Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill

I seek leave for this debate to be taken as one part and for the questions to be put separately at the debate’s conclusion. [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Sorry?

💬 Kevin Hague: This is a third reading, Mr Speaker.

I do apologise; I got ahead of myself.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): OK. Thank you. So the member is clear now? OK.

I move, That the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill be now read a third time. This bill is a local bill sponsored by Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean. Jacqui is very disappointed that she cannot be here today, and wants to thank the submitters, the officials, and the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee for all their hard work. She is very pleased that we have got here to the third reading. It has been a very interesting and complex bill, and everyone has worked pretty diligently to get it right.

The purpose of this bill is to revoke the reservation of two pieces of land within the Waitaki District and to clarify the status of the third piece of land. The first two pieces, the Palmerston Showgrounds and Lot 1, DP 345820, are sections and they are straightforward revocations of the Reserves Act status. In the case of the Palmerston Showgrounds section, it will allow the Waitaki District Council to sell the land to the current lessees.

In the case of the lot 1 section, it will allow Waitaki District Council to regularise the sale of the section to the current registered proprietors and allow title to their property to be unencumbered by any notation relating to the Reserves Act.

But it is the third piece of land that is much more controversial, and that is what the committee spent its time on. This piece of land is known as Lookout Point, or Forrester Heights, and the bill is made to correct a historical error. This error was caused by a combination of factors, but was mostly to do with semantics. The committee received and considered 27 submissions and it heard seven submissions orally, and by a majority it recommended that the bill be passed.

I would just like to talk a little bit about Lookout Point. The land was originally purchased by the Government from Ngāi Tahu in 1848 as part of the Kemp purchase, and this land was included in the original subdivision of the town of Ōāmaru. In 1885 the land was set aside as an endowment in aid of funds for the benefit of the then Oamaru Borough Council—now the Waitaki District Council—in accordance with section 38 of the Land Act 1877 Amendment Act of 1884. So it went back a while.

There was an administrative oversight in 1937, and at that stage this piece of land was mistakenly vested to the now Waitaki District Council as a reserve. Reserve status and endowment status are two completely separate concepts, and this might not have been fully appreciated in 1937. So originally it was an endowment and was reserved as an endowment, and then it transferred to become reserve land. This bill will simply address the clerical error made in 1937 by clarifying the status of the land as an endowment.

This background sounds reasonably straightforward now that we have sorted it out, but it actually took a lot of time, energy, and research to make sure that we got it right. I would really like to thank the officials for their painstaking work. I really appreciated the fact that as new information came we requested them to go back and check, double-check, and even triple-check the documents because we wanted to be absolutely sure that we got it right. This confusion has gone back to 1937, it goes right back to 1884, and we wanted to clarify it completely.

It gives us great confidence that everyone—Land Information New Zealand or LINZ, the Department of Conservation, Ngāi Tahu, the Commissioner of Crown Lands, and the Parliamentary Counsel Office—agrees that our conclusion about the status of the land is correct. That is ticks all round—everybody agrees.

Over the years the issue has divided the community, and there has been a lot of historical study and research undertaken by locals. We really appreciate the work that they have done to get all the facts on the table. However, there was also some confusion by locals about the role of the select committee. Our job was to clarify the existing land status, not to recommend how the council should use the land. That, of course, is the decision of councillors and of the community. We were there to establish the facts. Others must decide what to do with the land, which many hoped would remain a reserve despite the endowment status. So we were very pleased to hear from the Waitaki District Mayor, Alex Familton, that once the status is clarified he will go back to the community to make any decisions about its future. Thank you.

I am pleased to speak at the third reading of the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill, and to first of all congratulate Jacqui Dean. It is a shame that she is not here, because she has shown great tenacity with this bill. It was not without some controversy. It has actually had quite a long birth and delivery, but she has stuck with it and has resolved an issue of long standing.

Like the previous speaker, Nicky Wagner, I too would like to thank the officials. The reason for that is that the Local Government and Environment Committee was determined to get to the bottom of the legal status of one particular piece of land that is covered by this bill. This bill actually revokes the status of two pieces of land within the Waitaki District.

💬 Nicky Wagner: Three.

It replaces three, sorry, but it was only one that was controversial, and it was a piece of land called Lookout Point, also known as Forrester Heights.

