Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill

Thank you, Mr Chair. You have reminded us that we still have not found that missing 0.4 hectares, which I believe probably add up to about an acre. Before the end of play tonight it would be really great to find out what has happened to the 0.4 hectares, if the member in charge of the bill would please enlighten us. It is obvious from the contributions of Labour members that it is of concern to the Labour Opposition. We are supporting the bill, so we want to make sure that our votes are being cast in good faith. We are placing some trust in the member on this issue, but to be fair we would like to know before the close of play tonight the situation with regard to the missing land.

Clause 8 is interesting, in that the Hamilton City Council is ensuring that it does not have any unforeseen financial liabilities as a result of having this land vested in it. It is interesting that Hamilton City Council had some real foresight in drafting this particular provision. Did it ever see this National Government coming! The council really worked out what this Government would be up to. The first thing the council has said is that it wants to make sure that the land, by being gifted to, and now vested in, the council, does not draw gift duty. We know that the National Government announced some time ago that it would get rid of gift duty. We have not yet seen any legislation come back before the House that I recall.

💬 David Bennett: Yes.

We have? Has it had its first reading?

💬 David Bennett: It’s before its second reading.

No, I am sorry; I do not recall it. I am relying on the member in charge of the bill, David Bennett. I remember that the Hon Peter Dunne made some grand announcements about getting rid of gift duty, but I do not recall having seen a bill be introduced to do that yet. Labour has made its position on gift duty clear. We do not believe that it should be abolished, and here we are with the council saying it does not want it. The council wants to make sure that it does not get landed with gift duty from the vesting of the land in the council.

Subclause (b) of clause 8 is even more interesting, as it is about making sure that the vesting of the land is not subject to GST and to the Goods and Services Tax Act. Did the council ever see what the National Government would get up to! I am sure that when the council drafted the bill, most of New Zealand still believed that when John Key promised he would not put up GST, he would not. Most of New Zealand still believed that to be the case when the council drafted the bill. But the council has it worked out here that it could not trust what John Key said at election time. The council knew then that it could not trust him.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Visionary.

It was absolutely visionary. The council has absolutely made sure that it would not be subject to the increased GST that the National Government landed upon everyone in this country from 1 October last year.

I imagine that the council was probably drafting this bill before the 2008 election. For the bill to have reached this stage, it must have been drafted before this Government came into office. In this bill the council was making absolutely sure that it would not be subject to any increased GST rate from an incoming National Government, even though at the time when it was drafting this bill it would have been hearing the then Leader of the Opposition, John Key, saying that if he was elected as Prime Minister, there would be no increase in GST. The city council probably would have heard those words. Clearly it heard what John Key was saying, but it did not trust him. It did not trust him at his word, because when the council was drafting this bill it made doubly sure that it would not be pinged with National’s increased GST by having this land vested in it.

If only the rest of New Zealand had had the wisdom to see what the Hamilton City Council saw then. If other people had been able to look into the eyes of John Key when he promised not to increase GST and had had the wisdom to think that he did not mean that, then families would not be facing the increased costs that they face today, with every single thing that they buy having an increased rate of GST on it—petrol prices, food prices, you name it.

We are coming towards the end of the debate on the Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill, but I wanted to take a quick call on clause 8. As we pointed out before, clause 7 has quietly disappeared into the miscellaneous provisions.

Clause 8 refers to the vesting of land and explicitly states: “Vesting of land not gift, supply of services, or disposition, for certain purposes”. The “vesting of land” is referring to the trusts of the last will and testament of George Parr. Clause 5 refers back to that trust, and I was wondering what sort of trust it might be. I can almost guarantee that it would not be a blind trust he was able to dip into every now and then for whatever he wanted. This would have been one of those trusts that he set up as an honourable man, as a man with vision, as a man with real compassion for his community, and as a man who saw the need, for example, for a rail link to Auckland. This was a man whom we could easily vote in as Prime Minister, for example. This was a man who had a legal trust and had vision. He probably had a plan as well.

This bill vests this land to ensure that it is vested in the council for the people of Waikato, and, in particular, the people of Hamilton.

I touch on clause 8(b), which states that the vesting of land will not be subject to the Goods and Services Tax Act 1985. This clause makes the land—as I read it, anyway—one of the few exceptions in this country where people will not have to pay GST on something. Everybody else in the Hamilton area is paying GST on fuel prices and on their groceries, which they are barely able to afford. In this bill we see an exception being made. It is a correct exception, but nevertheless an exception that does not apply to the rest of the people of New Zealand. The rest of the people of New Zealand are paying their GST and being promised that they will be recompensed by a reduction in income tax, but they realise they are being cheated in that regard, and that the people at the other end of the scale—the rich people in this country, and I include the Prime Minister in that group—are earning $1,000 more a week as a result of that tax cut.

The third point I raise is the fact that the vesting of this land has the agreement of Waikato-Tainui. We talked about the fact that this land is descended from the raupatu in 1863. This land is actually historically taken land.

Progress reported.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m.