Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill

It is a pleasure to rise to speak to clause 6 of the Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill. This is an interesting clause because it not only declares the land to be a recreational reserve rather than a historical reserve—and I know that the Local Government and Environment Committee debated that at some length, by the looks of the report from the committee—but also recognises in legislation for the first time the park as being named Parana Park and officially calls it Parana Park.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Wow!

Well, Tau Henare does not seem to understand the significance of this. It is completely obvious that National members have no interest whatsoever in what happens in Hamilton. They have absolutely demonstrated tonight that they do not take any interest whatsoever in what happens in Hamilton. It just shows the lack of influence that the local members have when their own caucus members will not even get up and support them in respect of this bill going through the House. They are not prepared to get up and support them at all.

I am very proud of the Labour caucus members who have supported Nanaia Mahuta and me by getting up and showing at every occasion just how important Hamilton is to them. I am really appreciative of that, and I thank my colleagues. I probably should have warned them a little earlier, though, that I am an administrator of a Facebook page called “Don’t bag Hamilton”. A few of those members were coming perilously close to being reported on that website, but they have pulled back from the brink now and have become very, very supportive of this bill, on behalf of the Hamilton people.

I want to come back to the issue of the name of the park, because I think it is really important. It came to my attention at the second reading, when my colleague Trevor Mallard pointed out that officially changing the name to Parana Park may not be as uncontroversial as it sounds. Although for a section of the community it has been known for many decades now as Parana Park, for other sections of the community that is not the case. Trevor Mallard said that Pūtikitiki is the name that the Māori community know Parana Park by.

💬 Hon Hekia Parata: Really?

I know that that is news to Hekia Parata. She does not know that. She has not heard of that before. But here we are legislating to officially change the name to Parana Park, yet, as Trevor Mallard pointed out earlier, we have not gone through the normal process of naming that we would do for every other piece of land. There is an Act of Parliament that governs how that is to be done, through the Geographic Board. That is normally how it is done. Yet, for some reason that has yet to be explained to me, we are departing from the process dictated by that legislation and we are instead officially recognising a name for a piece of land that has not gone through the Geographic Board process. I think we need to—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Whoop-de-doo.

Tau Henare says: “Whoop-de-doo.” I wonder what most Māori in New Zealand think of Tau Henare’s response: “It doesn’t matter if there is a Māori name. Let us just use our Pākehā institution to change the name to whatever we think it should be.” Obviously Tau Henare thinks there is no issue in being really careful in this Parliament about what we name important pieces of land with historical significance. Maybe that does not matter to Tau Henare, but I can inform the Committee that most serious members of Parliament who take this job seriously recognise that there is a point to a process, particularly when it comes to naming pieces of land that are important to us. We must take that very seriously. We cannot decide on a whim to call it anything we like. Would Tau Henare be happy if we decided to call this Smith Park? Would he be happy with that? Oh well, maybe Government members do have plans for the 0.4 of a hectare that has gone missing in the calculations. We still have not discovered what has happened to that, by the way. But perhaps we could call this Pūtikitiki, which is what Trevor Mallard understands it is being called.

I want to take a call on clause 6 of the Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill. It would be lovely also if Government members would take a call. They seem to be venting a lot of frustration about the fact that we are paying a lot of attention to this bill, clause by clause, tonight. There are two issues that I want to cover.

I am a bit disturbed at hearing from the banter across the Chamber tonight that Government members do not seem to care about the naming of this park; it is just preserving the status quo by calling it Parana Park in the new bill. I think my colleague Sue Moroney brought up a very good issue tonight. She said that the Geographic Board would have been the more appropriate place to put the naming of this park to. I am glad to see Pita Sharples look wisely across the Chamber, over his glasses, at me. As Minister of Māori Affairs I think he will be concerned, now that he has heard that the Waikato District Council just decided that tonight in clause 6 we will enshrine the name Parana Park. I have seen the Minister of Māori Affairs go: “My golly. Here’s a lost opportunity. My golly, I think I will get the Geographic Board to have a look at this. My golly, it could have been called Pūtikitiki. It could have been called Kirikiriroa.” There are many names.

An opportunity has been lost by this Government, as its members are demonstrating tonight. They are saying to push this through. They want to get on to the next item of business on the Order Paper. Well, Opposition members do not. We want to give this bill due concern and due consideration. I am pleased that I am receiving very good vibes from the Minister of Māori Affairs. He might just go to the Geographic Board. That board came up with “Whanganui”, which we think was a wonderful decision. In fact, when I was Minister of Conservation I too thought that a lot could be done about giving several areas in New Zealand their proper names—their names before Pākehā confiscation. That would have settled a lot of wrongs. But this Government is determined that we are going to look at huge Supplementary Order Papers, we are not going to get legal advice, we are not going to refer the marine and coastal bill back to select committee, we are just going to ram it through—that is why we are debating this bill tonight. I think that during the debate tonight we have brought up some wonderful points. I have seen Pita Sharples writing on his BlackBerry.

