Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill

We are talking about the title and commencement clauses. I think that the commencement date will come as a great relief to a whole lot of people who put submissions into this from 2008 onwards: “This Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.” The thing about that that concerns me greatly—not about the clause itself—is that this has been on the Order Paper since 2008, and I am not too sure when we are actually going to get to the third reading. Hopefully, it will be in this term of Parliament, because some people have been waiting, as we have heard, for 112 years for this to happen. The Port Chalmers Bowling Club has been waiting since 1977 for this to happen. There are developments that have come and gone waiting for this to happen.

So let us hope that the date that this comes into force is in fact 2015, and not 2016, because if it is 2017, it will be a Labour Minister who will be giving the third reading speech. It could be anyone. All we know is that if it is 2017, then there will have been the Minister Richard Worth, there will have been Maurice Williamson, and there will have been Louise Upston. In fact, this was introduced by David Parker, so already we are on our fourth Minister for Land Information. We could, conceivably—quite conceivably, due to the snail’s pace of the passage of this bill—be up to our fifth and, potentially, even sixth Minister, because if it is 2017 when it gets its third reading speech, then it could well be Minister Chris Finlayson who is giving the speech—

💬 Kris Faafoi: Hey, hey, hey!

Ha, ha.

💬 Kelvin Davis: Kris Faafoi.

—Kris Faafoi giving the speech. If it is early 2017, it will be Chris Finlayson; if it is after the election in 2017, it will be Kris Faafoi—the honourable Kris Faafoi—giving the speech. Who knows where this could end up? It could be 2020, and it could be the honourable—I do not know—Peeni Henare giving the speech. It could be anyone—or Kelvin Davis. It will be a long time. The other thing—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): It is sounding a bit repetitive. I ask the member to find something a little bit new to say.

New to say? OK. Well, the interesting thing is that the title of this legislation, in clause 1, is actually the “Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Act 2008”. Maybe we could actually call it the “Reserves and Other Lands Disposals Act 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012”—who knows where it will end, because there is so much that could be in this.

Again, as one of the other National speakers said—and I cannot remember who it was—this could be called the “Richard Worth Memorial Bill”, because this is, I think, the last speech he gave before he decided to go—

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: He’s not dead.

No, his parliamentary career is well and truly dead, Mr Foster-Bell. Beware of Richard Worth—he provides a good example of what not to do. Even though he was an extremely good lawyer, it was a little bit of a waste of talent for him to enter Parliament. He started out as the MP for Epsom and ended up as a list MP who had to go and pursue other opportunities.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Come on.

But, mind you, he did end up getting a PhD in this Parliament, so it was not all wasted.

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: Doctor of Laws. LLD—Doctor of Laws.

Well, no, he got a PhD. Richard Worth got a PhD.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Well, let us not debate Mr Worth’s legal career. Let us have a crack at this: clauses 1 and 2 of this bill. The whole 2008 thing was funny for only the first 15 times, so crack on.

Well, what else can we call this bill? We could call this the “Port Chalmers Bowling Club (Thank God Our Lease Has Finally Been Ratified) Bill”. Its members have been waiting since 1977 to have that done. If there are any members of the original Port Chalmers Bowling Club still around, they will be raising a glass of sherry when this bill passes through the House.

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: Which that party put the tax up on.

Well, you never know. No, we are not going to increase tax on sherry, Mr Foster-Bell, but you never know. It could be the “Nelson Marlborough District Health Board Land Act”, because it has been waiting for the three parcels of land that were endowed to it, that were gifted to it, that were put in reserve, to come up again. But I think the most important thing is that we could call this the “Auckland Art Gallery Finally Being Ratified Bill”, because the Auckland Art Gallery, before the development went ahead, was supposed to get ratified any work it did in Albert Park. It was supposed to come through. It has not. The Auckland Art Gallery has been built, the ribbon has been cut, and a number of exhibitions have gone through. I think it would be horrified if this bill does not go through the House, only to find that—oh, my goodness me—it has to cut off half the gallery.

Or it could be the “Let’s Transfer Resource Management Responses From the Governor-General to the Minister of Conservation Bill.”—

Thank you very much for the opportunity to take a call on the title and commencement clauses of the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill. Mr Chair, I know that you are a Chair who looks for creativity in Committee stage submissions but I do believe also that we have to have a fair bit of discipline in this House, so I do want to back up what my colleague Stuart Nash said about the length of time that it has taken for this piece of legislation to find its way to this Committee stage. It was introduced in August 2008 under the Hon David Parker. It had its first reading in March 2009. The Primary Production Committee reported back with relatively quick speed in September 2009, and then we find ourselves debating the Committee stage here on 1 July 2015. That is a very long time for a piece of legislation to come through the House. I must add that a fair few people have been waiting for it to be passed—

💬 Barbara Kuriger: We’re still waiting.

Well, you can wait just another 3½ minutes longer. To back that up, you need to look at the membership of the select committee that reported back on this bill. There were some fine members: Shane Ardern, a member from across the Chamber; the Hon Jim Anderton; Brendon Burns, a member from this side of the Chamber; the Hon John Carter, who, I believe, is now the Mayor of the Northland region; Dr Ashraf Choudhary; Sandra Goudie; the Hon George Hawkins; Colin King; Moana Mackey; and the only surviving member of that select committee, the Hon Damien O’Connor, who had an earlier than expected end to his parliamentary proceedings today.

I hope that I am painting the picture that this piece of legislation should have got through this House much faster. I think that it is rather unfortunate that a lot of the communities that have parcels of land within this piece of legislation have had to wait this long for a relatively simple piece of legislation to come through the House. So I hope that I have dealt with the commencement date. I hope that this piece of legislation is passed as soon as possible, and I do note the interjection from across the Chamber.

Pointing to the title, currently the bill is titled the “Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill”. In my previous contribution on this bill, I talked about the region of Otago and Southland, which is taking on the Hurricanes this weekend in the Super 15 final. So I would like to make possibly one change to the name of the bill, and that is that we should rename this bill the “Highlanders Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill” because there are quite a number of parcels of land within this piece of legislation that pertain to the Otago region. We talked about the Port Chalmers—

💬 Metiria Turei: Go Highlanders!

OK, do not put that in the Hansard. There is a parcel of land—

💬 Metiria Turei: It is now.

Good one. There is a parcel of land in Taieri. There is a parcel of land that I mentioned earlier—the Winton Racecourse—just north of Invercargill. There is also a parcel of land that I understand is the Port Chalmers Bowling Club, which Stuart Nash referred to earlier. I think that we should take some of the load off the members of the Port Chalmers Bowling Club on Saturday night. They are obviously very weary of this piece of legislation. They want to get it through and enjoy a kick-off at 7.35 p.m. So let us just give them an hour and a half of grace to live life in an ideal situation where they are cheering on their Highlanders—one that will come to an abrupt end at roughly 9.20 p.m. on Saturday. Let us get this piece of legislation passed so that the good people of the Port Chalmers Bowling Club can enjoy Saturday night until about 9.25 p.m., and also so that all of the other communities that are depending on this piece of legislation getting passed will have peace of mind, despite having waited for about 8 years for this piece of legislation to get passed.

I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.