National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill

There is only one brief call I want to take. It concerns a question as to whether or not this bill, the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill, requires a Treaty clause, and I think Mr Flavell is interested in the proposal. This is an empowering bill dealing with a whole lot of mechanistic matters and I just do not think that the Treaty is engaged. Certainly, at some stage I am interested in looking at the war memorial council bill, which will have a number of responsibilities over and above this park. That bill probably, appropriately, needs a Treaty clause in it, but certainly not one dealing with the mechanisms required to enable this park to be completed by Anzac Day 2015.

I have several matters to raise in this call, but I just want to pick up the point that the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage was just raising. The question of whether or not there should be a Treaty clause in the bill was dealt with in discussion at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and there certainly was some discussion about whether that was needed or required in this bill.

One of the important things to note, and it is one of the issues that I certainly myself raised in the select committee, is that the bill’s title does include in it the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill, and that is a reference, by the inclusion of the word “Pukeahu” in here, to the way in which that land is known to, particularly, the Taranaki Whānui and those who are part of the Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust. I do believe it is incumbent on this House to have some recognition of the important role that the Taranaki Whānui have played in this particular area. We were given in the select committee an excellent submission on behalf of the Port Nicholson trust by Liz Mellish, and she did go through some of the history of this area and the significance of the area for the Taranaki Whānui.

What the committee did was make specific recognition in the commentary on the bill around the important role that the Taranaki Whānui and the Port Nicholson trust have played in this area and, certainly, our belief that they must continue to play that role. They are involved in a number of places in this bill in their role as a landowner. In particular, the land immediately beside the Carillon is owned jointly, I think, by Massey University and the Port Nicholson settlement trust. So they do have a significant role. They should have a significant, ongoing role in the way that this park is developed, and I certainly hope that is something that the Government will pick up, given the support that the trust has given over the years for the war memorial, and obviously now, we hope, for the park. So on this side of the Chamber we would certainly like to note that an important part of this bill is the recognition of the role of the Port Nicholson trust and the Taranaki Whānui, and they certainly will have a role in a number of areas.

Now that we are taking the debate on this bill as one question, I just wanted to pick up several of the key changes that have been made throughout the bill. In a sense for me, as the local member where this park will be built, I have had concern throughout this process to make sure that, yes, we do everything that we can to see it built in time for the 100th commemoration of Gallipoli in April 2015, and that is an important thing. This park has widespread support in the electorate that I represent, and everyone who sat through the select committee process would have seen, with a couple of exceptions, that the submissions that came before us strongly supported getting this park built, and strongly supported getting it built in as quick a time as possible.

As I said in my second reading speech, this is not ideal legislation. I do not like the fact that the Government is passing empowering legislation that goes over the top of other Acts of Parliament, but from time to time there will be sufficiently nationally significant projects that require this, for whatever reason, and I will not rehearse those arguments again around how it is that we find ourselves in this position. We on this side of the Chamber feel more activity could have happened in the last 3 years, but it has not. We are now in the position of wanting to support the bill and get it through. But we do, in that context, have to make sure the community is as involved as it possibly can be.

The significant changes that I want to highlight are, in particular, the expansion of the role and the number of meetings of the community forum established under clause 36 of the bill. The two organisations that the committee has included are the owners of the Mount Cook Police Barracks and the Tasman Garden Body Corporate, which is on the other side of the intersection of Buckle Street and Tasman Street from the barracks. It is important that the local residents have a role in the development of this park, and a significant change we have made in the committee is to include that community forum having a role in the final design of the park. That is important to the people of the Mount Cook community. They want this park to be in their community and they strongly support the reasons for it, but it will change their community and in the process of it being developed it will severely disrupt their community. Therefore, they deserve the chance to have a role in its development.

