Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on Part 3 of the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill, which discusses, amongst other things, local authorities having to monitor and report on certain matters relating to the heritage area. I will speak a bit more about that monitoring and about how that reporting can happen.

One of the concerns that National wants to raise at this time is around local area plans, local area management plans, and long-term council community plans. Just so everyone is clear—

💬 Mark Blumsky: That’s too confusing.

It is a little bit confusing, as my colleague says. When it comes to reporting, one of the important things for the community is that it has spent a lot of time on long-term council community plans. Those plans have been done independently and under huge consultation. I commend the councils for the work they have done with the community to come to some sort of agreement as to what it wants in a long-term plan and how it can be achieved.

When this bill was first introduced it stated that the councils would have local area management plans, which were then changed to local area plans. Now we have local area plans instead of local area management plans—just so we are all clear. How the local area plans will be reported on and how they fit in with the long-term council community plans is what I think should be of importance to the region. What is of most concern is that the community has already worked out what it wants in a 10-year plan. Members of the community have already set down what direction they want. They have voted in an appropriate council, and their concern is how what they want will actually be achieved.

It is quite interesting; I was reading a press release from the Waitakere City Council on 10 March—just 2 days ago. The council is quite clearly talking about its budget deliberations. Councillor Janet Clews is quoted throughout the press release. She is a councillor whom I have a lot of respect for, and she has earned a lot of respect throughout the community. She is chair of Waitakere City Council’s long-term council community plan and annual plan special committee. She talks about budget deliberations and about what needs to be done over a period of time. The press statement quite clearly states: “While the Annual Plan sets the council’s budget for the coming financial year the long-term council community plan (LTTCP) outlines the direction and spending intentions for the next 10 years.” She then says: “It is important that the public know this is the third year of the LTCCP … We are reviewing work and projects that have already been consulted on and agreed, so we can’t deviate a long way from that plan.” The council cannot deviate a long way from the plan that was decided on in 2006. Yet it now wants to introduce a law that will deviate from the plan. It is so concerned about this issue that it will deviate from the long-term council community plan, which it spent so much time consulting its community on. That seems absolutely ludicrous, and National certainly has questions around how it can be possible and how it can make sense.

Looking at how the councils will report back—under Part 3—I found it ironic to be reading an email from our mayor, Bob Harvey. He is a good man and a gutsy man, and always puts a smile on someone’s face, even though he is a former president of the party on the other side of the House—but good on him. He says point-blank in the email that ONTRACK owns this land, that it tends to be a law unto itself, and that there is nothing we can do. The council is trying in this bill to have legislation that will state point-blank what people can do with private land, but, in another breath, the mayor is turning round and saying about ONTRACK, with which the community has a huge issue with regards to the proposed railway maintenance depot: “Sorry, we cannot do anything. It’s private land. It’s not owned by us.”

💬 Gordon Copeland: It’s a double standard.

It is; it is a complete and utter double standard. It is hypocrisy at its best when the council turns round and says it cannot do anything about something that the community does not want, that will actually disturb residents in a local area, because it is on private land owned by ONTRACK, yet in the other breath—

I will take a brief call. The first thing I will do is acknowledge Janet Clews, as Paula Bennett did. I quite agree that she is a very well-respected councillor, as indeed are all councillors in Waitakere. I point out to the Committee that all of the councillors were returned at the last election, and there was overwhelming support from those councillors for the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill.

In Part 3 the clauses are actually quite clear and simple. It is a little annoying that Paula Bennett tries to confuse matters in this Committee, but that seems to be her strategy. The first clause is about local authorities having to monitor and report on certain matters relating to the heritage area. That is about accountability. It is saying that we want a report on the state of the environment in the heritage area, we want accountability across the councils, and we want to make sure that the reporting is done every 5 years. I think that is a very sensible, common-sense thing to do. Why are they doing it? Because they are committed to ensuring that the ranges and the heritage area are preserved now and for generations to come. They will make a commitment to checking that progress every 5 years.

The second clause of Part 3 is about reassurance. Clause 29 is about the preservation of existing rights. We have heard many, many people from the National Party—and I am sorry, I know that Dail Jones has just recently joined the House, but unfortunately Dail seemed to be quite confused as well—banging on and talking a load of rubbish. It is quite clear that the bill does not limit or affect any title or right to ownership. That makes a mockery of the claims made by Nick Smith and Paula Bennett that the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill was confiscation by stealth. As I was driving through the beautiful ranges of Waitakere, the electorate I live in and am very happy to represent, I saw—very overgrown by bush, I have to say—one of those “confiscation by stealth” notices, to use the Nick Smith line, still sitting on one of the fences. I think this preservation of existing rights definitely gives reassurance to the people of Waitakere who, like me, are fortunate enough to own land in the ranges.

