Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill

National vigorously opposes this bill for four key reasons. The first is that it is about more bureaucracy when New Zealand desperately needs less. This bill creates more fuzzy law in the area of resource management when there is a pleading from New Zealanders and those who work in this area for Parliament to provide greater clarity. We already have three tiers of wordy documents, plus dozens and dozens of pages of law. We do not need another 40 pages of wordy mush as well as another tier of planning documents.

I put it simply: when a person in the Waitakere Ranges applies for resource consent, the decision makers currently have to take into account the Resource Management Act. They have to take into account national policy plans, like the national Coastal Policy Statement. They have to take into account regional policy statements from the Auckland Regional Council. They have to take into account district policy statements. Do they also need to take into account local plans and this additional bill? National argues that everything one would want to achieve in terms of protection of the Waitakere Ranges can be done by using those other instruments, not creating more law.

I go back to the introductory speech made by Sir Geoffrey Palmer in relation to the Resource Management Act. The legislation repealed 84 messy little statutes just of this sort. He argued very passionately for the Labour Party that it was time we had good-quality, single-statute law, and not piecemeal law. The Labour Party has gone backwards from that sort of view. I ask the Labour Party whether it believes that the Waitakere Ranges are somehow different, in relation to the need to protect them, from the beautiful coastline of Golden Bay, from the issues in Queenstown and that magnificent area of the lakes district, from the beautiful area of the Bay of Islands represented by John Carter, or any of the other areas in New Zealand that we feel passionate about protecting. If Labour really does believe that the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill is the key to protecting the Waitakere Ranges, and that the Resource Management Act cannot do it, then it should be introducing bills just like this bill in every one of those areas, unless it genuinely believes that those areas are not worthy of protection.

The third problem with this bill is that it treats councils as idiots. The member in the chair, Lynne Pillay, says that we need this bill to provide guidance for the councils. This is like the Government telling our schools what to have in their tuck shops. It is like the Government telling parents how to raise their kids. Why does the member in the chair think we have so much wisdom in this Parliament, that our councils are so dumb and that their elected representatives are so stupid, that they have to have another 40 pages of law for them to be able to do their job and to make the right calls about what is, and what is not, inappropriate and appropriate development in the Waitakere Ranges?

The fourth thing about this bill is just so typical of where this Government has got to. During the last 18 months we have seen that this Government’s agenda is that everything is about the Labour Party—

💬 Taito Phillip Field: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. We do not expect a political speech on a campaign trail at this point of the debate. The member is wide of the mark.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I am sorry, Taito Phillip Field, but clauses 1 and 2 are summary clauses in a sense. A debate on this is a summary of the legislation. It is a slight change in the Standing Orders.

What I say to that member and to other members opposite is that the problem is that this is all about politics and not about good law for New Zealand. We know—and I am sure that the Labour Party’s polling says the same as ours—that Labour is in serious trouble in west Auckland.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Ha, ha!

It is not just Hawke’s Bay. I will show the Minister our poll results if he will show us theirs. The problem with Labour is that everything it is doing today—from sacking the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board to the Auckland airport fiasco, or in terms of the Electoral Finance Bill—is all about protecting Labour’s interests, not New Zealand’s interests. I say to members opposite that they have made a mess of the environment. In relation to climate change, and whether it is water quality or soil quality, this Government has not performed. So it believes that with a mushy bill of this sort it can somehow save its bacon. It is mistaken. This sort of mushy law will do nothing for the environment, and it will do even less for its electoral prospects. As John Key so effectively communicated today, mush is out, certainty is in.

It is my pleasure to take a short call to support the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill. In doing so, I think it is appropriate to offer some thanks for the work that has been done by a large number of people, both inside and outside the House, to bring the bill to the place it is today.

In my earlier contribution on the bill, I spent some time discussing the concept of the cumulative effects of subdivision and development. I went through the arguments about why, although every consent individually might seem appropriate, when added together the cumulative effect is that one loses this magnificent natural heritage, and that process is irreversible.

💬 Paula Bennett: Like if it had been done to your house in Herne Bay, eh?

At least I know where I live and I have never denied it—unlike the leader of the National Party, who seems to have a memory lapse when it comes to making declarations.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Amnesia!

It is amnesia—exactly. If we do not act now and seize this opportunity, we will never get the opportunity again. It has taken about 30 years to get this bill to where it is today. It started off with some people like Justice Tony Randerson, the former Speaker of the House Jonathan Hunt, and Gary Taylor sitting down one day and thinking about the long-term future of the ranges. The current chair of the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society, John Edgar, pioneered this and gathered the support of many constituents in that area.

There are other people in the Chamber who also need mentioning. Obviously there is the member who is carrying the weight of this bill through the House, Lynne Pillay, the MP for Waitakere, who deserves our special and collective thanks. Lynne has followed this bill from the beginning of the community consultation. I know that she has been at every meeting. She has spent interminable hours with community groups, the Waitakere City Council and other councils, the Clerk’s Office, and the Bills Office getting the draft prepared. She is here today not to take credit for herself, but to shepherd through a bill with a narrow majority—we recognise that—but it is one that will make a very positive and lasting change in that area.