So we are pleased that the community forum is being expanded. We are pleased that the number of meetings has gone up to at least three, and I would urge the Minister to make sure that that community forum meets as often as is needed and that there are other opportunities. The Minister and I discussed this in the second reading. There have already been some community meetings. I want there to be more. There was actually another community meeting last night, which discussed this in some depth—the Mt Victoria Residents Association annual general meeting, which the Minister in the chair was to have attended, but did not. He was not there. He will be thrilled to learn that a fake Mr Finlayson attended the meeting and offered a number of positions on his behalf. I am sure that he would warmly endorse those positions. There is a great deal of community interest in this bill, and I think that if we can see the community forum playing that key and important role, members on this side of the Chamber would be reassured.

The other area that I want to raise is the whole question around Orders in Council. Certainly, going into this bill, this was something that we on the Labour side of the Chamber wanted to ensure—that is, there were the right protections in place so that Orders in Council are seen as what they should be, which is as a last resort in the event that the extensive provisions contained in this bill are not enough to achieve the goals of the bill. That may occur from time to time, but if it does, the process of Orders in Council is such that we need to put all the protections possible in place to make sure that they are used only in that way.

That is what new clause 24(4) is about. It is the last resort clause. It mentions the fact that the Minister can go down the path of Orders in Council only if they have “considered all other reasonably practicable ways relevant to the particular circumstances to achieve the purpose specified …” in the legislation. The key phrase there is “all other reasonably practicable ways”. What that is signalling to the Minister under this Act is that they can use the Orders in Council process only when it is absolutely necessary, as an absolute last resort. I would hope that there will not be a great deal of need for that, because the schedules of this bill outline a very extensive set of regulation powers and consenting powers that are given under this Act. But if it is needed, that is the last resort clause.

The other part of that Orders in Council process is making sure that this Parliament has a role if that is done. The Minister has wisely set up a review panel so that any Orders in Council must go to that review panel. What we wanted and what I am pleased to say is now in this bill is that there will be a report back to this House every 6 months about what that review panel has done, what Orders in Council have come up. That is important. It will allow members of Parliament to know what is happening.

The other change that we made there was an extension around the disallowance process. This is actually to give members of Parliament the right to be able to oppose any of these Orders in Council, to actually give some proper time for that to be considered, so we have extended that out to 12 sitting days from the 6 sitting days that was originally in the bill.

From our point of view on this side of the Chamber, we are strong supporters of this memorial park. We believe that it will give New Zealanders the kind of place to reflect on the sacrifices people have made in war, to reflect on the impact of war. It will give green space to Wellington where it much needs it. It will be a place that Wellingtonians will be proud of. In terms of this legislation, we have to make sure that in giving the power to make this park happen, we also protect the rights of Wellingtonians and of New Zealanders more generally. I believe the changes that the committee has made make that happen, and on that basis we are happy to be supporting this.

I would like to pick up where my colleague Grant Robertson has left off, and say that there is widespread support for this bill, the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill. When Grant Robertson was talking about how important it is to his electorate, because it actually is in his electorate, I need to reinforce the fact that I think it is important across the whole of Wellington. But, even greater than that, because it is a National War Memorial Park, it is of significance to all New Zealanders, and I think it was made so by the return of the Unknown Warrior and the burial of the Unknown Warrior in that spot, signifying for all New Zealanders a place where we honour and we commemorate the loss of many lives during many wars.

There was widespread support during the hearing of this bill, including from the community but also from the Wellington City Council, and I think that was significant. My understanding is that Celia Wade-Brown, the Green Mayor of Wellington, supported this bill. In fact, there were only two councillors who opposed it. I think that probably shows the depth of feeling here in Wellington for this park and for the completion of this park.

I think it was unfortunate that during the select committee stage, although concerns were raised about the process, the Greens did take the position that they would oppose the bill. They want the park, but they oppose the bill. It seemed to me that that was a bit like having a bob each way—you could say you wanted the park, but you were not prepared to vote for it. I think it would have been really tremendous if this House could have had unanimous support for this bill. I understand the concerns about the process, but when I look at the work that was done in the select committee and the changes that were made to make the bill, in terms of the Orders in Council, as robust as possible and as transparent as possible, the Order in Council would be considered only as a last resort and all other reasonably practicable ways must be considered before an Order in Council. I think that the work that was done in terms of the review panel and extending the consideration up to 12 sitting days helped to strengthen the bill. I do not think there are many members in the House who want to see us not use proper process, but every now and then, in my experience, an occasion does arise where you can have a process that is not ideal but will be for the greater good. This was one of those cases when there was a need, I think, for the Parliament to say that this is a very good thing to do. This is good for Wellington, but it is also good for New Zealand.