Clause 30, “Transitional provisions”, is about consistency. The clause says quite clearly that any applications for resource consent for an activity in the area that have been lodged and not yet determined will continue to be considered as if the heritage area legislation had not been enacted. People in Waitakere can be assured that they are not going to be gazumped. Unlike what Opposition members have said, nothing is going to be imposed on them, and if they are part way through a process, that process will continue.

Part 3 is made up of a number of simple clauses, but those clauses add up to accountability, reassurance, and consistency. I commend those clauses to the Committee.

This bill is about the Waitakere Ranges of some 17,000 hectares. The land is currently owned by the people of Auckland, and it cannot be dealt with in any way, regardless of a single word that is contained in this bill. But as we are owners of that land, we will preserve it. We do not need Wellington interfering in our affairs. I have to congratulate Lynne Pillay on ably trying to carry out the work of the Waitakere City Council, as any local member must, but we do not need the Waitakere City Council coming to Wellington to get Wellington’s authority to do things in the city. In Auckland we own the Waitakere Ranges Regional Park and we do not want Wellington interfering in our business. That is No. 1.

This bill is really about the remaining 10,000 hectares that are owned by private people. As I said last time, this bill is socialism by stealth. This bill is the Waitakere City Council stealing the property rights of those people in that area. If we ever want to see confused legislation, Part 3 sums it all up. In Parts 1 and 2, various rights were taken from the owners of the 10,000 hectares. What does Part 3 do? Clause 28A(2) states that the local authorities must jointly produce a report. The local authorities are the Auckland Regional Council, the Rodney District Council, and the Waitakere City Council. What happens if they cannot agree? They have to produce a report in 5 years. What happens if they cannot agree in 5 years and there is no report? What happens? Nothing will happen. What penalty is on them to produce a report? There is nothing. Clause 28A(2) is absolutely meaningless. Can members believe that all the members of the Auckland Regional Council, all the members of the Rodney District Council, and all the members of the Waitakere City Council can ever be unanimous and agree on an issue? Clause 28A(2) is doomed. It is meaningless. It is not worth the paper it is written on. It cannot happen.

Clause 29, “Preservation of existing rights”,—what does that mean? It is a meaningless clause. We know that anyone who has rights now, has those rights preserved by law. We do not need it in this bill. We are just stating the obvious. The clause is superfluous. Everyone who has a right now, continues to have that right. However, that right is now subject to whatever is in this bill. This bill, in a resource management consent, restricts those people’s rights to, for example, put on a garage, to extend their home, or do anything like that, because this bill restricts development. That is what this bill is all about. [Interruption] The member agrees with me. She agrees with me that this bill restricts development. From the way I look at it, that does restrict our rights as such but it does not restrict our title to the land. We still own the land. We all know that. That is why we do not need clause 29.

As far as clause 30 is concerned, unfortunately if anyone had a real feel for the area and wanted to do what Lynne Pillay wants to do, clause 30 destroys that. I believe that people who are true developers, who want to rip into the lower lands, will have lodged their applications with the council by now. I say to Lynne Pillay not to shake her head. She should be nodding her head. They will be advised by their lawyers to get in there, to lodge their applications—to make sure they lodge any kind of application they can—so that they can get stuck into the lowlands and do whatever is possible. In that sense, clause 30 gives the game away. It will not protect the lowlands, if that is what this bill intends to do. Clause 30, as the member Lynne Pillay has indicated, will not affect anyone who has lodged a current application. She is nodding her head in agreement now.

As a lawyer myself, I say that if I had been acting for people who wanted to develop the area—and I am not, so I have no personal interest whatsoever—and who can still now, before this bill is passed, want to put on a garage or want to cut land up into 1,000-metre or 1,500-metre blocks, I would be telling them to get stuck in and lodge their application now. The transitional provisions say they are protected and they can go ahead and do everything they like, because once they lodge their application they are saved. This bill and the transitional provisions protect them.

It is confused legislation. New Zealand First opposes it—not only because it is socialism by stealth, but it has been badly drafted; it is contradictory drafting. There are clauses in it, even these three clauses we have here, that are contradictory.

Madam Chairperson, what a delight it was to bow to you as I walked into the Chamber. It is a small world, and can I say well done. [Interruption] I am looking forward to it. I want to be the first person she chucks out of the Chamber.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: I’ll second that.