I recognise the Prime Minister’s efforts. The Prime Minister has listened to the voices of west Auckland; she said that on this bill what the west wants, the west needs to get. She has backed this bill through our caucus and supported it to Parliament today. It would be difficult to conceive the bill without it having received that support. I thank Darien Fenton MP, who is a Waitakere resident. She has made a valuable contribution to our team and has been a strong local supporter. The MP for Te Atatu, the Hon Chris Carter, has been a rock-solid supporter right through the process, particularly working closely with Waitakere City Council. I acknowledge Taito Phillip Field. Taito Field had his reservations about the bill but he has at least done the hard yards of coming out west and meeting with the Pacific Islands Advisory Board and the landowners in Orātia. He sat down and listened to them and worked in a reasonable way through their objections, then crafted amendments that members could vote for to perhaps moderate some of the rough edges of the earlier draft, so that we now have a bill that he supports. With his support this bill will, hopefully, pass into law.

I thank the leaders around the table at the Waitakere City Council. It is easy to take people for granted, but Bob Harvey has been a visionary out west and has lifted it from “Boganville” to the “eco-city”. He needs to be recognised as he has been a tireless supporter of this bill. He was able to swing some of the majorities in behind it that enabled it to come to the House. Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse was very keen to have a full consultation process, and I think that in the end it has probably assisted the durability of the consensus, even if it did take a bit longer. Councillor Judy Lawley has been a rock-solid supporter through the process. Former councillors Greg Presland and Denise Yates made an important contribution earlier on they have carried that through. These are the kinds of people whose mana is tied up in bringing this bill to the House. Although we as MPs are doing our bit to carry the bill forward that next step, we are actually standing on the shoulders of a whole lot of giants who have put their vision, hopes, and dreams into this fairly modest bill. I thank the Māori Party, the Greens, and all who support the bill.

First, I want to speak on my amendment to clause 2. I felt that by pushing the commencement date out to 1 April 2009—no, 1 January—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: 1 April would have been pretty good, actually!

Yes, 1 April would have been a bit better, but we thought that 1 January was fair. We think it is reasonable to ask members opposite to give that opportunity to people who live in the Waitakere Ranges and who want to do simple things like complete a granny flat on their property that they are halfway through building, or to build another shed on their vineyard or orchard in the foothills. We heard about those things throughout the submission process. I think we need to go back to some of the basics. The reality is that no one wants to see the foothills carved up into a tight-fitting, medium or high-density housing suburban area.

No one wants to see that—certainly, not anyone on this side of Chamber, and, from what I am hearing, not anyone on the other side—and there can be no question about that. Doing a survey that asks whether people want to protect the ranges—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Yeah, right!

—quite frankly gets a “Yeah, right!”. If I had been called I would have said “Yes”, because we all want the ranges to be protected, and there is no doubt about that. What National members say is that this legislation simply will not protect the ranges. To protect the ranges, one would give them the highest status in the land and make them a national park. To protect the ranges, one would actually put them under a caveat that means they cannot ever be touched. That is what one would do for the public land that is in the ranges. But if one simply wants to take away the rights of individuals who live there and love it, and who have seen the area be refurbished and grow more in the last 100 years, since people have lived there, than it ever did previously, then one puts up legislation that will benefit only the lawyers. The only people who will benefit from this legislation are lawyers, who are left to try to determine what such phrases as “the quietness and the darkness” of the ranges mean. Does it mean people should not drive through the ranges if their car has a decibel rating of more than 2,000? Does it mean people should not drive through the ranges with the lights on, because it might affect the darkness? That is how utterly ridiculous this legislation is.

No one debates that the ranges should be protected. No one debates that their protection is important, that they are important for Auckland, and that they are certainly important for Waitakere. The debate, quite simply, is that this bill will do nothing to protect the ranges. The Government has come up with this legislation, but no one actually knows what it means, and that is where it gets dangerous. People cannot understand how our viewing the land as a fish will help us to protect the ranges. The Government is overriding long-term council community plans that the locals have spent years developing, and that the council has been part of. At one stage we were told that this legislation would not overrule the Resource Management Act, then we were told that it would—that it would not be worth having this legislation if it did not overrule the national legislation. It is as simple as that.

Let us talk about “rural character” and what that can mean. I go back to the title of the bill. A correct title of the bill would be quite simple: it is not the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill; it is the “Waitakere Foothills Heritage Area Bill”, for it is the foothills that will be most affected, and it will be the people living there who have caveats placed over their private land that mean they cannot do what they are already doing within the law. Members on the other side of the Chamber make it sound like there is willy-nilly building going on, that people are building monstrosities of houses, and that hideous developments are going on. The reality is quite different. Already people work within district plans. Already people work within long-term council community plans. Already the people of Waitakere have what they want and what they need, and they do not need this legislation.

New Zealand First opposes this legislation. We have heard from National members, who have set out grounds for opposing the bill that are very valid and that New Zealand First agrees with. The Hon David Cunliffe made a very good point. He said that this bill is “standing on the shoulders of a whole lot of giants”. Well, that is true—they were the giants of the 19th century and the early 20th century, who put their hands in their pockets and bought the land that is now the 17,000 hectares of the Waitakere Centennial Park. They were the giants. But what are the people today who are not willing to put their hands in their pockets but who are prepared to take by stealth—like the good socialists they are—the rights of those who live in the 10,000 acres? They are certainly not giants. I know who they are, but I will not use the antonym because they must know that themselves. The giants have long gone. It is a sad fact that now in New Zealand we do not have the type of person any more who is willing to pay for the land, and who is willing to get out there, work it, and give it to society. Seventeen thousand hectares was given to the people of Auckland in that way; why can we not do that any more? This bill of the Waitakere City Council will prevent that from happening.

