Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill

I am very pleased to speak on the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill, specifically looking at clause 5. I want to raise just a couple of points, first, about the bill. I want to acknowledge the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, Nicky Wagner, but, importantly, I also want to acknowledge Jacqui Dean because I think, as I have said before in this House, she has done a lot of work on this bill. It has been an important local issue. We know there were a number of issues that related to the Palmerston Showgrounds and Lot 1, DP 345820, but one of the issues that is relevant to Supplementary Order Paper 150, which Eugenie Sage has put up, is about the section of land referred to as Lookout Point.

I want to go now to what the findings of the select committee were with regard to this land, and I want to say that I think this issue has been settled. Not only has there been another piece of legislation before the House that has looked at this issue, and not only did we hear a number of submissions, but also we had several Government agencies looking at this, including Land Information New Zealand, the Department of Conservation, and the Commissioner of Crown Lands. We have also had submissions from the council on this issue.

I want to touch specifically on the commentary regarding Lookout Point and raise this issue. Obviously, there was an issue about what the status of that land was, and what we found with regard to this matter was that “In 1937, by Order in Council, the Lookout Point land was set apart as reserves for an endowment in aid of the funds of the Oamaru Borough Council and, erroneously, made subject to … Title was issued in 1942 to the land now comprising Computer Freehold Register …”—I am not going to mention the name. I think we did settle this issue, and from my perspective the select committee spent a lot of time going through the records via Land Information to resolve it.

I acknowledge that Eugenie Sage has this Supplementary Order Paper, but I think it has been made very clear that the confusion of the status did arise out of semantics, that the land was reserved as endowment in 1885, and that it was not intended that the land itself be classified as a reserve. It was the case that we received extensive advice on this, and this is based not only on the evidence of submitters but also on the advice from officials. So although I understand that there has been a long history to this issue, I really believe that not only has the local member done a huge amount herself locally but also the select committee, on another piece of legislation, has looked at this issue thoroughly. We have found that we believe that the confusion arose out of semantics.

I understand that the Supplementary Order Paper is here today because Eugenie Sage—and I am interested to hear what she says on the matter, but it is quite difficult to see how that Supplementary Order Paper can be before this House, given that we have had evidence from so many different agencies, given that they have gone back through the records, and given that we have had another parliamentary process around it. I do believe that this issue is an important issue locally for the people of Ōāmaru, and I do believe that, through this bill, Parliament has the opportunity to clarify the status of this land. Through substantive evidence we have come to the conclusion, as I said before, that the confusion arose out of semantics. From that advice we have concluded that Lookout Point is not a reserve, and we have confirmed it as being vested in an endowment in the council in aid of borough funds.

I realise that it is a long road to have got here. I respect the submissions that have come to the select committee. I respect the fact that one member of the select committee has taken a different view, and I am interested to hear that, but I think that for the people of Ōāmaru and for the local member, Jacqui Dean, who spent a lot of time working on this issue, this issue has been resolved, and that it is important that members of Parliament recognise the huge amount of evidence and the huge amount of work that has been done by a number of Government agencies to clarify the status of that land. I am confident that we can finally settle this issue by the bill addressing the clerical error made in 1937, and by clarifying the status of the land as an endowment.

I am pleased to say that I do support this clarification for the people of Ōāmaru, for the fact that there has been so much resource gone into this—[Interruption] Members opposite laugh—members opposite laugh—but, actually, it was a very collaborative process, and many people have put energy into clarifying this. When I say that it is important for the people of Ōāmaru, I ask members to go back through the press clippings, as I have, to see how often this issue has been raised and to see that it has been going on for a long period of time. It is time we resolved this issue once and for all. That is what we are doing through this bill, through an evidence-based process. I am pleased to support this bill.