I am sure the member will. I want to comment on clauses 28 to 30 and in particular focus on clause 28. A word was used by the member beside you, Madam Chairperson, and I think it was “simple”. Lynne Pillay said the clauses in Part 3 are simple. We have to watch out for the danger in the simple words. I quote from clause 28A: “(1) The local authorities must jointly monitor—(b) the progress …”. Then it states: “(2) The local authorities must jointly produce, and each adopt, a report on the monitoring …”.

I suppose the concern I have is that if we are to monitor and produce reports in 5 years’ time, then we actually have to have a starting point. We have to have a benchmark. We have to have a report already done that sets out all of the conditions, the status, and the how to and where to of all of the objectives that the councils will have to monitor. I have not heard of, seen, or heard talk of those reports being done. We are asking these councils to fund and do these reports. They have a monitor. Have they had that discussion? Have the councils had a talk about how they will do this? Have they measured how many trees are there now? Will there be more trees or fewer trees? What is it that they are monitoring?

When we look at the words—and the previous speaker talked about them—they are very big and bold statements. How do we monitor the protection of a “landscape of … local significance”? What is the starting point? How do we monitor “restoring and enhancing degraded landscapes”? Now, does that mean that if a landscape that only has 52 trees on it has 42 trees on it in 5 years’ time, that is really bad, but if it has 110 trees on it in 5 years’ time, that is really great? We do not have a benchmark—the key performance indicators. The concern I have is that I do not know where all that goes, because there is so much in this bill that is very broad, all-encompassing, and very much able to be read by lawyers in 25 different ways.

Then, of course, we have to cost the effect of this bill. Somewhere along the line these councils involved have to put in their annual plans what this impact will be on the ratepayer. I have seen no figures so I do not know. I know that the cost to the ratepayer of bringing this bill into the House must be phenomenal. There have been some lawyers involved, big time—

💬 Dail Jones: $2 million.

It would not surprise me. Was that taken through an annual plan? I do not know. I suppose where I am going with this, relating to clause 28, is: has this work been put out in front of the ratepayers? Is it in the annual plan? Is it in the LTCCP, the long-term council community plan—just to chuck in some letters, like my colleague Paula Bennett did? We have to watch the simple pieces of legislation. The MP Lynne Pillay says the bill is simple. It is simple, but it could be bloody expensive.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

I rise to speak to Part 3, but before I do, Madam Chairperson, I offer my congratulations to you on assuming the position of Assistant Speaker. I know that you will do a great job, and I must say it is very nice to have a Wellingtonian in the Chair for the first time since I came into Parliament in 2002. I offer my congratulations.

Let me say at the outset that I am pleased to be able to make a speech on this part of the bill, because my parliamentary duties prevented me from speaking when the Committee stage of this bill was last debated in Parliament a few weeks ago. I have taken a deep interest in this bill, including accepting an invitation to address a public meeting in Waitakere City on the issues it raises. I strongly oppose the bill. I have voted against it and will continue to vote against it at every stage.

Clause 29, “Preservation of existing rights”, in Part 3 refers to “any title or right to ownership of any land or natural resources within the heritage area, whether conferred by enactment, [of Parliament or] at common law, …”. If I were to ask the proponents of this bill why it is necessary to include such a clause, they would tell me that it is to protect private property rights. Their answer, however, is wrong. The provisions of this bill, as set out extensively and in the lofty words in Parts 1 and 2, apply equally and without distinction to both public and private land within the heritage area. As Dail Jones has outlined, 58 percent of the land in this area, which is now the Waitakere Ranges heritage area, is private land. The majority of it is private land.

That central issue is the major defect in this entire bill—the fact that it applies not just to public land, which would be perfectly acceptable, but also to private land. All of the lofty sounding words contained in the bill refer not just to public land, but, as clause 29 reveals, they also refer to private land, and that is entirely inappropriate. The preservation of heritage areas for the common good of all people is great. If this bill referred just to public land, as I mentioned, it would have my support. As it is, clause 29 does not strip title and ownership entirely from the people who now own the land, but it is still entirely inappropriate to have private land of this sort in the bill, because Kiwis in Waitakere will now be subject to the public land impositions in the bill, even on their private land. Private homes, gardens, lawns, backyards, or front paddocks should not be included in a heritage area unless we are prepared to fully and justly compensate those private owners. Instead, in this bill, we strip their rights to the use and enjoyment of their homes and then tell them not to worry because they will retain ownership. That misses the point and it is wrong. That is unjust.