During the course of the debate various comments have been made about the name, the area, and suchlike, that are quite wrong. The preamble to the bill itself is also quite deficient. I will read from one of the books I have collected, entitled West Auckland Remembers, which is edited by James Northcote-Bade, and which talks about Waitakere and what it means. It also talks about the Māori background for the area, which is actually contradicted in this bill. The name Waitakere, according to this book, is strictly the name of the large, flat rock in the small bay between Ihumoana Island and Kōtau Point. The book states: “Here the name refers to the action of the sea in sweeping over this rock. Originally this was not a name of great significance, but after the death of a Kawerau chieftain during ‘Te Raupatu Tihore’, and the display of his remains on the rock, the place took on immense significance.” So Shane Jones’ effort was really not to the point. The book goes on: “The small bay itself also became known as Waitakere, as did the river that in times past flowed into it, instead of to the south of Ihumoana as it does today. The outlet of the Waitakere River became known as ‘Te Puaha o Waitakere’, or literally ‘the mouth of the Waitakere River’.”

There has also been comment made in the preamble about the quotation. The preamble is defective and does not do tribute to the Māori history of the area, which is another reason for opposing the bill. I am disappointed in the Māori Party for not researching this. In the preamble there is a quote, but that quote is wrongly attributed. The correct name of the person is Te Waatarauihi Tawhiao—[Interruption] If the member of the Māori Party wants to make a mockery of the Māori language, that is his affair. If he wants to insult the Māori people, that is up to him, but I am doing my very best. Te Waatarauihi Tawhiao was the Kawerau rangatira. He was not a Waitakere chieftain; he was a member of the Makaurau tribe. Once again, the preamble is wrong, but if the Māori Party member just wants to make a ridiculous semi-racist joke of it, that is his affair. The quotation, of course, is accurate, and the people who prepared the bill should be congratulated.

But the important point is that reference is made to the tangata whenua of the Waitakere area as being people of an iwi, or tribal group, known as Te Kawerau-a-Maki. The west Auckland report on the Waitakere Ranges area says that although they are no longer in permanent occupation of their ancestral domain, they are regarded in Māori terms as still holding mana whenua, or traditional ownership, of the land. I make that point because I ask why Ngāti Whātua were brought into this bill, when they were the natural enemies of Te Kawerau-a-Maki through the centuries. I ask Lynne Pillay, the member who introduced this bill, what rights Ngāti Whātua have to this land, when traditionally—and for centuries—they were the blood-sworn enemies of Te Kawerau-a-Maki. I question, again, whether the Māori Party has done its homework. Here I am, just recently arrived in New Zealand, off the boat, yet I can go and do some research on the area.

💬 Hone Harawira: It shows.

Exactly, it shows because I have studied and tried to do something about it rather than live off a vote obtained by misleading people on things like the foreshore and seabed legislation, as the member did. So New Zealand First opposes this legislation, and I hope that I have now set the record straight on its historical background.

I will talk briefly about the title of this bill, the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill. The Local Government and Environment Committee, when we sat as a group and talked about this bill and its drafting, talked about the title. A decision was made to call it the “Heritage Area”. The reason we did not call it a park was that we did not want to presume in any way that the area included area within the park itself; we wanted to differentiate between the regional park and the area.

But in terms of heritage we felt that it was a really important name, in order to recognise the heritage of the area and its people—the tangata whenua, the Croatian settlers, the Pākehā settlers, and all of the cultures that today celebrate the absolute wondrous beauty of the Waitakere Ranges. This history is part of the heritage—the tangata whenua, the Croatian settlers, gumdiggers, farmers, winemakers, fisher people, and so on. If we look at the culture that is associated with heritage, we see that this extraordinary landscape has been such an inspiration to the many artists who live in, and absolutely love, the area and who produce so much amazing art. People have done amazingly beautiful carvings that celebrate the area. Those things make the area so special.

Nick Smith asked what is so special about the Waitakere Ranges, and what about Queenstown. I had a great conversation with Sam Neill, who had a battle in Queenstown about inappropriate development, and Sam Neill said we were doing wonderful things in the Waitakere Ranges. I say “we” collectively. I would ask Nick Smith where else in the world we would find such wondrous nature as the Waitakere Ranges, right on a city’s doorstep, just 20 minutes’ drive from the centre of a city.

It has been said that this bill will make lawyers happy, but I tell Paula Bennett, Nick Smith, and Dail Jones to talk to the residents of Henderson Valley who had to gather together $50,000 to fight an inappropriate decision and go to the Environment Court. They won their case, but it cost them. We do not want our people to have to fight those sorts of cases.

I acknowledge my good friend David Cunliffe and all the people whom he acknowledged today. The third reading will be the next stage of the bill and that is the time to really celebrate all the people who have worked so hard to bring this bill to fruition. I want to mention one person today—Jack Colmar. Jack Colmar is a resident of Bethells Beach. He went throughout New Zealand and talked to almost every celebrity and hero, and got them to sign the petition to ask for protection for the Waitakere Ranges. I guess the most wonderful hero who put his name to those petitions was Sir Edmund Hillary, and I know that Sir Edmund Hillary would feel very proud to know that the bill was at this stage in the Committee today and would warmly welcome this move.

I have heard the Opposition criticise the bill, and fuddle people, but I have never heard the member opposite who lives in the west, the leader of the National Party, take one call on this bill—not one. He knows that it is not a popular thing to do. He leaves those other poor members opposite to do it.

This is a local bill. It was arrived at after so much consultation, commitment, and a common vision for a fantastic future for this generation and for generations to come. I acknowledge the Waitakere City Council, the Rodney District Council, and the Auckland Regional Council for promoting this bill. This is not the Labour Party’s bill. I say to Nick Smith: “Read my lips: this is not a Labour Party bill.” This bill was promoted by those councils with a mandate from the people. It has been brought to the House so as to protect what I know is a most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, part of New Zealand.