Let us have a look at this Parana Park bill. It is called the Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill, and I would like to see the Minister take up the opportunity to put a referral to the Geographic Board to say: “How the heck can some of these bills just include a roll-over name like Parana Park?”, which is what clause 6 does. I think that is a pity. The park was called Parana Park. Parana Park had its time and place. I say to Pita Sharples that this very park was on confiscated land, for goodness’ sake! It was ultimately freeholded, and that is how it got into George Parr’s ownership. He made a very generous and benevolent gift to Waikato, but this bill causes another opportunity to redress a wrong of the past. I think the naming as enshrined in clause 6 will cause some concern in the future. Tainui will look at it. This is not necessarily an uncontroversial bill, and I think that is why we want to debate it very vigorously.

Clause 6 also talks about the recreation reserve. It enshrines the recreation reserve. I think that has been rather charmingly done. I want to congratulate the Hamilton Beautifying Society—[Interruption]—if I can, I say to Mr Henare. It is nice to say thank you to those who have contributed positively. The society has done a lot of good voluntary work in Parana Park. It has built a children’s paddling pool.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Good on them!

I would not demean the society.

💬 Tim Macindoe: It’s been there all your lifetime.

That is what the Hamilton Beautifying Society did. Then it put a lovely picnic shelter where the stables were, and then a brick fireplace was built by the Rotary Club of Hamilton and presented to the Hamilton Girl Guides. Bless them.

I move, That the question be now put.

It is a pleasure to take yet another call on the Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill. We are now considering clause 6, but in looking at clause 6 I realise that clause 7 of the bar 1 bill has been incorporated into clause 6 of the bar 2 bill. I ask whether there will be a renumbering of the bill as it stands at the moment, in order that we do not jump from clause 6 to clause 8. I am fairly new to Parliament, but I would have thought that would be corrected when the final draft comes through. It is possible that the deleted clause 7 remains in the bar 2 bill just to show that it was originally there. Nevertheless, I wanted to bring that to the Committee’s attention as I start to talk about clause 6.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: There are some people whom I really like to listen to, and this guy’s not one of them.

I was just about to compliment you on your wonderful right arm over the wicket bowling action.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): The Chairperson—[Interruption]. I say to members that this is a debate, and the debate is addressed to the Chairperson. Private conversations are for the Ayes lobby, the Noes lobby, or Copperfields. This is a debating chamber. Debates will be through the Chairperson, and I do not have a fine overarm action. I invite the member to continue with his presentation on clause 6, which is the subject of members’ discussion.

Of course I do not believe that you have a strong overarm action, and hopefully not underarm either. The second issue I want to talk about in this clause comes back to the nearly half-hectare that disappeared as a result of this legislation coming through. One acre has disappeared from Parana Park.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: White man’s magic!

Well, I would like to ask David Bennett whether he could investigate that, and find out where that 1 acre has disappeared to.

I was reading through some of the history that has been supplied to us, and some of the submissions that were given to us, and I was particularly looking at the submission by Laura Kellaway. It was an excellent submission, and it is relevant to this park. I note that she mentioned the property that George Parr gifted included the house. She stated that the house probably dates from 1906 to 1910, and has been fenced off for many years, and has been used by the council park staff. That is interesting in itself, but it would have been nice to know whether the house, as well, is part of Parana Park.

The questions I am posing to the member in charge of the bill are, firstly, what has happened to the 0.4 hectares, and, secondly, what is happening to the house. It occurred to me, as I was looking at that material, that perhaps the area around the house might be the 1 acre that we have lost somewhere in the course of this debate. I do think it is an important point. We understand that the house is being used by the council staff themselves. It might be useful to know.

I move, That the question be now put.

I stand on behalf of all descendants of Hoturoa, the chief of the Tainui waka, to address the travesty of justice that is being perpetuated in the Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill by it calling this park Parana Park. We do not know where that name came from. We descendants of the Tainui waka know that this sacred tūpuna ancestral land has been known for mai rānō, since time immemorial, as Pūtikitiki, not Parana Park. We do not know where the name Parana Park came from. Someone named it that back in 1920-something, when old George Parr passed away. Although I was born and bred in Ngāpuhi and am from way up north, I also draw on my Tainui links, and I stand here on behalf of Tainui and say that I think Tainui should have had a say in the name of this park. This bill will vest this piece of land, otherwise known as “David Bennett’s Farm”, in the Hamilton City Council, and it will be known as Parana Park. It is a travesty of justice that we do not recognise its ancestral name of Pūtikitiki.