Tēnā koe. Yes, the Green Party is not supporting this bill because of the way in which this whole issue of Lookout Point has been dealt with. I certainly recognise the previous speaker, Nikki Kaye, and the considerable time and effort that the Local Government and Environment Committee went to to look at the evidence. But the Green Party has been convinced more by the submissions that were put forward by the residents of Ōāmaru and the evidence that they brought—particularly people like Mr Monks and Helen Stead—that the initial decision to vest the land as a reserve was not made in error. That was indicated by their evidence, the photographs, that showed that the land was treated throughout the 1890s and the early 1900s as a reserve in terms of Arbor Day plantings and for other recreation, and that it had been treated that way by the council by being designated in the council plan as a reserve, until that designation was uplifted in order for the council to proceed with the Forrester Heights subdivision.

So it is an issue of principle, because the council, in deciding to proceed with that subdivision, which would raise funds for the restoration of the Ōāmaru Opera House, did not consult well with its community. It went through a non-notified resource consent process. So there is a considerable amount of resentment amongst people in Ōāmaru who care about this land, who use it for recreation, and who enjoy the views that it provides over the town and over the harbour, that the council proceeded on a non-notified basis. When that consent lapsed, the council proceeded to renew it so that it did not lapse, and none of this was done with any opportunity for the public to get involved.

Clause 7 of this bill would, by making the land endowment land, allow the council to proceed with the subdivision, and to sell it. So Supplementary Order Paper 150 in my name changes that clause so that it would not see the land as being endowment land for the council to dispose of. It would remain as reserve land, because there is substantial public value and community value in this land remaining administered by council and open to all, rather than being subdivided.

It is unfortunate that the Ōāmaru Opera House has not got other sources of revenue that could be used for its restoration. It is also interesting that members opposite are very supportive of the protection of heritage in Ōāmaru, but we do not see that same commitment in Christchurch, in terms of the way the Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Act legislation has been used to expedite the destruction of heritage there.

But we have had a difficult issue in front of the select committee with natural heritage in terms of Lookout Point and its recreational values, as against the historic heritage of the white stone buildings and the council wanting to free up some money to restore those. But that is why we are opposing this part of the bill in relation to Lookout Point, and that is why the Supplementary Order Paper is there: so that the council cannot just dispose of it and go ahead with the subdivision that it has resource consent for.

Just very quickly, in reply to the member Eugenie Sage’s speech on Supplementary Order Paper 150, treating land as a reserve over a period of time does not make it a reserve, and that is exactly what this bill, the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill, is addressing. I think that the comments on issues around the district plan are a red herring, because what this bill does is deal with the status of the land, and the status of the land only. This land cannot remain a reserve, because it never was a reserve. Thank you.

Seldom do I disagree with the work and comments of Eugenie Sage—she is a thorough member and is very knowledgable—but on this particular clause, clause 5, I believe that she is wrong. I understand the issue of principle, and I absolutely agree that the consultation process by the Waitaki District Council was poor. In fact, we told its representatives when they came to the Local Government and Environment Committee that their consultation process had been poor. I do not think anybody on the select committee would disagree with that. But at the end of the day that is not a good enough reason to not support this bill, because it has been 2 years in the making. Well, probably longer than 2 years, but 2 years before coming to this House, at least, so I think it is time that it was resolved and finished.

I understand the member in the chair, Jacqui Dean, wanting the opportunity to act as a Minister, because this will probably be her only opportunity to be sitting there in the Committee chair, and I understand her wanting to drag it out. What I do not really understand is why she would want to do that, in that there is agreement with her on this bill. We support the work that she has done. We congratulate her on bringing a bill to this House.

I do believe that the select committee did a lot of thorough work to ascertain the status of the piece of land that was in dispute, Lookout Point. There is no doubt that there was confusion in the evidence, and confusion over what had happened there, and there were a number of submissions put to us that raised doubt about the status of this land, whether it was endowment land or whether it was reserve land. At the end of the day, I had to believe what was told to us by officials who went away, who did the legal checks, who went through the historic records, and who came back and assured us that the decisions we were making were the correct decisions. You might not agree at times with everything officials say, but we did send them away, not once but several times, to get us more information about this piece of land. We wanted to make the best possible decision, and I think that we have made the right decision about the only controversial part of this bill, and that is the status of Lookout Point.