I agree with some parts of the previous speech. I think the Waitakere Ranges are among the most beautiful ranges that the country owns, but I intensely dislike the use of the old tactic of name-dropping. It is a tactic of the union that when one is in trouble, one name-drops. One would use names like Sam Neill—who flies in and says blah-blah-blah, and flies out again. Labour uses Sir Edmund Hillary’s name—God rest his soul—as if he were some sort of guru, just for the Labour Party to trot out when it likes.

I heard Ms Moroney yelling out and accusing John Key of not living in that area. What a snide remark that was, because none other than David Cunliffe does not live in his electorate. He lives in the CBD, in Westmere. It is OK for Labour members to do that, but it is a heinous crime if National does it! This bill will encourage people around the country to say to themselves: “I think I can put my name in lights. I’ll introduce the ‘Motatau Ranges Heritage Area Bill.’ ”

💬 Hone Harawira: Come on!

Absolutely! The member for Te Tai Tokerau will have nothing else to do but support that bill. He stands for—

💬 Hone Harawira: I’ll support it.

There we go! He would support anything that goes past these days. Like I said before, this is nothing more than mana-munching. It is nothing more and nothing less than somebody getting up and mana-munching. A person who puts up such a bill could leave this place and have his or her name in lights and be able to say: “Well, I was the member for Waitakere, and I put forward this bill to save the ranges from those horrible people out there who want to put a tool shed on their 20 acres.”

💬 Dail Jones: Or a long drop.

Or a long drop. For goodness’ sake! This is the reason why this Government will not last very long. It is gone, it is dog tucker: “Goodbye, see you later, ka kite.”

I want to finish by saying that everything in this bill can be done with the present law—the Resource Management Act, the Auckland Regional Council 5 and 10-year plan, and also the Waitakere City Council district plan. There is nothing in the bill that cannot be done by the organisations that rule the roost at the moment. This is why we have to stop this bill in its tracks.

I am disappointed in the Māori Party, not for the reasons that Mr Jones put forward but purely and simply because the bill does nothing. It does nothing for local Māori, it does nothing for local landowners, and it does nothing for the local community. All it does is pin—[Interruption] At least I recognise and accept that I have gone bald, not like some other people. I say in conclusion that this is a nothing bill and we have to do better.

When we take the Government benches, which I hope for the sake of this country is in the not too distant future, and when we as the Government draw up a list of those bills that were passed in the Labour Government’s time that really were not good law and did not meet the requirements of the community, I hope we have the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill at the top of our list of bills to repeal. I say that quite sincerely, because I have sat through the entire process, unlike many of the other speakers from the Government side, and I have heard every submission and read every bit of paper that has come out on this particular local bill.

This local bill did not have the local community support it should have had or deserved. For that reason, it needs to be right at the top of our list of those bills we will repeal. Local bills need to have full community support. I sat through the submissions and heard the conflicting stories of neighbours. They did not understand; they were confused. I heard people, who were the loveliest people and who had never submitted in their lives, being painted as developers. They were painted as being bad, evil persons who might be developers because they did not like this bill. I thought it was incredibly sad that we had a local bill that was being driven through the process by the council, using things like polls with “Do you love your mum?” sorts of questions. I thought that if ever there was a “constructed” local bill that was being driven through, this was it. It will not deserve to stay on the statute book—it will not deserve to stay on the book.

Many good community people came before the Local Government and Environment Committee who were passionate about the ranges—and rightly so. They were all passionate actually, and rightly so; that is not in argument. But they did not understand, and they were very, very confused. I thought that was wrong. I felt that Bob Harvey should have had the courage to pull back and say: “I really should look at how I bring this back again in a way that people understand, in a way that meets the requirements, and in a way that actually delivers on the promise but maybe in a different way. Maybe I could do it in the way a national park should be, or some other way, because this is not working. My community is not comfortable with this.” To call it a local bill I think is a big misnomer.

One of the most interesting things that struck me through the submission process was that the bill does not actually address one of the biggest issues in the ranges, the biggest threat the ranges have in regard to their surviving the centuries as they should, which is the fact that the bill at no stage talks about visitors. I do not know whether members realise that 2.5 million visitors go through the ranges annually. There is no discussion in this bill about these people going through the ranges and about what harm they can do. They are not the people who live within the ranges’ boundary, who love the place to bits, and who would hate to see anything happen to it—not those people; they are the nice ones—but they are the people who come through, have things in their car, chuck cigarettes out of the window, and have the music up far too loud, or whatever. It is a huge issue for me that this bill does not address that quite significant impact on the ranges.

I stress that this bill is a local bill but does not have community support. I suppose I challenge the Māori Party a little bit, because they talk about the power of the consultation process and about how Bob Harvey will involve them. I just want to raise with them a letter I received, which was given to me. It is a letter between the representative of Ngāpuhi and Bob Harvey, where he talks about his relationship with Māori. I will quote from the letter: “Those f…king black faces don’t f…king vote. They are f…king lazy and do nothing for themselves, and if you don’t help me your organisation is finished in this town.” That is Mayor Bob Harvey talking to a Ngāpuhi representative about the relationship he has with Māori in his community. I have quoted directly from a correspondence from the mayor to those people, stating that black faces do not vote, that they are lazy and do nothing for themselves, and that if Ngāpuhi does not help him, then they are finished. That is a direct quote. Māori Party members can say that the Mayor of Waitakere will consult; I think that is a farce.

I move, That the question be now put.