We were determined to get to the bottom of what had really happened to this piece of land going back to 1884. That is not easy, because it was found that there were records missing. Records that had once been there had now gone. There had been interpretation made on documents over the years. But we were not going to make a decision on this bill until we had looked at all the issues and all the legal documents we could, to ensure we were getting it right. So I want to thank the officials for the way they went back, as the chair of the committee has just said, not once, not twice, but three times to check the records to ensure we were making the right decision with this piece of land.

We supported this bill to go to the select committee, but we did raise concerns about Lookout Point. We said we had to be assured we were making the right decision. It was, as I said, after an extensive search that we found and the committee was satisfied that the status of the land at Lookout Point - Forrester Heights was endowment land. That was really important because if it was not endowment land—if it was reserve land, which it was believed to be—it could not then be sold by the council.

So we needed to know whether it was actually reserve land, which could not be sold, or endowment land, which the council could sell for whatever use it wanted to use it for. We are satisfied, with the work that was done, that this land is endowment land and that it was a genuine mistake that was made, resulting from various meanings and legal uses of the word “reserve”. Being satisfied that this was the case, we support this bill in the third reading.

There were not a lot of submissions on this bill, although a lot of interest, and quite a number of members of this House actually went down to Ōāmaru and visited the site. I know that my colleague Phil Twyford in particular made a special trip down to look at the piece of land and to talk to the locals. Although there were not a lot of submissions, there were two very significant submissions that I want to mention: the submission of Mr Warren Crawford and a second one, from Mr Barry Monks. They actually were concerned about the status of the land and had set about to try to find the records to show that it was reserve land, that it was made a reserve back in the 19th century, and that it could not be sold. Out of their own time and money they had gone to a lot of work and they produced a lot of documents for the select committee that we had not had before, and I think in many ways they helped the officials in their continuing search to ensure we got the right status on this land.

So I do want to commend those two men for the work that they did, particularly Barry Monks, who did a lot of historical research. He worked through and he sifted through what was an incomplete, confusing, and chaotic paper trail about this piece of land. I do not think they are necessarily satisfied with the decision that the select committee has made, but it has been made on the best evidence we have got, and I believe it is the right decision.

There were also issues raised, particularly during the Committee stage, by the Green Party members that they were voting against it because of the process used in terms of the use of the land. They are perfectly entitled to their view, but in our view it is not appropriate to oppose a piece of legislation where we are deciding on the status of land on the grounds that the use of that land was not consulted about correctly, properly, for long enough, or whatever. That is another matter. I do not disagree with the Green Party that in fact the consultation around the use of the land was poor, and even the council when it came to the select committee had to concede that the consultation had not been good. But that is not what this bill is about. I hope the council has learnt that it does need to do good consultation, otherwise it raises all sorts of issues in its community that are unnecessary, and unnecessary angst in its community through a poor process.

So we disregarded, in terms of this bill, the process the council used around consultation on what the land would be used for. Our interest in this bill and this House’s interest in this bill is whether this land is endowment land or reserve land. We believe that it is endowment land. We believe that we have made the right decision. But we also understand the suspicion of the people of Ōāmaru. There was some suspicion from local people who, on the face of it, thought there was some kind of jack-up between property developers and local politicians on what was and is a very valuable piece of land. We understand that, but they need to be reassured that the select committee, I believe, did the very best job it could with the information provided to make a decision that makes sure that this land is able to be used for the benefit of the people of Ōāmaru. We support this bill at the third reading, and I am sure Jacqui Dean will be delighted to see it through.

I am very happy to speak briefly in support of this excellent bill, the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill, brought to the House through the good offices of Jacqui Dean, and a wonderful local MP she is. This bill, as we have heard, clarifies the ownership of a number of pieces of land—in particular, Lookout Point, also known as Forrester Heights. At bottom I can fully understand the concerns of some of the local citizens that they would prefer that this park remain a reserve and in public ownership for ever and a day, because I am sure it is a beautiful part of what is a nice town down there in Ōāmaru. But I do think we need to be a little bit careful about that instinct.

