapter in that provides the significance required within their district schemes? Surely that happens in other places, and rather than our having to go through wasting the time of Parliament, costing a huge amount of money—goodness knows how much money has been spent by the various local authorities on this, but I bet it is—

💬 Dail Jones: A couple of a million.

Well, it certainly will be significant.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Value for money. Protect the environment.

I know that the guy who aspires to be the Labour Prime Minister at some stage, Mr Jones, probably does not worry about $2 million, but the fact is that some people do, actually. It is important to them. The ratepayers worry about that sort of money, and so do taxpayers. That is not a thing that Labour actually considers much.

But the point is that it could well have been put in as a chapter within the plans of the various local authorities, or the regional council could even have written a chapter. It also brings focus on this: if it is so special, we have to go back and ask ourselves how it got to be so special. And if people like to go back and have a look at the history of the Waitakere Ranges over the last 100 or 150 years, and even before—but certainly 40, 50, and 60 years ago—they would find that a heck of a lot of an area was burnt out, cleared, clean felled, and had all sorts of things happen there that were far worse than what there is now. Now we have an area that people care for.

The reason why it is in such a state that causes people to want to protect it is that those inhabitants who are there, and who have a history of being there, have made it like it is. They actually care for it; they worry about it. We had hundreds of submissions from people who said: “We have planted this.”, and “We have made all sorts of things on the place so that it can’t be developed further, because we want it to be like that; that is why we are out there.” So the fact is that already the inhabitants of the area are achieving the purposes of this bill—they already have. So for some officials, local authorities, and now Parliament to come along belatedly and say “Oh, bless my soul! We should do something about this.”, I say “Too late, mates. It’s already been done by the good people out there.” So now we have this silly nonsense of someone saying “Oh, but all of a sudden someone might have a blood-rush to the head and want to start hacking things around.” But I say “Not on your nelly!”. They are not interested out there. We can go and talk to each and every one of them—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: We’re not like that.

Well, some people get rid of their hair early! But the fact is that the people out there, nevertheless, are seriously interested and do look after their place. So when we look at these purposes, we can see that the people out there have already achieved them.

I rise to speak to the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill, and I will comment in particular on the bill’s purpose. It was quite interesting to read the preamble, and after reading it and talking about it, we noted that in 2005 over 21,000 people lived in the area. I suppose that in 2008, 23,000-odd people probably live in the area. I have not seen the latest figures.

The bill talks about the impact of urbanisation and about what could and might happen, but it actually misses the point. Clause 3, the purpose clause, states: “promote the protection and enhancement of its heritage features for present and future generations.”, but what it does not talk about, and should talk about a lot, are visitors. This bill does not talk about visitors coming into the area. Twenty three thousand - odd people may live there but, sure as heck, one heck of a lot of people will visit the area—probably hundreds of thousands. Those people can bring in weeds and rodents. They can create destruction on the sand dunes and run riot in the vegetation. They can smoke, they can camp, and they can light fires, and there are times, of course, like now, when the area is incredibly dry.

I suppose that brings me back to the point that this legislation is not clean. If we are going to do the job, we should do it properly. This local bill should talk about visitors and their impact. That should be covered in the purpose clause, but it is not.

The second point I raise in relation to the purpose clause is that clause 3(2)(e) states: “provides additional matters for Auckland Regional Council, Rodney District Council, Waitakere City Council, and certain other persons to consider when making a decision,”. I suppose I will just bring the Committee back to the point that my colleague John Carter talked about earlier. Initially, when this bill was presented we were told that it did not make a heck of a lot of difference. Well, if it does not make a heck of a lot of difference, why in the purpose clause are we talking about providing “additional matters … to consider when making a decision, exercising a power,” in relation to the area? We get nervous.

The interpretation of the bill, which we are also covering under this part of the debate, talks about the term “LAP”, which, as clause 4(1) states: “means a local area plan prepared and adopted under section 23A”. This is new terminology to enter the resource management arena. You see, the Government is setting about, and trying like crazy, to confuse the poor citizen who really does try hard to live within the rules, become involved, publicly participate, and add value to local decisions. There is a desire for locals to make a significant input into local decisions. So they have been hit with the “LTCCP”, which is the long-term council community plan, and within that plan there is a “LAMP” at the moment, a local area management plan.

A lot of work has been done by many communities, in particular by those in the Waitakere area, on putting together such management plans—plans for the area, plans that the locals believe will add value and make a significant difference to looking after the area for all concerned. But, no, we are now saying goodbye to local area management plans, and we are introducing a “LAP”, a local area plan.

I suppose it is even more significant that the community can do a ton of work with a local area plan in order to put together the right sort of vision or the right set of rules, but—guess what—clause 23A(5) states: “The territorial authority may amend, revoke, or replace a LAP.” So, again, it makes a bit of a farce of community consultation. I think it is disappointing that the bill’s purpose does not cover those who probably have the greatest destructive ability on the Waitakere Ranges—that is, the visitors.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Chairman. Kia ora e te matua, te heamana o te Whare. I will not take too long. The purpose of the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill is only to stop those who want to go and live in a nice place. And it is to stop those who already live in a nice place from developing their pieces of land that they may have bought 20 years ago.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: What about kaitiakitanga?

Oh, well, this is the man who buys houses from the old Meremere Power Station and trucks them all the way up north, expecting his whanaunga to buy them for cheap housing—I am sorry, Mr Assistant Chairman; I should not have reacted as I did.