The last thing I would like to say is that I want to commend two people who made submissions to the select committee, Warren Crawford and Barry Monks. I know that some on the Government side were a little scornful of Barry Monks because he was a Labour Party—

💬 Maggie Barry: The failed Labour candidate.

Thank you, Maggie. I was going to say it myself—I did not actually need your help—because I am not ashamed of the fact that Barry Monks was a Labour Party candidate. I do not know whether that means that anything he says is wrong, but, if Maggie Barry had read his submission, she would have seen he did an incredible amount of work. He went into the records, he went to Dunedin, and he searched to try to get the right information about this bill. I want to commend Barry Monks for his submission. I am sorry that at the end of it, it did not stack up because there was one fundamental mistake in what the whole argument was premised on. That was that he believed a bill had been passed that, in fact, changed the status of the land, or secured the status of the land. In fact, the bill never came to the Parliament, it was never passed, and, therefore, the premise on which he was basing his argument did not stack up. That does not mean that it was not a very good submission, and I thank him—

💬 Maggie Barry: It wasted a lot of time.

Goodness me! For the people who are listening—Maggie Barry, who has not stopped interjecting through the whole of my speech, is saying that democracy is a waste of time. Well, we do not believe that it is. We believe that democracy is a very important part of our system here in this Parliament. Barry Monks and Warren Crawford took the opportunity to go to the select committee, present a submission, and appear before the committee. In fact, they appeared through telecommunications rather than in person—we are so modern in our committee. Maggie Barry—that is democracy, and they have the right to do that. We should be applauding them.

💬 Maggie Barry: He was wrong.

It is not, as she is interjecting, a waste of time. It was a very important submission. We would like to see this bill passed. There are only seven clauses. The member has had the chance to stand up and be a Minister. Let us get it over and done with.

I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill. Likewise, we are concerned only about this land at Lookout Point, overlooking Ōāmaru township. The rest of the bill we are happy with, but it is this main contentious piece of land.

I think that what people have to remember is the fact that this is not just about bits of paper, it is not just about legal technicalities, and it is not just about who was right and who was wrong. This is about a physical piece of land that has been there since the 1800s. This land has been there, overlooking the township, and laid out by generations gone before us for the future of that town, but has been used by the people of Ōāmaru and of the district for more than 130 or 140 years as an open piece of reserve.

Therefore, four or five generations of people have always had the expectation and the understanding that that open, large piece of land was for public use and for the public of Ōāmaru to use. It went up to Lookout Point, and it formed part of the extension of the very extensive Lookout Point piece of land. Therefore, quite rightfully, there is a significant portion of the community who today say that it is wrong that it be carved up and turned into a subdivision for a short-term gain of $3 million or thereabouts of profit in order to plough the $3 million into upgrading the Ōāmaru Opera House. Once the $3 million is gone, and the land is gone, and there are hundreds of houses on what was a 100-year-old reserve it will never be there again.

As I have said in this House before, councils all over New Zealand are constantly trying to acquire more land, and trying to acquire more public reserves. Just the other day Auckland Council announced that it had just bought a large piece of land up at Pakiri, north of Auckland. It is a very sizable piece of land—several million dollars worth—which will be a huge improvement to the park area, and the council is very proud of it, and Aucklanders will be very proud of having that additional reserve land under public ownership.

I know that many MPs often do not get involved in this, because they do not get involved in local government. It is something quite foreign to them. But those who have been in local government know how important it is to have reserve land in public ownership, and how much effort goes into buying public land for reserve purposes. For an expanding population—and New Zealand, when I was a child, had 2 million people and it has now got 4.5 million—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I didn’t realise the member was that old.

You did not realise who was that old?

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: You.

Yes, there were 2 million people—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Two million people?

Yes, there were 2 million people when I was a child.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: You’ve worn pretty well.