I started an exercise when I first came into Parliament to try to work out the amount of land owned by the State. Tallying it up so far, I have got to 46.65 percent of the land mass of New Zealand in State ownership. [Interruption] I cannot give you the square acreage, I am sorry, Mr McClay, but 46 percent is quite a stunning figure. So 33 percent of the land mass of New Zealand is with the Department of Conservation, another 8 percent with Land Information New Zealand, and so on, until you get to 46 percent, but I am sure there is more. So there is no shortage of public ownership of land in New Zealand—in fact, I think we have probably got too much land owned by the State. And all of it, when it is owned by Governments and councils, needs to be maintained and locked up. Here is a proposal to subdivide some of this land and reduce the burden of ratepayers and I think that is very sensible indeed. It is about using some of the land in this country for development and this bill will make this easier. It has sorted out a longstanding historical problem and I congratulate the member Jacqui Dean on bringing this to a successful fruition. Thank you very much.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou ngā mema huri noa i te Whare. I am very pleased to speak at this third reading of the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill. Although I was not a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee that considered this bill, I am very pleased to be coming in at this third reading, because the Waitaki District is obviously a very important district within Te Tai Tonga, my electorate—the whole of the South Island. It is a very special place, Waitaki. The Waitaha, the very early settlers of Te Wai Pounamu, the moa hunters, my ancestors, Te Maiharoa, the chief, and all of the successive tribal groups roamed those lands and were sustained by those lands and the rivers, so I am very pleased to be able to speak to this bill.

Obviously we are dealing with the history of a particular piece of land. The one in question I would like to speak to relates to the past 150-odd years of the land for which there was a question mark, which this bill has finally corrected in terms of the status of the land at Lookout Point. I also understand it is called Forrester Heights. Someone must have been a fan of The Bold and the Beautiful to call it Forrester Heights. Lookout Point is a very beautiful piece of land. I have travelled to Ōāmaru, obviously, many times and had a chat with some of the locals, and it is an absolutely beautiful piece of land with panoramic views of Ōāmaru, right out to sea, and of the beautiful bay. It is a very pristine and very highly valuable, I would say, piece of land. In regard to the issue around the status of the land and whether it was reserved or endowed, I understand that, through the extensive research and inquiries that were undertaken by the select committee and by officials and through the assistance of submitters also, it did indeed lean toward the land being endowed, or there were mistakes that were made, but it was endowed.

I would like to take a trip back through time and just think of what the children of Ōāmaru were thinking in 1892, or around the early 1890s, when the children of the district went on to Lookout Point and they planted that whole hillside with beautiful trees. Those trees obviously grew and they were a stunning feature of that community. What were those children thinking 120-odd years ago when they planted those trees? Were they thinking that the land where they were planting those trees was going to be sold to developers for development? Or was it a reserve? Well, I think the actions of those children and the great community gesture that it was for them to plant that whole area in beautiful trees show that although a legal technicality or whatever revealed that no, no, the land was not reserved but endowed, in the heart of the community of Ōāmaru that land is definitely reserve in terms of the feeling within that community.

As I mentioned, it is a very, very beautiful site with beautiful views. This bill does clarify the status of that particular piece of land and I commend the local member, Jacqui Dean, for sponsoring this bill and following it through this process whereby all the investigations were made and the status has been determined. We support this bill, but I want to just add some remarks around the use of the land. Obviously that is beyond the scope of this bill and it really is up to the local Waitaki District Council as to what it intends to do with the land. Obviously the intention has been seen through its recent activities: to chop down all the trees, change the district plan without consulting the community and change the status, and even put up “For Sale” signs in terms of properties for sale and sections for sale. So the intention of the Waitaki District Council in recent times has been to market and sell off those prime pieces of real estate.

But in regard to the use of the land, I just want to remark that at the bottom of Lookout Point I have looked very carefully in terms of the actual stability of that land in question. It is clay soil, and there are huge what they call under-runners—they also call them Māori drains. In terms of the stability of the land, it could be unsafe to actually develop on because these are huge under-runners that are there right from the bottom roadside. You do not want to go walking near them, because they could collapse any time. The soil is very porous. Roots that may have been there when the trees were there rotted away and so more water is coming through and making it more unstable. So I would caution in terms of whatever future use may be applied to that land that there be very thorough technical reports conducted, because those large caves at the bottom of that hillside could be very, very dangerous and unsuitable for development. So should the Waitaki District Council want to go ahead and develop the land or sell the land, I think it would want to really investigate its position very, very carefully and fully. It does not want to be subjecting its ratepayers to any potential liability around selling off unsafe pieces of land, or, if it wanted to, developing that area with amenities and infrastructure or roading and the like, only to find that actually the land is unsuitable for development. That would be my only comment, which is beyond the scope of this bill but I think is very relevant in terms of now that the land has been classified as endowed, as able to be sold, the Waitaki District Council should look very carefully into that particular issue.