I heard Tau Henare opposite, my whanaunga, with his northern dialect, say that he thought the name was “Pūtikotiko”. Well, I tell you what, that means something totally different, so I want to make clear that the proper pronunciation is “Pūtikitiki”. Parana Park can be pronounced Parāna Park or Pārana Park. I was a bit scared they might call it “Panana Park”, which means “Banana Park”. If we can call it just anything, such as Parana Park, why do we not call it “Panana Park”, “Pa Park”, “Bennett Park”, the “Bennett Farm”, or the “Bennett Homestead”? After all, it is a memorial to David Bennett. As has already been mentioned in the Chamber tonight, this bill is his greatest achievement in 5 years. He is even reputed to say that this beats his passing School Certificate back in 1982.

We need to address this issue. Pūtikitiki is the ancestral name of Parana Park, but because of this bill it will be known as Parana Park. I think it is right that we acknowledge the ancestral name, the true name, of that piece of land. The bill has probably progressed too far now to change that but let us at least acknowledge it. We did kick up a big stink over the whole Whanganui/Wanganui debate, and how we as Māori were really particular about the “h” in the name. Our whanaunga opposite Tau Henare says who cares that it is not named Pūtikitiki, and that it will be known instead as Parana Park. That is a bit of a laugh, because we went to all those lengths to make sure Whanganui had the “h” put into it and was not spelt Wanganui. I remember the debate about Michael Laws when he got stuck into those kids from Ōtaki School who dared to challenge him on the whole adding the “h” thing. We stood up and defended those kids and their belief that their ancestral names and the correct names should be used. Here we have Tau Henare, my whanaunga from up north, saying who cares about Pūtikitiki—let us call it Parana. We know that Tau Henare wants to get home tonight and he wants this debate to end. He is tired; he is jaded. We have been sitting for a good day and a half this week and he is feeling a bit jaded from all the work.

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: He’s trying to bulldoze the House.

My colleague Steve Chadwick is right. But I have to admit that we in Labour do enjoy his interjections, because they makes us feel lively and really want to keep going. They make us really want to get into this debate and to continue on. There are four more clauses to this bill that we are happy to debate.

I think it is important that we recognise that Parana Park does have a Māori name, a name from way back, and it is Pūtikitiki, not Pūtekoteko, not Pārana, or Panana, or anything else. The name Pūtikitiki is the name that the ancestors of the Tainui people bestowed upon this piece of land. I will not carry on too much longer. I just wanted that point to be well and truly made. Kia ora.

I will address some of the detail of clause 6 of the Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill, which is all about the council being able to hold the land as a recreation reserve. Clause 6(1) refers to the Reserves Act 1977 and states that Act applies now to the land as if the council had declared that the land be held for the purposes of a recreation reserve under section 14 of the Act. Section 14 of that Act states that a “local authority may … declare any land vested in it to be a reserve”. That is all about ensuring that local authorities have the power to set aside portions of land as reserve land that is available to all of the citizens that fall under their authority. It is very much about providing a service for the public, which everybody is able to access. Section 14 of the Act also refers to other sections, sections 17 through to 23. Those are the sections that lay out the type of reserve that a council will vest a piece of land as being. The choice was made for this land to be a recreation reserve under section 17 of the Act.

Earlier in the debate we questioned why the Local Government and Environment Committee chose a recreation reserve over a historic reserve, which is allowed under section 18 of the Act, and which a number of submitters had suggested would be possible. But if we look at those parts of the Act we see that it does make sense that Parana Park be a recreation reserve rather than a historic reserve. Recreation reserves are classified as being reserves “for the purpose of providing areas for the recreation and sporting activities and the physical welfare and enjoyment of the public, and for the protection of the natural environment and beauty of the countryside,”, and a range of other provisions, as well, which would be shared with a historic reserve. But historic reserves, on the other hand, are classified as being reserves “for the purpose of protecting and preserving in perpetuity such places, objects, and natural features,”.

If we go back to the original purpose that George Parr had for this land, we see that it was very much to be a space that was accessible to everybody for recreation. It was to be a place where children could play as well as having the building in which children could convalesce. That was his original purpose, and I think that although this bill ultimately overrides his final will and testament, the desirable outcome is that we stick as closely to his original intentions as possible. So having a recreation reserve that is available for all of the public is appropriate.

There were other choices available for Mr Parr. He did not have to offer that land up for the public. He could have kept it in his family, he could have had it sold on for private personal gain, or he could have denied the public access to it. But, no, he chose to do something quite different from that. He did something that was—frankly, I suppose there is no better way to put it than this—for the many and not the few. That was a laudable outcome, I think. It is great that we had someone as far back as that who was thinking in those terms. Clause 6 reinforces that.

There is some controversy about the name that has been chosen. We have traversed that quite extensively. Often these areas of land are known by common terms that are accepted by the people in the area, though the names are not a legal term and have no legal strength. But clause 6 says this area will be known as Parana Park, despite the fact that there are a number of different options and probably a number of different ways that people will continue to refer to the land. One can legally change the name of something.

I move, That the question be now put.