Exactly; I have. So now that our population is growing and is heading towards 5 million, and in another 20 or 30 years it will be 6 million, open reserve land becomes more and more and more precious. In a township like Ōāmaru, where there are significant numbers of people saying: “We don’t want that lovely big ridge of land that overlooks the town being chopped up and turned into houses for a short-term gain.”, I tend to fall on the side of those who are there to protect the land and keep it in perpetuity for our future generations.

I think there was enough doubt, even though the officials said that after analysing everything it seemed to be that it was an endowment piece of land, rather than a reserve piece of land. There still seemed to be a certain area of doubt there, and it was basically down to interpretation. I think that if you threw enough Queen’s Counsel and learned people at this you could come up with different answers at the end of the day.

Therefore, in that respect, where there is an element of doubt and where there is a significant element in the community saying: “We want to keep our land and we want to preserve it.”, I tend to err of the side of the reserve. New Zealand First, likewise, does not believe that it is in the interests of the area of Ōāmaru to start carving off reserve land for houses.

Firstly, I want to commend the member of Parliament for Waitaki, Jacqui Dean, for the work that she has done on this bill, the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill, but, more particularly, for the work that she does for her absolutely huge electorate. She is one of this Parliament’s most effective local members of Parliament. The way that she has championed the cause of this bill on behalf of the Waitaki District Council speaks volumes, and I am not surprised at all that she has got a majority about the size of Mount Cook in her electorate for a seat that was once held by members opposite.

I want to comment quickly on a few of the issues specific to Lookout Point. I actually want to commend Annette King for her thoughtful contribution and her comments about officials. Annette and I do not agree on everything, but we do have respect for officials. We on the Local Government and Environment Committee, as a select committee, gave them very specific instructions. We said “Provide us clarity about the origin of this land.”, and they came back—not conditional, not saying there was any doubt, but absolutely definitive—and their advice was that this was endowment reserve for the local authority. On that basis Annette King has, quite honourably, said “Look, we accept that.”, and that is why Labour has taken its position on the bill. I commend the Labour Opposition for taking that principled stand.

I want to particularly challenge the Greens and New Zealand First, because I have witnessed so many speeches in this Chamber in which they stand up for local democracy. That is what they say they stand for. Here we have the locally elected council, the Waitaki District Council, coming into Parliament and saying “We think the best use of this land for our community is for it to be a subdivision, and for the council to be able to enjoy the $3 million that it will receive for the sale of this land to be able to offset the debt and the rates of its communities.” And here we have the arrogance of the Greens and New Zealand First saying that they know better than the Waitaki District Council. How many votes did the Green Party and New Zealand First get in the Waitaki community that they believe they can veto the view of the local council? It is truly arrogance from those two parties. Really, their view on local democracy is that if councils agree with them, then of course they will back them, but if they disagree with them, they should veto them. That is effectively the position that New Zealand First and the Green Party are taking in respect of their double standards.

I also want to commend my colleague Maggie Barry from North Shore, because there is something that she understands that Andrew Williams will never understand—that is, time is money. Time is money. You see, when you have got a piece of land that is worth $3 million, every week of delay is a cost to that local authority of $3,000—$3,000 every week. That is the cost. We know this from Mr Williams’ experience in North Shore, where rates went up so hugely. We know that in North Shore there was an appalling record in terms of delays in getting resource consents and building consents—incredibly slow and bureaucratic—and that there is no understanding from either the Green Party or the New Zealand First Party that time is money and that we need to progress these things on so that there is not that expense. That applies to resource consents, that applies to building consents, and that applies to the passage of this bill. That is why the member in the chair, Jacqui Dean, and my colleague Maggie Barry from North Shore have had the view that we need to get on and deal with these issues in a timely way, because every week that we delay is a cost to the ratepayers of Waitaki of $3,000.

The very last point I would wish to make on this bill is to ask why it is that members in the Green Party and New Zealand First do not trust the locally elected council.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 150 in the name of Eugenie Sage to clause 5 be agreed to.