Just in terms of some concluding remarks, I too would like to acknowledge some of the submitters—in particular, Barry Monks, who devoted a lot of time and conducted extensive research into the history. Obviously he is passionate about Waitaki. He is a real heartland man, old Barry Monks is. He actually was our candidate, and a very capable candidate too, in Waitaki. I am very proud of Barry and the work that he did in terms of researching this bill, and really representing and advocating for the retention of that land as a reserve. Unfortunately, his efforts were not able to be captured in the bill in its final form, but I do acknowledge Barry for the work that he did undertake.

Likewise I do want to acknowledge Mr Warren Crawford, whom I met in Ōāmaru and who showed me around Lookout Point. He, again, was very passionate about the area. He farmed Lookout Point, so he had stock grazing on that particular land in question over many years, and, again, he was very passionate about retaining the reserve status of that land and making sure that it was held as an asset in their community that would not be sold.

Just to conclude, Lookout Point, as I have mentioned, is a spectacular piece of land. I would hope that some more trees will be planted there. Obviously they have all been hacked down and it has created a bit of unsafe terrain that probably is not conducive to further development. We shall see. But it would be nice to see that the council will listen and consult with its community before it actually does anything further, now that the land has endowed status. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, and thank you. I am pleased to take a short call on the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill. In starting I would like to take issue with the comments of Paul Goldsmith. Coming from the urban jungle of central Auckland as he does, he may not be aware of the significance of the Crown’s public landholdings, the lands held by the Department of Conservation and Land Information New Zealand; nor may he be aware of the location of those lands. A lot of our conservation lands are in our mountainous areas, our alpine areas, in Fiordland. They are remote from our major population centres. When you talk about Land Information New Zealand lands, they are often pastoral leases. They may certainly be found in the hinterland of Ōāmaru, in the Mackenzie Basin, and in the South Island high country, but they are not immediately adjacent to the Ōāmaru town. That is why this land at Lookout Point is significant, because it is public land in the coastal area.

We do not have a lot of coastal land that is protected and to which the public can have access, except of course in Auckland where there has been very foresightful work over many years by the Auckland Regional Council to establish its network of regional coastal parks. But certainly many in the community in Ōāmaru, as the Local Government and Environment Committee heard through submissions and the hearings, very much value Lookout Point because of its sweeping views over the town, and because it is such a lovely place to walk, to enjoy some quiet contemplation, and just to enjoy that space. That is why they are concerned at the proposals by the Waitaki District Council to alienate that land, through the proposed Forrester Heights subdivision. That is why the Green Party will be voting against this bill.

We certainly acknowledge the able chairing of the select committee by Nicky Wagner and a lot of work by Jacqui Dean in bringing the bill to the House. It was certainly an interesting and detailed look at the history of this particular area of land. A lot of the information that the select committee considered was, as other members have referred to, available very much thanks to the research that was put in by members of the community like Mr Monks, Helen Stead, Mr Crawford, and others in showing the select committee some of the history of the area and bringing us photographs to show how the land was used in the past. So I would like to thank them for their huge contribution to the lawmaking process, and also acknowledge the work of departmental officials and the very thorough research they did.

The Green Party supports some clauses in the bill, but in the Committee stage I put up Supplementary Order Paper 150 to seek to change clause 7, which is the clause that we object to—that Supplementary Order Paper failed—because clause 7 deals with Lookout Point and it will effectively legitimise a very poor process that the council used to initiate the Forrester Heights subdivision. It did it through a resource consent process that was not notified, so there was no opportunity for the community to make submissions on that. It was a development that was being initiated by the council, but there were no external commissioners, so it is no wonder that a number of people in the community feel very aggrieved by this bill, because of the process that the council used, which lacked consultation; it did not go through a proper long-term plan consultation process either. At the select committee we were encouraged by the fact that Mayor Familton said that the council would consider the whole issue of the subdivision again, but the resource consent has not been withdrawn so the council still has the legal power to proceed with the subdivision. But certainly if the bill is passed—which, given the numbers, it probably will be—I do hope the council takes the very good and wise advice of Rino Tirikatene in highlighting the potential natural hazard issues with those under-runners and the very significant risk of land collapse and erosion. That was very wise counsel, and the Waitaki District Council would do well to heed it.