I will cut to the chase and ask the members opposite to answer a question, as if they were consents officials for Rodney District Council or maybe Waitakere District Council and a person comes up with a resource consent for maybe a farm shed, new section, or granny flat. When the consents official turns to clause 1 of the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill, where it states that the land is a fish—and the law states that this is the law they need to take into account when making the decision as to whether people will be able to build their granny flats, approve their subdivisions, or have their farm sheds—my simple question to the member opposite Clayton Cosgrove, and to the lawyer amongst the Government benches, Russell Fairbrother, is how that consents official for the council is to make a decision that must take into account the new law that “this land is a fish”. Does it mean that Mr Cosgrove is more likely to give a consent for the farm shed?

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: You’ve gone troppo, Nick.

The member opposite can throw insults, but can he answer the question?

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I just said you’d gone troppo.

I am actually just asking the member a question. Perhaps as a Minister in this Government he might be able to answer it. If the member were a consent official for the Waitakere District Council and were considering a consent application, how would a law that states that “this land is a fish”—that is what we are proposing to pass—help his decision as to whether to grant a consent? That is what we are deciding; we are deciding what the instructions are that Parliament gives to the council official when he or she is making a resource consent decision.

I have to say, I do not think there is a member in this Committee who has the foggiest idea about how the new law in clause 1 that states that “this land is a fish” will help. I do not know any member of this Chamber who can explain how it will help.

💬 Hone Harawira: I do.

I am honoured to hear that. I would be happy to yield to Mr Harawira if he can explain to me, when the council official sits down to make a consent decision on a farm shed, granny flat, or new section—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I can’t take too much more of this.

Mr Clayton Cosgrove does not like it. He does not like an honest question. I know that Dail Jones is a lawyer, and I am not sure whether he would be able to tell me.

💬 Dail Jones: Lovely jubbly.

I think he is rubbing his hands with glee because he knows that the legal fraternity would be able to have a field day arguing what Parliament meant when it passed clause 1 stating that “this land is a fish”.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Dail’s taking your medication.

The member Clayton Cosgrove again decides to turn nasty and to make insulting remarks. He is the nastiest member in Parliament.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: You don’t have a sense of humour, Nick. Lighten up. Take some happy pills.

I am asking the member to explain to the Committee why passing a law that states that “this land is a fish” will somehow magically save the Waitakere Ranges. Is there any member in this Committee who would put up his or her hand and say “Yes, passing a law that states in clause 1 that ‘this land is a fish’ will protect the Waitakere Ranges.”? Does the member in the chair really, truly believe that passing a law that states in clause 1 that “this land is a fish” will suddenly protect the Waitakere Ranges?

💬 Judith Collins: Yes, she does.

She does?

Parliament is making a joke of itself tonight. Parliament cannot be expected to take seriously passing loopy law that states things like “this land is a fish”. The truth is that this bill is just spin. This bill is pure spin over substance. This bill will do absolutely nothing to protect the Waitakere Ranges. This bill will just add to the army of bureaucrats, to the pile of paper, and to all the frustrations that ordinary New Zealanders have about the bureaucracy that this Government has created, and continues to create, for absolutely no good. I simply challenge again any member opposite to really cut to the chase and explain how passing a law stating that “this land is a fish” will protect the Waitakere Ranges.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chairman. By way of explanation to Mr Smith, I think I had better clarify a couple of things. First of all, I think he needs to be careful about accusing this bill or the people associated with this bill as being loopy. Those sorts of things come back to bite people later on.

But in terms of clause 1, I would like to give the context to the comments that have been made. There are two parts. The first part will be in Māori, and the second part in English. “Whakarongo mai e ngā iwi ki tā te kōrero i mua, he ika tēnei whenua. Ko te tangata nāna i huti, ko Māui. Kei konei tonu ahau, ā, mate noa. Listen all of the assembled tribes, to this the talk of olden times, this land is a fish. The person who fished it up was Māui. I will remain here on it, indeed until I die:”.

That was a comment from Waitakere Chief Te Waatarauihi in his opening speech at the Kohimārama Conference in 1860. I just wanted to give a bit of context to the kōrero. I think Dr Smith belittled the statement by trying to draw something out of it and make fun of the whole bill, simply by doing that. He asked me to take the opportunity to speak to that issue, and I have.

On another note, I want to pick up on some of the comments made by Mr Dail Jones. I note also that he often makes reference to the fact that he is no relation to Shane Jones, and Shane would agree. I do not know of any of Shane’s relations who speak Māori as badly as Dail Jones does. It is constantly, consistently, and continuously bad, bad Māori. To make the assumption that he has made about Te Kawerau-a-Maki and to repeat those assumptions in this Chamber as if they were gospel and as if he is the person who wrote the gospel really does validate what he said earlier, that he has only just gotten off the plane. He is fresh off the boat and he does not understand a lot of the things he is talking about. It does not really matter what he has read; neither does it matter what he may have heard. The fact of the matter is that he talked about Te Kawerau-a-Maki and Ngāti Whātua as if they were unable even to sit in the same room—as if they were destined to be enemies for all time. He is absolutely wrong, of course.

💬 Dail Jones: They were.

The member did not say “were”; he said “are”. Te Kawerau-a-Maki and Ngāti Whātua have both signed up to this bill. The reason why the Māori Party is supporting this bill—and we were a bit wary of it in the early stages—is that we went back, right through the whole of the Waitakere area, and we consulted all of those Māori groups. We consulted Te Taumata Rūnanga, who are a Māori representative group within the council, we spoke to the representatives of Te Kawerau-a-Maki, and we spoke to the representatives of ngā marae e rima o Kaipara, the Ngāti Whātua representatives, as well as to the chairperson of Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Whātua, Naida Glavish. On the basis of their support for this particular legislation, the Māori Party was happy to come in behind it.