To treat private and public lands as if they are one and the same thing simply will not do. This bill creates a wedge in the door. If it applies to private land in Waitakere today, then why not to my private land in Wellington tomorrow, to another person’s land in Christchurch the day after, or to somebody’s private land on the West Coast the day after that? This bill sets a very, very unfortunate precedent in terms of New Zealand law. By all means, we should protect the Waitakere Ranges. That will be great for the people of Waitakere, of Auckland, of the nation, and internationally. But let us decide, as a principle, that this measure should be limited to publicly owned land, or we must decide to do the decent thing and pay compensation to protect and safeguard the rights of the private landowners involved.

I rise with great pride to support the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill. I feel well qualified to comment on the bill, because I think I am correct in saying that I am the longest-serving constituent MP in the House from west Auckland. I am a proud westie. I owned a property in the Waitakere Ranges for many years. In 1983 my partner and I bought 10 acres on Bethells Road, right in the heart of the area we are seeking to protect, and 3 years later we bought a larger block of 28 acres. We lived there for many years, and in recent times we moved into Te Atatū south. So I see this from a local resident’s point of view, as a proud westie and a person passionate about west Auckland and about protecting our unique natural environment in west Auckland, and as a former Minister of Conservation. For 5 years I was privileged and lucky enough to serve as Minister of Conservation for New Zealand. Just recently, about 3½ months ago, my portfolio was changed to education. During my time as the Minister of Conservation this legislation was drafted by my colleague Lynne Pillay, who is in the chair tonight. She is also a proud westie who lives in Titirangi and is passionate about this legislation, as is our friend and fellow colleague David Cunliffe.

Part 3, which we are discussing now, is about accountability around local authorities monitoring heritage areas. There could be no more important heritage area for west Aucklanders than our iconic Waitakere Ranges. They are ranges that have seen great land-use change. When European settlers arrived in New Zealand, the Waitakere Ranges were clothed in some of the greatest kauri trees that grew anywhere in New Zealand. Te Hēnga Valley, where I had a farm for many years, had what were recorded as the largest kauris ever found in concentration in New Zealand. These were ripped out by the early settlers. True, they were seeking to create a new life. True, they were dedicated to their families and used the timber for building and for farming. They did not realise what they were doing to the natural environment. Luckily, through the foresight of some of the early administrations in Auckland, the Auckland Regional Council now administers a large area of parkland. I say to Gordon Copeland that by far the greatest area of the Waitakere Ranges is an Auckland Regional Council park, and thank goodness that it is now protected. But, nibbling away at the edges, there is still inappropriate land use taking place.

This bill is about protecting that heritage area. Mayor Bob Harvey and his team, particularly our former deputy mayor, Caroline Stone, and our current deputy mayor, Penny Hulse, and others on the council, have been fantastic in pushing for this legislation. Like Lynne, David, and I, they are passionate about protecting the ranges. Graham Campbell and his team of officials at Waitakere City have done a great job in making sure that this legislation not only achieves its aim, which is to elevate the status of the Waitakere Ranges and to give them greater protection, but also gives reassurance to landowners in the Waitakere Ranges—the people whom Gordon Copeland was just making reference to—which I believe the bill does.

This bill does not take away property rights. When I was privileged to hold the job of Minister of Conservation I visited many heritage areas outside New Zealand, in the UK and elsewhere. What happens to property in those heritage areas is that it becomes more valuable, because it has a greater status and a greater protection on it. People want to live there. I say to landowners in the Waitakere Ranges that this bill will actually increase their land values. Sure, they will not be able to carry out any inappropriate subdivisions, and nor should they be able to, but the value of their land will be increased by this legislation. It will elevate the whole status of the ranges themselves and make them an even more special place.

You know, the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society—John Edgar and his team—has done a fantastic job. It polled Auckland, and over 75 percent of Aucklanders wanted this bill, including well over 80 percent of the residents of Waitakere City. It is a great bill, and I thank Lynne Pillay for the excellent work she has done in protecting a unique place in our city.

John Key gave a keynote speech today outlining the mushy nonsense that is driving Government. We are seeing an extra 10,000 policy advisers and bureaucrats, and over 250 mushy strategies with which bureaucrats run round and round in circles achieving very little. The problem with this Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill and with Part 3 is that it is more of this mushy, bureaucratic, Labour nonsense. People cannot explain what the bill means. Repeatedly through the select committee and the Committee stage of this bill we have sought to hear from the sponsor and its supporters an answer to the question of what this bill means.

When the member opposite, Chris Carter, said in his speech that the bill would stop inappropriate subdivision, I peered through the clauses. I went all the way through Part 1. Did it say that there? I went all the way through Part 2. Did Part 2 tell me that the bill would stop inappropriate subdivision? I have been all the way through Part 3, and I cannot find a clause that says the bill will remove inappropriate subdivision. You see, the member—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Wait for the jurisprudence.