In terms of the poor consultation process it is interesting that National members are supporting the bill, when yesterday in this House we were debating the Environment Canterbury legislation and the way in which that has completely cut across basic democratic process, with no ability for Cantabrians to vote for their elected councillors. This issue of principle—the need to have a good process, the need to involve the community, to consult well—is the reason why we are opposing the bill.

The bill also highlights our very shabby treatment of heritage in New Zealand. The Waitaki District Council wants to sell off Lookout Point to raise funds so that it can restore the Ōāmaru Opera House. We know that Ōāmaru, like Invercargill, has a really distinctive precinct of heritage buildings. In Ōāmaru those white stone buildings, and their very good condition, define the town’s character. They attract visitors from around New Zealand and around the world because they are preserved in a very good state and are protected. But to repair the Ōāmaru Opera House more funds are needed, and it is really disappointing that those funds cannot be found through better provision for heritage nationally, through more generous grant schemes for that, and that the council feels that it has to sell off another public asset, Lookout Point, to fund that. The council should not be being put in that position.

In concluding, I would again like to thank the submitters for the large amount of time and energy they put into presenting their submissions and for the very interesting and thorough way in which they discussed the history of the area and encouraged select committee members to better understand and appreciate that history. I think the issue has been thoroughly considered, both by the select committee and by this House. I think the second reading debate runs to some 20 pages, so it is a local bill that has been very thoroughly considered. We will be opposing it for the reasons I have outlined: the poor consultation process. Thank you.

This is a piece of legislation that has been around before the House for a very, very long time. The Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill has been endlessly tracked over at the Local Government and Environment Committee. In the submissions and at the first and second readings it has been all exhaustively discussed. Much has been said, latterly by the member who has just resumed her seat. I would point out to her that she thinks that one of our members is unaware of what goes on in an urban jungle. I would put to you that the Greens do not know what is going on in the real world, because they do not have electorates of their own that they are responsible for, and they talk only to people who think the way they do. But that is an aside.

I would like to congratulate Jacqui Dean on being such an outstanding local member of Parliament. I would also like to congratulate the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, Nicky Wagner, who has done an excellent job in guiding this through the select committee. It has been a lengthy process—a very lengthy process, indeed—and I am very pleased to see it go through its third reading. I do commend this bill to the House.

I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill. Our party will certainly be opposing this bill for some of the reasons given by the speaker from the Greens, Eugenie Sage, but also for a number of other reasons.

We have no issue with the two pieces of land, the Palmerston Showgrounds and the other section, in terms of formalising those longstanding relationships with the occupants and transferring the title so that it cleans up what has been an anomaly on those two properties for a very long time, but we do have issue with the land at Forrester Heights and Lookout Point. Just because there is some doubt about the true status of this land, whether it was reserve land or reserved for endowment land, does not mean that this land should actually be taken away from public ownership and turned into a subdivision. It does not mean that this generation has the right to take land that has been there since 1884 and then—

💬 Hon Tariana Turia: It was there a long time before that.

—and before that, but in terms of having any status whatsoever since 1884 in the borough of Ōāmaru, and having gone through all those generations of people as a lovely hillside behind the town, looking out over the historic Ōāmaru central area—to suddenly cash it up, subdivide it up, and turn it into housing. It would be a great shame if this was the case throughout New Zealand. Most local authorities in New Zealand are charged with protecting the land, protecting our reserves, and protecting what we own for future generations, not trying to carve it up and sell it off as fast as they can for housing.