I have heard the Māori Party’s name get raised quite a bit, and I will just note too that that the comment referred to in the preamble, “Kei konei tonu ahau, a mate noa.”, is a comment that has been raised by a member of the National Party, Mr Chris Tremain, on a couple of occasions. I have heard him mention that statement. It is a very important statement and I did not realise that it came out of the Kohimārama Conference of 1860 and that it was referred to in the bill. It was a very, very important conference in terms of the status of Māori tribes right throughout the nation, and in particular in and around the Auckland isthmus. It was an important statement in terms of the relationship of the speaker to the lands in and around the Waitematā and the Waitakere Ranges, as well as further south into Manukau. It is important to hear that kōrero. I am glad to see it included in this bill, right at the top of the preamble, because it gives a sense of recognition of the importance of the Māori history to Waitakere and the importance of that statement in bringing together the various iwi of that area to support this bill.

The Māori Party is happy to support this bill on that basis. When it comes to the opportunity to vote for it, we certainly will be. Kia ora tātou.

I move, That the question be now put.

I am pleased to get the opportunity to speak on this bill, because although I do not live near the Waitakeres I do recognise the name and their significance, for reasons other than those that the members on the other side of the Chamber would have us remember them for. It is around the statement that my capable colleague the member Nick Smith made—it is the fish. Earlier, when we were having this debate around Part 2, it was said that when Māui pulled up the fish he had his foot firmly placed upon Kaikōura, and that is what gave him the leverage to be able to pull up what we know as the fish, the North Island.

But the point I want to make is that there is a considerable interest in what is being done in the Chamber tonight. It is with great interest that I heard one of my colleagues, Mark Blumsky, say that he would like to see this bill repealed when National becomes the Government. That is because there are many authorities throughout the country that will be looking at this bill when it is put into law, if that is the case, as being best practice and a good example of what should be done. They will not be able to be part of the process that has dragged out and split the community whereby a local bill has come to this House with barely fifty-fifty support, yet it has been sold as being the best-practice perfect model.

It is hugely concerning. We see, when we look back through all the debates on this side of the House, that it has been well argued that this is nothing more than notional and is not going to do something remarkable. It is full of platitudes and is quite condescending to the rest of New Zealand.

We look at this Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area as being made up of something that started 110 years ago. The preamble states: “The Park, protected at local, regional, and national levels, is an area of some 17 000 ha,”. I have heard my colleague Paula Bennett say that if there were some real courage and strength to people’s convictions, they would set this up as a national park. In actual fact, that would be more consistent because when we look at the Resource Management Act and at what it means, it does not achieve anything over and beyond that.

Banks Peninsula in Christchurch is a beautiful spot. However, it is also a large area of pastoral farming. Those farmers live in fear of this bill becoming law and impacting on them in such a way that they can no longer farm. There is every possibility that somebody in future Christchurch councils will have this notional idea that we should set up a heritage park on Banks Peninsula. For that matter, someone might have a view that we should set up a heritage park on the Kaikōura peninsula. I am sure that all the dialogue that is possible to be had will not satisfy the Māori people in Kaikōura.

What we are looking at here is a very, very sad case. The Waitakere Ranges in my day were recognised as being a great place, where Arthur Lydiard, Peter Snell, Murray Halberg, and those sorts of people went for their Sunday run. I used to go for a Sunday run on Banks Peninsula. We would go from the Sign of the Takahē, up over Governors Bay, Evans Pass, and then back around. There is every opportunity in the future for local authorities to impose this so-called best practice—which is like an illegitimate child that nobody wants to own—called the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area. It is of concern to New Zealanders and it is of concern to the very economy of this country. I am comfortable that members on this side of the Chamber have got it right. It is a clear example to all New Zealanders as to why this Labour Government must be voted out at the next election—the sooner the better. Then we can get some sensible laws that will take this country forward.

I firstly thank Hone Harawira for his contribution to the debate, in which he reflected on the historic Māori words spoken in 1860 that included the reference to “this land is a fish.” I want to make it plain to the member that I am quite respectful of those comments and their appropriateness. What I challenge the member on is whether the phrase is good law. There are many, many proverbs. For instance, I come from the Christian faith, and often these words are recited in church, and, indeed, they go right back to Jesus Christ: “This bread is my body.” Would I support a bill going through this Parliament that stated: “This bread is my body.”? No, I would not. Is that being disrespectful of the Christian faith? No, it is not. It is about having the good sense to know what is good law and what is bad law. The National Party is arguing tonight that such a reference in a history book about what was said at the time and references at public occasions to those historic words are all quite appropriate, but to put them in resource management law, from which people have to make decisions about whether to grant a consent, is a nonsense. It does not add value to the protection.

I challenge the Māori Party on this point. If the bill set up some clear specifics around what Māori want protected in the Waitakere Ranges, then it might make some sense, and the National Party might be able to support it. If the bill had a reference to a particular part of coastline, or a burial ground or urupā that people want protected, then, yes, that would make some sense. We would then understand what the law means. The problem is that the sorts of vague phrases that are in the bill make the law of this country a nonsense. They do not provide for clear decision-making and, what is worse, they actually lead to poor race relations in the sense that both Māori and Pākehā New Zealanders do not know the meaning of the law. There are fights in court, with nobody knowing what is meant.