This bill is essentially nothing more than the ladder mentality of those who do not want any more neighbours: “Oh, no. We don’t want anybody to share the pristine conditions of the Waitakere Ranges.” And I tell members that most of these people are Labour supporters—dyed-in-the-wool socialists. They are dyed-in-the-wool socialists, and they like nothing better than to have a block of land and tell everybody else that they cannot be their neighbours. Is that not right, I ask Mr Jones—the real Mr Jones, Dail Jones, that is. This is nothing more than—what did they used to call it—the bourgeoisie. Do members know that the bourgeoisie used to sit up there on their 20-acre plots and say: “I’m not having any of this. I’m not having any grubby little neighbours coming to live next door to me. Oh no, we’re not going to have any of that.”?

That is the purpose of this bill. That is the reason behind this bill. I am sure that Bob Harvey knows as well as I do that that is the purpose and the reason behind this bill. Part 1 states: “The purpose of this Act is to—(a) recognise the national, regional, and local significance of the Waitakere Ranges heritage area;”. We did not need a bill to do that. We could have put a sign up at the end of the north-western motorway, saying: “We, the people of Waitakere—the people of New Zealand, in fact—recognise the national heritage of this area, the Waitakere Ranges.” They have been the Waitakere Ranges for ever and a day. Why now, after all these years, suddenly do we want to protect the ranges? They have been protected by some of the good folk who went in and bought the areas and brought up their children. They are the ones who protected it; not the council, and certainly not this House.

This bill is a rort. This is nothing more than some sort of socialist rort, basically to give themselves mana. It is not to give anybody else mana, but to give themselves mana. I am appalled that some of our members could even think of supporting such a measure.

Again, I say that this bill is nothing more than the ladder mentality, which is: “As soon as I have got my property I am going to pull up the ladder so that other people cannot have any of the goodies that I have.” This is nothing more and nothing less than that. If people think this bill is to protect the beauty and the pristineness of the ranges, they have another think coming.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Part 1. [Interruption] Perhaps I will pause for 20 seconds and let Mr Jones let loose his vituperation, use up a bit of energy, and practise being the deputy leader of a party that will never elect him to that position, and then I can get down to the business of the bill. There is not a sound. He is all talk when other people are talking. Earlier speakers have spoken clearly on the purpose of the bill. But everything that that discredited Government does has behind it another purpose, and it is that purpose I wish to address.

The first purpose, the real purpose, of this bill was never better put than by the member for New Zealand First, when he spoke about socialism with stealth. The members over there know that they are gone. What we will see from the Government side of the Chamber for the remainder of the sitting of this Parliament will be efforts to interfere with the freedoms and the individual rights of New Zealanders. I will move on and look at the real purpose behind this bill. There is no doubt at all that one of the purposes in the minds of members opposite is to interfere with private ownership rights and to shift the balance in favour of the ability of the Government and local government to interfere with the rights of individual New Zealand citizens. That is the true purpose of this bill.

I take the opportunity to congratulate Ms Paula Bennett. She is the member on this side of the Chamber who is leading our opposition to this bill. She spoke intelligently and incisively on the purpose of the bill. She is a member who comes from the west of Auckland. She knows better than the Labour members from that area how divided the community is. The question we have to ask, when we look at the purpose of the bill and at the real purpose of the Government, is this: where is the mandate for a Government that is in its last days in office, struggling and holding on by its fingertips, to introduce legislation into this House, the real purpose of which is not to protect this beautiful part of New Zealand? Those areas are always protected—always have been and always will be. The real purpose is not the one stated in writing in the bill; it is to advance another agenda.

Members on this side of the Chamber take great comfort from the knowledge that as a result of the work of Ms Bennett and others out west, there will be a significant shift in political power come the next election. I think it behoves the member in the chair, Lynne Pillay, to think a little about her position and about whether the purpose of this bill, which she is supporting, is reflective of the real feelings of the community. The select committee got a very, very clear message of division on that issue.

This bill is not good legislation. It does not serve the purpose of this House to push through this sort of legislation, which is so open to interpretation that its purpose is actually vague. We read this bill and we read the preamble, and we ask ourselves whether this is actually the purpose of legislation or just the start of a fairy tale. It is written in the language of fairy tales. It is imprecise, it is inaccurate, it does not reflect what is going on out there—

I move, That the question be now put.

I will not take too long, because my voice is going on me. On behalf of New Zealand First I am here to defend the property-owning people of west Auckland, including the Māori people of west Auckland who are not being supported by the Māori Party in the Chamber tonight.

The interesting point I wish to raise from the purpose clause concerns the division in the community. This clause to some extent also highlights the division in the viewpoint on this bill between the Waitakere City Council and the Rodney District Council. If we look at schedule 1 at the back of the bill we will see a map. It is only in the area covered by the Waitakere City Council that private owners are affected by this bill. In the Rodney District Council they are smart. It is only the Waitakere Ranges park area that is included. No private land in the Rodney District Council area is included, at all.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: An attack on property rights.

The Rodney District Council will not permit an attack on property rights because of the sound views of the council, but of course the Waitakere City Council has no hesitation in attacking property rights. So to say there is no division in the areas is totally wrong. Even the councils are divided in their viewpoint on this bill. The Rodney District Council is in the bill only because some of its land is in the Waitakere Ranges park area, and therefore it supports the concept of the park being protected, as we all do. Everyone supports the protection of the park, which is owned by the public, and there is no way anyone can possibly damage the park because we, the members of the public, who are all ratepayers of the Auckland Regional Council area, own the 17,000 hectares of the park, and nothing can be done to damage that.

I just wanted to raise that one point in the time that is available, with my voice as it is, and to say that there is division on this bill even at local authority level. If we have so much division, why on earth should we support this bill? New Zealand First will be opposing it.

I move, That the question be now put.