In this particular instance we were not convinced by all the information. There was a lot of conflicting information. The officials, as we heard, did a good job, but there was still an awful lot of doubt and questionable interpretation of what happened in 1937, and it refers to the fact that there were, perhaps, some errors in perception then when the land was gazetted. But the mere fact that at the time it was gazetted those terms showed that there was an intent in some way or other for the land to be given a public status, the fact that since 1937—and we are now in 2013; we are 80-odd years on—nothing has happened to that land, apart from it being accessible by the public to walk across and for people to go up to the lookout and look out across Ōāmaru, and the fact that quite a number of generations over seven or eight decades have deemed fit to leave it as public land and leave it in the rightful occupancy of the public mean that we should honour that commitment from not just this current Waitaki District Council but the former Ōāmaru Borough Council, which saw fit to have that land with that particular status.

We ourselves have also spoken with many of the locals in Ōāmaru, and one of our MPs—he was a former Christchurch city councillor—Denis O’Rourke, visited Ōāmaru and spoke extensively with some of the locals there. There is certainly a divide in the community of Ōāmaru as to this land being removed from public ownership and potentially being sold for a subdivision. There is sufficient concern in the Ōāmaru area, and from a significant number of people in that area, that this should certainly go to wider consultation. Perhaps the correct process would have been that if there was a certain element of doubt about the reserve status of this land or the endowment status of this land, the Waitaki District Council should have moved, actually, to revoke it and have it under consultation to be taken out of public land ownership. If that was the case, and the council put the cart before the horse instead of the horse before the cart and gave the public of Ōāmaru an opportunity to have, perhaps, a referendum on it and have some input into the status of this land before it actually made any decision either way to have the status on it revoked, perhaps if it had done that and had had buy-in from the whole of the community and had full support of the whole community, we would be a bit clearer in this House as to whether the right thing is being done here. But because there is doubt, and because there are many in the community—and we heard the likes of Barry Monks, and we heard the likes of Warren Crawford, but there were many, many other Barry Monks and Warren Crawfords and Mr and Mrs Monks and Mrs Crawfords and others in Ōāmaru—who similarly have a view that the wrong thing is being done here, the wrong thing is being done here, and we are basically allowing what is a somewhat uncertain process to be sanctioned by this House.

New Zealand First does not approve of the sale of assets. We do not approve of the sale of land owned by the public unless there is an incredibly good reason for that to occur. In this case we do not believe there is a good reason for this to occur. We do not believe there is a good reason to change the status of this land and have it made into a housing division to blight the background to the Ōāmaru township, to change the whole perspective of the Ōāmaru historical heritage township there, and for the backdrop—instead of being open land and pristine, untouched land—to be housing in the future. We do not believe that that is the right process, and therefore New Zealand First will be voting against this bill.

Ah! Mr Gilmore. Welcome back, Mr Gilmore.

It gives me enormous pleasure to stand and speak after Andrew Williams, the member I have just heard. It brings me to some questions people are asking me about why I came back to Parliament. New Zealand First and the Greens, which stand for nothing, create nothing, and make no progress, are the reason why I decided to come back to Parliament and make New Zealand a better place.

As a Waitaki District Council ratepayer, actually, I think it is an important thing to empower locals to make local decisions about local assets. That is what this Government, under John Key, believes in, and that is what I think this bill, the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill, brings. That is why the great member Jacqui Dean has brought this bill to the House: to empower local people to make local decisions about local assets. It is absolute scaremongering to worry about all the other things that the two other members from those parties have spoken about. I commend this bill to the House. [Interruption]

Order! We have all had a bit of fun at Aaron’s expense.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. I want to just commend those words of wisdom in that last comment that you made. I noticed during the contribution of the last speaker that Aaron Gilmore has been away. I have just realised that he has not made a speech for the last 12 months. It has been rather a long time between drinks, and it is good to have Aaron Gilmore back in the House, because he provides so much entertainment for members on this side of the House. It makes the day a lot more fun. I too would like to—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Bring back Quinn.

I would like to bring back—I am not prepared to support the comment by Trevor Mallard suggesting that we bring Paul Quinn back to the House. I think that goes a little far.

I too wanted to respond to contributions made by Green and New Zealand First colleagues. This is now the third time that we have had the pleasure of debating Jacqui Dean’s Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill. It has been a very enjoyable experience, and now we are all much more familiar with Lookout Point than we used to be.

💬 Hon David Parker: Forrester Heights.