Well, that is it. Mr Jones just sums it up. Mr Shane Jones says we should wait for the jurisprudence. So we will do exactly what that Government has done with the Resource Management Act: pass fuzzy amendments, with no idea what they will do; pass the ball from this Parliament to the courts; then wait years, after millions have been spent on lawyers, to establish what the heck Parliament meant. Members on this side of the Chamber say that is not good enough.

The previous speaker, Chris Carter, said that the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society had polled Auckland, and that the majority of people wanted the Waitakere Ranges protected. Of course they do. Who would answer that question by saying: “Well, I don’t want it protected.”? That is not the argument. The argument is between Lynne Pillay’s mushy bill, which will achieve very little, and the very sensible proposition that has been put forward by National’s Paula Bennett saying that the public lands of the Waitakere Ranges should be a national park. It would be the first national park in Auckland, and it would be an excellent choice.

I also want to focus specifically on this part. The parallel legislation of this Parliament is the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act. I challenge this Parliament, 7 years after that legislation was passed, to tell me one thing that Act has done to improve the protection of the Hauraki Gulf—just one. Has it protected an extra jetty, or a species—anything?

💬 John Carter: One fish.

Not a fish; not a bird. It was just more bureaucratic mush.

I read in clause 28A of the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill that we will have to have a monitor report. I refer members opposite to the monitoring report that is required under the Hauraki Gulf legislation. Yes, it is a big, heavy document. Again, has it saved a bush? Has it saved a beetle? Has it saved a fish? Has it created an extra blade of parkland anywhere? The answer is no.

I want Lynne Pillay to explain something to the Committee. The transitional provisions in clause 30 of this bill parallel those of the Hauraki Gulf legislation, which got us into an awful mess in Whitianga. I know that my colleague Sandra Goudie from the Coromandel electorate—[Interruption] No, I refer to the mess that this legislation caused for her community. We have in the transitional provisions of this bill exactly the same problems. I will ask the member a simple question.

💬 Lynne Pillay: Is this confiscation by stealth?

What I said—

💬 Lynne Pillay: That is what you said.

I want the member to answer some questions for us. We will have local area plans, we will have district plans, we will have regional plans, and we will have national policy statements. Of those four sets of wordy strategies, which overrides which? I ask the member in the chair, because lawyers and landowners want to know. There are four strategies. I would love to know from the member in the chair what the priority of that mesh of documents is.

The member Nick Smith knows full well that the priority is that this bill does not override any of the strategies he mentioned. Rather, the bill works within that framework. The member is quite aware of that. This is the member who rode into town, stood before a meeting, and said: “This is confiscation by stealth.” He had never even seen the bill—never even seen it. Dail Jones has taken this up even further. He says the bill is socialism by stealth.

All this silly nonsense is about scaring the people. I have met with a number of people who live in the Waitakere Ranges who said they felt much more reassured after seeing the bill and the report, because they had been told by the National Party that someone would take their land and rights away. I say for the benefit of Dr Nick Smith, because it is difficult for him to comprehend this stuff, that the reality is that within the Waitakere Ranges, under the Waitakere City Council, most activity—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Be more condescending.

The member asks me to be more condescending. No, I will try to explain—as I have many times, and as the Local Government and Environment Committee had explained to it—that this bill sits over the Resource Management Act. It does not undermine it.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Sits over! I thought you said under?

Over, under—members can have it whatever way they want. This bill does not supersede the Resource Management Act; it gives guidance to councils in decision making. I will repeat that: this bill gives guidance to councils in decision making. When there is a district plan, where there are resource consents going, this bill gives guidance to the council to look at the big picture and the unintended consequences.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: More mush.

Nick Smith would rather just have gay abandon, because that is the National Party style. The slippery National Party in one breath says residents will lose every property right they have, and in the next breath says the bill is waffle and has no teeth. National members should make up their minds. They are slippery—that is the theme of the National Party. It slips around.

💬 Nathan Guy: Is that your word of the week?

It is my word, because National members slip around. They put fear into the local people, good landowners who are committed to the land, by telling them they will lose their rights—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: That’s what the judge said.