I also want to reflect on the comments from David Cunliffe. He spent his entire speech thanking everybody, but he said one other set of words. He said that the reason we need this bill is that the Resource Management Act does not do a good job of dealing with cumulative effects. My question for Mr Cunliffe is this: if the Resource Management Act does not do a good job of dealing with cumulative effects—an extra section here, an extra section there, an extra house there, and an extra building there in the Waitakere Ranges—then why would the Resource Management Act work with cumulative effects in Canterbury, Banks Peninsula, the beautiful Marlborough Sounds, the beautiful Bay of Islands, an area like Hawke’s Bay, or an area like Golden Bay? I ask whether the member in the chair, Lynne Pillay, can explain it to me. If it is indeed the flaws in the Resource Management Act that do not allow the cumulative effects in the Waitakere Ranges to be managed properly, then why are we choosing only an area of less than 1 percent of New Zealand in which to fix the problem? If there is a problem with the cumulative effects and the way they are treated under the Resource Management Act, then surely we should fix it for all of New Zealand.

I ask the member in the chair whether she agrees with Mr Cunliffe that the reason for this bill is that the Resource Management Act does not deal well with cumulative effects. The member is absolutely silent. She has no idea. Well, either she agrees with him or she does not. Oh, she does not agree with him. She nods her head and she does not agree that that is the reason. Well, now we have the members of the Labour Government from the Waitakeres all over the paddock. Here, at the end of the Committee stage of the bill, they cannot even agree on why we need the bill.

I have to say that that is absolutely consistent with the position taken through the Committee stage and in the Local Government and Environment Committee. There is total confusion within the Government as to why we need this bill. Those members do not know why. It is solely an exercise in politics. They want to be able to run around during the election campaign and say that they saved the Waitakere Ranges, when those people who have any knowledge of this area of law know that it is a load of codswallop. This bill is solely about politics; it is not about providing good law. I think that the real problem for Labour is this: its environmental record is a dog. In the key areas it has not performed—

I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): John Carter has showed great interest in other clauses, so on clauses 1 and 2 he might like to take a call.

I appreciate having the opportunity to comment on this part of the bill. I wanted to take a call—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: How’s your mum?

Mum is fine. She has been listening to this debate intently. The thing that worries me with the fact that my mum is listening to this debate on the radio—and she listens intently to all the speakers in the House—is that she is absolutely confused by the message that has come from the Labour speakers. She is one of those people who think that Waitakere is important and should be looked after. She is absolutely confused, as is just about anyone else who has been listening to this debate and to the explanation for the bill.

You know, if there is one disappointment—and there are a number—above all else that we have found in this debate, it is that we have not had a lucid explanation from the proponent of this bill and from the members opposite who support it as to why we should have it. There has not been one good, lucid reason. If those members could say to us that the Resource Management Act does not work properly and, therefore, they will allow this, this, and this to happen, then we would have to listen to that debate—because one would. Everybody agrees that the Waitakere Ranges are important and should be looked after, but not one lucid reason has been put forward by members opposite to say that we need to have this bill.

Indeed, when we asked why we needed this bill in the first place and whether its purpose was to allow something else to happen that the Resource Management Act, the Local Government Act, or the Conservation Act could not do—all those questions were asked—we were told that, no, this bill did nothing, absolutely nothing, outside what was already in legislation. So I kept asking that question until, finally, it was confessed that the proponents of the bill, the officers from the local council, wanted it to be broader and that they had misled the Local Government and Environment Committee. I find that to be seriously worrying.

Then, of course, we had to go through various sections in the bill, and, with the agreement of the proponents of the bill and the Labour members, we all had to say—and we made sure—that the section does not override the Local Government Act, for example. That is now written in the bill. It is also stated that it does not supersede the Resource Management Act. That is written in the bill. It is so clear that everywhere we went we had to put in a clause to say that it was not outside the scope of the existing Acts.

Therefore, I come back to the question I started with: if this bill does not do anything special, if it does not do anything more, and if it does not allow anything to happen, then why do we have it? I know that my mother is sitting at home asking exactly the same question. She will be sitting there wondering why we are spending taxpayers’ dollars—her money—having this debate. She will be wondering why we are spending her money on a bill that does nothing. You know, the one thing my mum has always done is make sure, listening to her crystal set at home—[Interruption] Absolutely—she will be tuning it in. There will be a bit of static, but she will have it going. She will know how to fine-tune it. [Interruption] The point is that she will be seriously wondering why Lynne Pillay and other members of the Labour Party have bothered to waste the time of the House, her taxpayer’s money, and the money of her friends. Why on earth would we pass a bill that, at the end of the day, does nothing?

Let me tell my mum the reason. This bill is all about politics. It has absolutely nothing to do with achieving anything. It is all about Lynne Pillay and the other Labour members from west Auckland trying to get re-elected. They will be able to go out there and say: “Look what we did! Look at this!”. That is entirely what this bill is about. Actually, one of the things we should do—[Interruption] Of course those members are worried about our very good colleague Paula Bennett. They know she is a real challenge to them. One of the things we should do is to refer this bill to the Electoral Commission to see whether it fits in with the Electoral Finance Act. If we think about it we will see that it probably does breach that Act, because it is all about politicking.

As my colleague Tau Henare said, this bill is all about mana-munching. It is all about members trying to get their names in lights so they can go and say to the people of west Auckland: “Look at me! I’ve got my name on a bill!”. Well, it will not work, and they ain’t going to get re-elected. This bill will not save them. This bill will not help the people out in west Auckland. My good friend and colleague Nick Smith made a very good point when we said we would expect a local bill to have a very, very huge degree of support within the community. We would imagine that it would have at least 80 percent to 90 percent support. Sadly, this bill probably has the support of less than—but certainly not much more than—50 percent of the community.