Forrester Heights, as David Parker points out, is the more authentic description for that little bit of land. The Local Government and Environment Committee went on a bit of a journey, and it considered submissions from a number of people, including Barry Monks, Warren Crawford, and other concerned citizens of Ōāmaru—good men who care about their community and care about public land in Ōāmaru, and who had done a lot of historical sleuthing of the documents to try to establish that, in fact, this bit of land that we are talking about was reserve land and not reserved for endowment.

But to the best of the select committee’s ability, based on the best advice of officials who brought historical evidence to the select committee, it was established that, in fact, Forrester Heights, the land in question, was not reserve land going back to 1884. The confusion arose through administrative error and it was, in fact, endowment land. I challenge any other member of the House in this debate to correct me if I have got that wrong. The land was confirmed, through the earnest inquiries of the select committee, to in fact have been reserved for endowment, and not reserve land.

In my submission, if members of the House accept that the land was not reserve land, then there is no other logical position than to vote for this bill. I listened to the member Eugenie Sage—an excellent member of this House—saying that the Greens were opposing this bill because of inadequate consultation by Waitaki District Council. That is completely illogical. That may be a really valid criticism of Waitaki District Council, but it is a criticism to be made in the debating chamber of Waitaki District Council. That is its decision to make. If we stand for the rights of local communities and local councils to control their affairs, as we have in numerous debates in this House over the last few years, then it makes no sense at all to my mind for the Greens and for New Zealand First to stand up in this debate and vote against this local bill because they do not agree with the quality of consultation.

Andrew Williams, who is another member of this House whom I have a great deal of respect for—the lion of the super-city debate—stood up and made some very eloquent criticisms of the desire and intention of the Waitaki District Council to develop Forrester Heights, even though, as far as I am aware, the council does not currently intend to develop that land. It did, but I am not sure it does now.

💬 Hon David Parker: It does. It does.

OK. I stand corrected. David Parker has corrected me in that and tells me that it does currently intend to do that. I stand corrected. But even if it is wrong or unwise to develop this precious bit of publicly owned land on a lookout over Ōāmaru Harbour—even if it does that—that is an argument to be made in the debating chamber of Waitaki District Council. That is an issue for the citizens of Ōāmaru. It is between them and their elected councillors, who are responsible for the stewardship of that land. That is not an argument to be brought to this House. Andrew Williams, of all people, has defended the rights of communities as we have debated the many odious local government bills that the National-led Government has brought to this House over the last year. That member stood up for the democratic rights of people on the North Shore and the wider Auckland region, and—

💬 Maggie Barry: Not to mention lemon trees and pōhutukawas.

Well, that is interesting. It is good to hear a contribution from the member Maggie Barry, otherwise known on this side of the House as “Poison Ivy”, who, I believe, has broken the well-established Maggie Barry standing order that you must never stand up in this House and speak about something unless you have direct experience of it. I think that, unless Maggie Barry can guarantee to this House that she has personally visited Forrester Heights, she really has no right to stand up—

💬 Maggie Barry: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Can I answer to that?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. That is my point. I really wanted to address my criticisms to colleagues in the Greens and New Zealand First because I do not believe that they make an argument that has any validity or any logic behind it.

This is a local bill. Its purpose is simply to clarify the legal status and the provenance of decade after decade after decade of confusion, rancour, and dispute about the status of this land, and that is perfectly understandable. Having visited Forrester Heights and having stood on that land and looked over Ōāmaru Harbour, I understand why many of the citizens in that town, that lovely town, are concerned and want to see that land protected as open space and public space for future generations. That is something, as Andrew Williams was saying, that people in communities all over New Zealand feel passionately: that public land, especially land that has reserve status, should be held and protected for future generations. But the harsh fact of this land’s history is that it was never deemed reserve land, to the best of the select committee’s knowledge. It was deemed reserved for endowment, and the historical detective work done by officials showed that, I understand, at the select committee fairly conclusively.

Labour is supporting this bill. Whether or not this land is developed is a matter properly to be considered by the Waitaki District Council. It is a matter between it and the people of Ōāmaru.

I wish to commend the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill to the House. Thank you.

I understand the next call is a split call. The Hon—

💬 Darien Fenton: No.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): It is not a split call? My apologies. The Hon David Parker—10 minutes.