—and then they say the legislation is waffly and means nothing. The judge now endorses this bill. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have to say that if ever there was a muddled contribution, it had to be that. I am sitting here listening, and the member in the chair, Lynne Pillay, says that this bill does not override anything but it sits over the top. Well, hang on a minute. If the bill does not do anything, and it does not affect anything, but it sits over the top, what is it sitting over the top of? In the next breath, she says: “No, no—hang on a minute. It is not over the top; it is underneath.” I got confused at that stage, and I was not sure whether I should be standing up on my feet or on my head to see which is up and which is under. I did not understand it. Then I thought I must be on the rugby paddock trying to catch an up-and-under so I could be over and under it—that is what it would have been.

What an absolute mess. The problem with the member who is sponsoring this bill is that she does not understand what the bill means. That is the first problem. The second problem with this bill has been concerning me all the way through its passage through the House. Right from the very start I asked why we need this bill, what it will do, and why we cannot do what this bill will do within the confines or the powers of the Resource Management Act and the other legislation. We were told that we could. So the next question asks why we need the bill. If we can do it within the Resource Management Act as it is now, and within the district scheme, the fact is that we then have to ask ourselves why we need these parts and schedules that we are debating here. The officials said the bill does not do anything. They said: “It has to be here because we need it.” So I asked myself why we need this bill—especially Part 3—if it will not be doing anything.

Finally—and this is what really upset me, and it is one of the reasons I am more determined than ever not to see this bill pass—we got a concession out of the local authority officials that they wanted the bill, as it was presented to us, to be wider than the Resource Management Act and to give the local authority more powers. Quite honestly, in my view they lied to the select committee—not just misled but deliberately lied. That really upset me.

Even worse, I was at the local government conference and I was talking to the mayor, Bob Harvey. I explained to him what had happened. I said: “Bob, I had asked and asked”—

💬 Nathan Guy: What did Bob say?

—hang on a minute and I will tell the member—“whether this had any wider ramifications. We were told that, no, it did not. Then, finally, your officials said that, yes, it did.” Bob said he did not believe that they would have done that. I saw a couple of officials nearby and said that we should go and ask them. Bob went over to them and said: “John Carter tells me that initially you were saying it doesn’t go any wider, but now it does. What is the answer?”. The officials said: “Yes, your worship. Actually, the bill as intended did go wider, but that is not what we told the select committee at the beginning.” Bob was horrified.

💬 Lynne Pillay: Rubbish!

Well, Bob Harvey is an honourable man. He will tell you that that is exactly what happened.

The Local Government and Environment Committee had to go back and put clauses in to make sure that the bill did not override various Acts. I know that it is not in Part 3, but I refer members to, for example, page 32, where we had to put in a clause to make sure that the bill did not have authority over the Resource Management Act and the Local Government Act. We had to bring it back. Then we ask ourselves the question: if we have to restrict the bill’s powers, why do we need it? The member in the chair says it is because it allows the local authority to look after the Waitakere Ranges. I ask why in the world the local authority could not do this under the Resource Management Act anyway. Nobody has been able to tell me why it could not do so—not one official, not the mayor, not the councillors, and not the member in the chair. She has not been able to tell us that.

Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. It is a pleasure to follow my fellow Northlander, who realises, as I do when I look at Kerikeri, what can take place when planning is not well conceived and when we do not have a scheme or a strategy for our heritage that gathers momentum amongst the people.

First, I must acknowledge the unstinting efforts of Lynne Pillay, supported by Mr Cunliffe, Mr Chris Carter, and Darien Fenton.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: She’s gone, too!

I say to Dr Smith that the full value of this legislation lies in the future. In the future our mokopuna will remember the efforts that our MPs, supported by the three councils, have put in to produce a vision and a plan that protects the valleys, the gullies, the trees, and the creatures throughout the Waitakere Ranges. We will not see creeping, encroaching, ill-conceived developments into areas that are irreplaceable.

I wait to hear from my whanaunga—and possibly my tuakana, I do not know; thousands of genealogists will debate that point—Tau Henare on why he will not support the tangata whenua of that area in ensuring that the wāhi tapu of the tangata whenua are looked after, and that my ancestry and heritage from the Tararās—the Dalmatians scattered through all those areas—are not forgotten, turned to dust, and eaten by the creatures, the moths, and the butterflies, etc. [Interruption] I also wait to hear from Hone Harawira; he needs to stand up and be counted. On every street corner he will find that our whānau in the west are happy that the kūkupa, the ruru, and various other creatures in the ngahere in Waitakere will sleep soundly, knowing that this bill is about to find a place, as reflected in Part 3, where the state of the environment and the heritage area must be regularly monitored by not only the elected representatives but also the professional advisers.