Certainly, the weight of the submissions told us that this bill is not supported. More people submitted against the bill than for it. We sat in the select committee, day after day, listening to all the good people. Every submitter came along and said they supported the Waitakere Ranges. They want the ranges to be there; the ranges are their home. They said the ranges are in the pristine state they are in because they live there and they protect them. They said they are the guardians of the ranges and that they did not need the Labour Party members coming along on their big white horses and saying—

💬 Judith Collins: Their big silver BMWs.

Well, maybe—whatever the Labour Party members run around in out in west Auckland.

💬 Judith Collins: It’s true.

Is it? OK. That is something we do not have in the far north. Anyway, the point is that, unfortunately, the people in west Auckland said they do not need to have this Government—Lynne Pillay, and the other Labour members out there—writing law to protect them from themselves. That is because they are already protecting the ranges. They are very proud of that fact. Indeed, some of them showed us photos of the Waitakere Ranges 20, 50, and 100 years ago. The photos were of burnt-out fields of scrub, where trees had been chopped down, burnt out, or milled. Today the ranges are replanted with native trees. The investment that must have been put into that place by the locals is something they are all proud of. We can all be proud of that.

💬 Paula Bennett: Your mum would be proud.

I know my mother is seriously proud of that. She knows how proud the people are; that is the sort of thing my mum grew up with. The point is that she does not need to have this bill to fulfil her need to have the ranges protected. The fact is that, unfortunately, people will now be more and more sceptical as to what this is all about.

💬 Simon Power: Does the member’s mother have an amendment?

If my mum was here, she would want to put an amendment forward. It would be an amendment to do away with the bill. My mum reflects what a good number of the community out there are thinking. We would expect a local bill to have overwhelming support in the community, but one of the sad things is that that is not the case here. Mayor Bob Harvey knows that. The officers who supported this bill know that. The member in the chair knows that. She will answer this by saying that they did a survey across Auckland—

💬 David Bennett: Who paid?

It is not a matter of who paid for it. The question in the survey was: “Do you want to preserve the Waitakere Ranges?”.

💬 Paula Bennett: I said yes.

Who would not say yes? Who would say: “No, let’s mow them down and bulldoze them.” You’ve got to be kidding! Of course people will say they want to preserve the ranges. The fact is that the survey should have also asked: “Do you want a bill that interferes with people’s rights?”. If that had been asked, we may well have had a totally different answer. In fact, I know we would have. That is what this bill does—it interferes with people’s rights.

I remind the Committee that the member in the chair, when asked about the scope of this bill by my colleague Nick Smith, said that it sits over the Resource Management Act and the Local Government Act. We said: “Over? Does that mean it is bigger than the Resource Management Act—that is has more authority?”. She said she did not mean over it; she meant under it. We got to the stage where we did not know whether it was over it or under it. We could have been upside down. In fact, as I said before, I started to wonder whether I had to stand on my head to look at this bill to see whether I was over or under it, because I was not sure.

The sad fact is that this muddle reflects what this member thinks of the bill. It reflects the confusion, and it reflects the reason why my mother will be sitting beside her crystal set, listening through the static, and wondering why we are passing a bill when the member in the chair—who supports the bill and whose name it is in—does not even know whether it is over the Resource Management Act or under it. We seriously have to ask ourselves whether this Committee, on this bill, knows whether it is over it or under it.

I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): We have had 16 calls, but it is a members’ day. It is entirely over to the members at this stage.

Thank you, Mr Chairman, for allowing me to take a late call, and it will be a short call. I just want to make a couple of points. During the course of this debate—which I have been following very closely in my office while doing some reading on what I thought was an unrelated matter—it has become increasingly clear to me that the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill has been brought to the House and sponsored by a member who has no faith in the Resource Management Act. I think that is a great shame, and it is a very dangerous precedent for resource management and any kind of planning activity throughout New Zealand.

Although the member sponsoring this bill can argue that it is merely a local bill relating to the Waitakere Ranges—and I know that the matter of Queenstown has been raised in the Committee already this evening, and for good reason; it is a very special area also—I can see coming to this House in the future a “Remarkables Ranges Heritage Area Bill” or a “Maniatoto Ranges Heritage Area Bill”. What then for the integrity for the Resource Management Act? I too heard the arguments in the Local Government and Environment Committee. The question was raised as to where this so-called local bill sits in relation to the Resource Management Act, and whether it sits on top of or alongside the district plan. I do not believe we heard a straight answer then, and I do not believe I have heard a straight answer tonight.

To come to the main point of my short contribution tonight, I was sitting in my office reading about what I thought was an unrelated topic to do with South Island high country pastoral leases, and I came across some eerie and disturbing similarities. When I go to the commentary at the beginning for the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill, it states: “This bill has originated from the promoters’ view that a unique situation has developed in the Auckland area in that a nationally significant area of ecological, historical, and cultural value sits in close proximity to an expanding international city.” Then I go to a communication from a Mr Brian Usherwood, General Manager Business Support for the Minister for Land Information, the Hon David Parker, who wrote to a high country lessee: “The Government has announced changes to tenure review processes designed to protect significant lakeside landscape biodiversity and other values on pastoral lease properties.”

Hang on a minute, what happened to the Resource Management Act? What happened to the protections that are provided under the district planning processes of the Resource Management Act? Or is this Government so arrogant that it thinks it can just override the normal processes that have been consulted on and are part of district planning processes and long-term council community plans? Can the Government then, as with the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill, ride roughshod over those processes, just as it is doing with the South Island pastoral leases? It is exactly the same principle.

The point I make in this debate is that this Government has no faith in the Resource Management Act; thank goodness the National Party does.