Something that did concern me was that we could not get support across the House. It is no good saying you support it but then saying let it be built sometime in the future. There is a date required for the building of this, and we could argue, and we did argue in the select committee stage, that it ought to have been started sooner, that it ought to be finished in time for 2015 without the need for this legislation. The reality is it will not. We do want it for the 100th celebration commemoration of Gallipoli, and to do that, it may require that there has to be some action taken to speed up the construction of this park.

It is also of interest to me that in the original proposals and discussions with the former Mayor of Wellington, there was an idea that, in fact, the council would like to enhance Taranaki Street, which comes off Buckle Street, perhaps with a tree-lined avenue so that there would be a wide avenue that leads into the park. I would hope that at some time in the future that could be considered by the council. In fact, although you would still be driving up that avenue, it would kind of blend into the whole idea of the National War Memorial. I am not sure where the council sits on that now, but it was something that Kerry Prendergast was pretty keen on.

I think the work, as I said, done at the select committee has strengthened this bill. We strongly support it. We would like to see it passed as soon as possible.

My contributions to the debate around the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill, I suppose, have come from the perspective of veterans and what I have heard from the different veterans’ organisations about the necessity of completing the National War Memorial Park by 25 April 2015. It was instructive for me today, being, again, at the war memorial with the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs, Nathan Guy, the Minister of Defence, and the Prime Minister, acknowledging the contribution that New Zealanders made as part of Bomber Command, and particularly acknowledging those veterans who were not able to travel to the UK to participate in the commemorations over there. Again, today it was acknowledged by senior RSA representatives just how important it was to them that there was now certainty that the final addition to the National War Memorial would be completed, and it would be completed on time. Again, it was passed on to me personally how much it was appreciated that this was being supported by multiple parties—not just by the Government, but by many of the Opposition parties as well. That is what we should be focused on.

I suppose what I wanted to say is that having come to this debate with that perspective, it is important also to acknowledge the perspective of the other people who are involved in this as well, and that is, of course, the community who live around the National War Memorial, and the wider Wellington community. In a way, I suppose Wellington is a place that all New Zealanders feel we have a stake in. There are many buildings and spaces of national significance here in our capital city, and I can imagine that the Wellington community must sometimes feel a little put upon that everybody feels they have a stake and an interest in what goes on in Wellington and want to have a piece of any decision made about Wellington.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: That’s not a problem Palmerston North has.

Well, Mr Mallard makes a disparaging comment about my home town. I actually think there are many matters of national significance that go on in Palmerston North, and maybe that is something to address in another debate.

But it is important to acknowledge the perspective of the Wellington community. I think it is helpful to know that there is widespread support from the Wellington community not only for this bill but also for the way in which it is proposed that the community will be engaged through this legislation. There is a wide range of organisations and people who will participate in the community forum. Massey University, Mt Cook School, the National War Memorial Advisory Council, the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, the Wellington City Council, the Greater Wellington Regional Council, the Tenths Trust, and the Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust are just some of the organisations that will participate in the community forum, and there is an ability for the Minister to ensure that the interests of local residents and local road users are taken into account as well. That is important, to ensure that that community engagement is maintained. But what we have already seen through the select committee process is that there is broad support. So it is important to acknowledge that, and at this time that is really all I want to contribute. I may want to contribute more at some later point.

I move, That the Committee report progress.

Thank you. Can I have a temporary Chairman? I will ask Phil Twyford to take over. There is just a process here, members. We have to go back into the House.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Are you going to put the motion?

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I will put the motion. The motion is that we report progress.

Progress reported.

Report adopted.

House resumed.