Dr Smith does have his point in terms of oratory in the House—unfortunately, it is inversely related to accuracy. He does have a point that it is easy to exaggerate potential problems. I say to Dr Smith that there is no great problem with small legislation that has the simple but admirable purpose of enhancing the ability of the current legislation to care for a specifically valuable area. I say to Dr Smith that we do that with national areas such as our national parks. We do that with areas of the marine environment, and that is why this legislation will put a duty on the council to care for the heritage and the taonga of Waitakere. Kia ora tātou.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Before I call the next member, I want to remind members that the last three speakers have very broadly attempted to discuss Part 3. At the end we have a summing up discussion on the first two clauses. If members are going to make these wide-sweeping generic statements, can they please stay on board.

I acknowledge the last speaker because I think he is very well qualified to speak, particularly with his Māori and Dalmatian ancestry. They are the people who used to be up north digging kauri gum, and they have come back and bought large blocks of land in the foothills of the heritage area we are talking about.

I will take a short call because I do not want to bore listeners with the repetition that has been going on in this Chamber in respect of this bill. Last year the opportunity arose for me to visit the foothills. We have talked about the mountainous terrain and the bush area, but I will mention the foothills because that is where the real concern is, particularly in relation to the quality of soil, which I inspected with the council officials. It was clear that the area was not suitable for high-density housing. Those foothills require some protection because they are absolutely not suitable for tiny subdivisions that will carve up the land and create all sorts of environmental issues. I was surprised to hear Nick Smith rambling on about private rights. I would have expected him, as an environmentalist and a conservationist, to be giving a different message this evening about the need to protect important heritage areas.

To the Committee I say that what we are doing tonight shows absolute common sense. It ensures the rights of landowners, and it does not take away from the Resource Management Act. It ensures that those areas that need to be protected are protected, and that those who apply for resource consents have their proposals properly evaluated in relation both to those important environmental issues and to sustainable development. I am talking about opportunities where I can see people making millions of dollars by carving up their land into little bits and pieces, with no regard for the sustainability of that subdivision.

I think Part 3 is important not only for the people of Waitakere but also for the people of Auckland and New Zealand. I am very pleased to support this bill and to ensure that it passes through the Chamber this evening.

Firstly, I respond to the contribution from Mr Phillip Field about protecting the soils in the Waitakere Ranges.

💬 Taito Phillip Field: I raise a point of order, Madam Chair. I ask the member to address me correctly by my name as registered in this Chamber.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Thank you. I wonder whether Dr Smith could do that. It is Taito Phillip Field.

I apologise. Mr Taito Phillip Field. He raised the issue of the soils in the lower Waitakere Ranges. He is under the misconception that somehow this bill is going to protect those soils. Well, if we actually look at those soils, we see that over a hundred areas of New Zealand have similar soil types. Are we to have a special bill of Parliament for every one of those areas? Is not the very purpose of the Resource Management Act to protect them? If the member genuinely believes that the current Resource Management Act framework does not provide the mechanism for the protection of those soils, but provides for inappropriate subdivision, as he called it, let us fix the general Act; let us not have these sorts of piecemeal bills that are more about politics than they are about substance.

When I look at Part 3, I ask this question: how many times do I hear people say that we need to simplify the Resource Management Act? How many times do I hear that the Resource Management Act is too complicated? How many times do I hear that there are too many word games around the Resource Management Act? I genuinely ask the question of this Committee: do we think this bill will address those very legitimate concerns about the statutes as they are now, without these extras? Do I hear anyone saying: “What we need with the Resource Management Act is more plans.”? I never hear that, yet I see in this Part 3 of this bill the creation of even more plans and more complexity as we try to work out how national plans, regional plans, district plans, and local plans—

💬 Paula Bennett: LTCCPs—

LTCCPs!

💬 Paula Bennett: LAMPs.

Well, LAMPs—but the rhetoric is just killing this country—

💬 Sue Moroney: The member can’t keep up.

No, it is not a matter of keeping up. I tell you what—the people of New Zealand have had enough of the wishy-mush law that those members are proposing with this bill, which takes New Zealand nowhere. I do not think that the member in the chair, Lynne Pillay, actually understands, at all, what this will do.

💬 Lynne Pillay: The member in the chair does understand.

Well, I ask the member whether this bill will allow the erection of farm implement sheds. That is a fair question. I have heard from people—

💬 Lynne Pillay: You’re being pathetic.

No, no. She says I am being pathetic; I have to tell her that I have met with people in the Waitakere Ranges who want to know, under the transitional provisions of this bill, whether they will be able to build a farm implement shed. Will they be able to build granny flats on their sections? Will they be able to plant vineyards on their properties?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Part 3.