I am not sure I will take all of that time, but maybe I will. I rise to follow on from the comments from Phil Twyford, whose contribution I agree with. I was the local member of Parliament way back when for when this part of New Zealand was in the Otago electorate, and I was approached by the council, which wanted to have the proper status of the Forrester Heights land resolved. I lost an election in 2005 and Jacqui Dean was appointed.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Elected!

Yes, I am sorry; she was elected—you are quite right—as I was through the list process, and I became the Minister for Land Information.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: No, you were appointed.

I was appointed as Minister for Land Information—that is quite right—having been elected to Parliament. At the time the question as to the proper status of the Forrester Heights land was contentious. It was in my political interests locally to actually back the people who said that this land was reserve status land rather than endowment land. But my duty as the Minister for Land Information was to inquire as to what the proper status of the land was. The Department of Conservation is the authority to whom Land Information New Zealand goes for advice as to the proper status of land, and the Department of Conservation concluded that the land was endowment land, not reserve land.

I had been provided information by local constituents that suggested otherwise, so I took that information back to the Department of Conservation and said: “Please check again.” It then came back and said that this was endowment land, not reserve land, so it was included in the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill, which corrects errors of that kind. That legislation was not advanced on the Order Paper for a number of years by the incoming Government after the 2008 election, and Jacqui Dean then sought to bring this forward by way of local bill to have the matter settled in a local bill rather than through the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill.

By that time still further information had turned up, the most interesting piece of which was a photocopy of a record that was turned up by Barry Monks, which he obtained from the museum in Ōāmaru. It appeared to show that the land was, indeed, reserve land rather than endowment land. There was a little bit of suggestion of skulduggery around that, because when he went back to get further copies of the document concerned, it had been cut out of the archives. So you can imagine why on that basis there was some suspicion on the part of the people who believe most vehemently that this is reserve land rather than endowment land, and that there was some sort of dirty trick under way to hide the fact that this land was truly reserve land.

As a consequence, when this matter came to the Local Government and Environment Committee, evidence was presented to the select committee from very well-meaning people, including Barry Monks and Warren Crawford amongst others in Ōāmaru, who said that they were absolutely convinced that this was reserve land, not endowment land. The job of the select committee was not to plan the future of that land if it was endowment land. The job of the select committee was to decide what the land’s proper status was—whether it was reserve land or endowment land. Tempting though it is to actually take the next step down and actually make the planning decision as to what should happen with the land, that is actually not the role of this Parliament in that regard. It is, actually, to find out what the true status of that land is. Accordingly, at the select committee, again, the Labour Party members on that select committee, who included Annette King, were not motivated by a desire to find this to be endowment land. If anything, they were motivated by a desire to prove that this was reserve land. But the advice that they received in the end was that it was endowment land, not reserve land. As a consequence, they quite properly said that their duty to this Parliament was to report back that upon inquiry, they had concluded on the balance of all of the evidence and the advice from officials that it was endowment land. So that is the advice that this Parliament has received.

Having gone into it so thoroughly, in the end someone has to make a decision. On the balance of the evidence, the select committee, ably chaired by Mr Auchinvole, concluded that it was endowment land, and that is where it ends. That is what this bill says: it is endowment land. And the question as to whether it should be developed is a different question for the council under its legislation. That in turn has public processes. The long-term council community plan includes the right of public participation to turn up and say: “This land should not be subdivided.” People have done that, and their elected representatives have said no, they disagree, and that they think it should be developed.

I personally disagree with that. I actually do not think this land should be developed. I would prefer Forrester Heights land to be undeveloped, but my opinion on that is irrelevant. These decisions are delegated to the local council, and if we start reversing that position and think all these decisions should be taken in Parliament, then we might as well not have local government. For those reasons, with sadness, I regret this. I had Warren Crawford even just 2 weeks ago, when I saw him when I was down in Ōāmaru, talking about the terrible things that are happening with Summit Wool Spinners down there. He was, again, saying: “Look, disagree—disagree.” That is his right to disagree, and Barry Monks is still not convinced either, but the select committee was. And that is the basis upon which we as a Parliament have to make a decision. The evidence is that this is endowment land, not reserve land, and that is why the Labour Party is supporting this bill.

From Play School to the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill, Jacqui Dean is a hard-working MP. I congratulate her on that—a local MP working hard for local people. It is a very good local bill. I commend this bill to the House.