Well, the member is not able to answer any of those practical questions. She does not know, and this law creates even more fuzziness. One of the constant arguments we hear in this Chamber is to do with the increased costs we impose on ratepayers and local government, for no good. In fact, that is the very reason that John Key’s speech really struck a chord with New Zealanders today in talking about excessive bureaucracy. In clause 28A, we see even more bureaucratic reporting requirements on councils. If councils want to, and if they support this sort of idea, there is absolutely no reason why, right now, they cannot produce a 5-yearly report on the state of the Waitakere Ranges. Why do we need an Act of Parliament to do that? Can the person in the chair tell me that? She has no idea as to why we have to put this into law.

This bill is about everything that Labour is doing, and there is nothing about good environmental policy. It is not about good government; it is all about crude politics. And Lynne Pillay believes that the people of west Auckland are so stupid that if she can somehow run around the patch and say “Oh, I protected the Waitakere ranges.”, somehow they will be fooled, whereas this bill takes us backwards.

I will concentrate on a couple of things in Part 3. One, under clause 28A, is that “Local authorities must monitor and report on certain matters relating to heritage area”. Under anybody’s district plan—under the Auckland Regional Council’s district plan, and under the Waitakere City Council’s district plan—local authorities already have to monitor the state of the environment. They already have to make progress towards achieving the objectives. They have to take account of a whole range of issues that are already in district plans, and that are already in other pieces of legislation. So I suppose that this bill really should be called the “Waitakere Mana-munching Bill”, because that is really all it is. It is all about someone’s mana. Most of the stuff in this bill, including Part 3, which we are talking about—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Yes, we are.

I hear the—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Yes, we are talking about Part 3.

Absolutely—and I do not believe that I have strayed off Part 3, Madam Chairperson. Thank you for keeping me on track. I also say that it is absolutely ridiculous to have all these clauses in Part 3, when every clause and every meaning of every clause in Part 3 is actually in the district plan. They are actually in the Auckland Regional Council’s plan of what it has to do—what it has to look after. So why are we doing this again?

Mr Key was right this afternoon when he talked about bureaucracy running wild. This is nothing more than an addition to that bureaucracy. There is a new paragraph (c) in clause 29, and it states: “the ability of any person to bring a claim (or continue to bring a claim) or seek a remedy in any court or tribunal—(i) arising from the Treaty of Waitangi, an Act, the common law, or in any other manner;”. But what it does not set out or state is that people cannot bring a claim against the city council in terms of a Treaty of Waitangi claim. They just cannot, but this paragraph sort of gives the impression they can. So I think there needs to be a bit of work done on that clause.

This is nothing more than somebody standing up and saying “Look what I have done for Waitakere.” Really, when we look at Part 3, all we can say is that it is about: “Look what I have done; I have now copied in Part 3 what we already do.” That is all this bill is about. It is all about standing there, and saying, in relation to Part 3: “Look at what I have done. I have copied what is in the Resource Management Act, I have copied what is in the local district plan, and I have copied what is in the 5-year and 10-year plans of the Auckland Regional Council.” We do not need a repeat of what has already been done. It is nothing more, nothing less, than a mana-munch by some people who want to get re-elected.

I move, That the question be now put.

I will stick with Part 3. I wish to speak about the monitoring and reporting on certain matters relating to the heritage area, and I think there is a good chance that I will not take the full 5 minutes. The monitoring and reporting is about working towards achieving the objectives set out in the bill. So it is about the progress made towards achieving the objectives, and it is that I would like to stress.

The question I have for Lynne Pillay, the member in the chair, concerns how we will monitor and report on the natural and historic resources in respect of their intrinsic worth and their benefit for, use by, and enjoyment by people. How will we report and monitor when we are talking about such things as the quietness and the darkness of the ranges? Will council officials sit out in the ranges with a decibel rating machine, deciding how loud it is and whether it is acceptable? If we are going to have that—because the objective is about the quietness and the darkness of the ranges—then the question is whether the council has already done that. We must have something to report against. So are we in a situation where the natural landscape; the intrinsic value, worth, and benefit; and the quietness and darkness of the ranges will be reported and monitored by councillors or council officials who go out and measure it? How will they do that?

We simply cannot have a provision that says we will monitor and report certain matters relating to the objectives when the objectives are stated in such waffly language that means nothing, and when the matters are something we cannot actually monitor and report against. I am just taking three examples, and they are quite easy ones: the quietness of the ranges, the darkness of the ranges, and their intrinsic worth and value, which are terms used in the objectives of the bill. How will we report and monitor progress on these objectives, and how have we reported and monitored on the area to date so we can say what we are monitoring against? That is my question.

I move, That the question be now put.