Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill

on behalf of the Minister for Land Information: I move, That the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill be now read a third time. I am pleased to see this bill pass through its final stage in the House after thorough consultation and debate in the Primary Production Committee and a successful second reading that tidied up a number of issues raised after the bill was reported back to the House. In particular, I thank the House for agreeing that clauses 34A to 34C of the bill, as inserted by the select committee, should be omitted from the bill. Although I believe the select committee acted with good intentions, the clauses challenge the integrity of parliamentary processes, and I am pleased that the House has agreed to their removal.

The bill is consistent with the intent of Reserves and Other Lands Disposal bills, as set out in Standing Order 262(1)(e), in that it addresses land status issues that cannot be easily dealt with under other legislation. The benefits of this legislation will be evident to many New Zealanders as the clauses in the bill change the status of iconic and important land across the country, ranging from Kahurangi National Park, Paparoa National Park, and Westland National Park through to a much loved bowling club in Port Chalmers.

The Government is committed to clarifying and simplifying issues regarding land status. This bill removes unnecessary, costly, and time-consuming administrative and technical difficulties associated with land use on both public and private property. The changes effected by the bill will help to ensure that public and private land is managed responsibly and effectively. Obstacles to the effective use and management of land in the future are being removed, and past mistakes are being put right. The bill also enables the resolution of conflict over the status of parcels of land, so that all parties with an interest in the land understand what forms of use are permissible. Community interest is at the heart of the entire process.

I would like to acknowledge the hard work of the Primary Production Committee. Select committees play an integral role in the parliamentary process and contribute to the development of quality legislation, so I want to thank the committee and the officials from the Office of the Clerk for supporting this bill.

The committee felt that this particular bill challenged its understanding of the purpose of “ROLD” bills. There is a convention that “ROLD” bills deal with non-controversial land matters, and this convention was intended to ensure that changes effected by the bill remained technical. However, the complicating factor for the committee when considering this bill was that although many of the changes effected by the bill are not controversial in and of themselves, they may well be associated with issues or processes that are controversial.

The clauses relating to the Auckland Art Gallery development in Albert Park are a good example of this issue. Most of the concerns raised by submitters are more relevant to the change in reserve classification for part of Albert Park and the resource consent process than they are to the “ROLD” bill. The change in reserve classification was undertaken by the Auckland City Council in 2006, in accordance with all the relevant requirements of the Reserves Act. The resource consent process governing the design and construction of the new art gallery ended up being approved by the Environment Court in 2008. The clauses in the “ROLD” bill have not enabled the gallery extension. Rather, they will simplify the future administration of the land by ensuring the gallery is contained on one piece of land held under one legislative framework, rather than on two pieces of land and under two legislative frameworks.

The key issue, therefore, is not whether the applications included in the “ROLD” bill deal with controversial matters. It is likely that future “ROLD” bills will. The important thing is that the changes themselves remain technical. The questions asked by the Primary Production Committee were important questions to ask, as it is important that the integrity of the legislative process is maintained. I am satisfied that all of the changes in the bill are necessary technical changes to the status of the land and will be beneficial not just for the applicants but for the wider communities that are affected by the changes in this bill. I would like to thank the officials from Land Information New Zealand, the Department of Conservation, and the Parliamentary Counsel Office who have all worked hard on this bill before, during, and after the consideration of the bill by the Primary Production Committee. I commend this bill to the House.

There are children at school who were not born when this bill was first introduced into the House. I know that because I was Minister for Land Information at the time, in 2008, when the bill was introduced. It is now 7 years ago—7 or 8 years ago—since this bill was introduced. I feel a bit older myself, actually. I have had to go back through the records to remember some of the detail of it. Some of the details I do remember, and the reasons why the Labour Party is supporting this bill, but it does have to be pointed out that delays over this number of years serve no one’s interests. They increase the costs of these processes, because everyone looks at it and looks at it again and again. Parliament ends up having a number of goes at it. People who are interested in the issues that are at large, underneath the bill, are dragged back into their archives, year after year, thinking: “Where’s that happening?”. I know in respect of one of the matters affected by this bill, which relates to Taieri Airport, that every time I run into Julian Smith, who is one of the owners of the Otago Daily Times, he asks me: “Where’s that provision in the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill that’s meant to be clarifying the status of Taieri Airport?”. That is important to them because they are worried that their status is uncertain and that they could actually lose their rights to run the airport. That is one example that has caused inconvenience to people.

Another one that is more serious is down my way, where the losses, which amount to millions of dollars, have actually been caused to one of the district councils and actually relate to an issue in Jacqui Dean’s electorate in Ōāmaru. In the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill it was clarified that the land that overlooks the town, which is called Lookout Point in the original version of this legislation and was perhaps a misnaming, was originally given to the predecessor of the Waitaki District Council as endowment land, but at some point in the process, way back when, it was described as reserve land. Therefore, there was controversy as to whether the council could sell that land and realise its worth. The council wanted—and indeed needed—to sell that land because it wanted to realise the money from that land to pay for other important works by the district council, including the building or the rebuilding of the opera house in Ōāmaru, which cost some millions of dollars. It entered into contracts for the sale of sections on this piece of land—Forrester Heights I think is the proper name—and those contracts were all subject to the legal clarification of this point, which was necessary in order for them to complete the subdivision. Because Parliament has delayed so long in this, all of those contracts reached the expiration date, by which time property prices in Ōāmaru had dropped and none of those contracts were confirmed—they all fell over—and the Waitaki District Council, as a consequence, lost millions of dollars.

That is the consequence of this sort of delay in what seems somewhat mundane legislation. I think that is probably the worst instance here. In fact, it was so bad that Jacqui Dean, at the request of her council, sponsored a local bill to give effect to this provision that was in the original Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill, and this Parliament passed the separate bill—the local bill. That, again, caused waste. It cost money because a local bill costs a council money to promote, not just its own legal fees but it has actually got to pay a fee to Parliament to introduce a local bill. Then the time of this House was set aside for considering that local bill instead of other matters. None of that would have been necessary if this bill had just been advanced perhaps half a decade earlier. It might seem unreasonable that this bill could—sorry, I should not say that. It was an entirely reasonable expectation on the part of the people around New Zealand whose interests were affected by this bill that it was dealt with promptly, but, unfortunately, it has not been. The matter relating to the Auckland Art Gallery—I thank Minister Lotu-Iiga for that description—was a little bit controversial for some who saw the expansion of the art gallery as some improper extension into the adjacent Albert Park in Auckland. Again, as the Minister has clarified, the contention around this bill was misplaced, as evidenced by the fact that it could be done even without this bill being passed—so sometimes people claim controversy when they disagree with something even when legally it is not controversial.

The matters in this bill that are being addressed are not legally controversial. They often fix mis-descriptions of property that have occurred in parts of New Zealand over a period of time, and, as a consequence, it is common every 5 years or so for a reserves and other lands disposal bill to be introduced into this House. The Primary Production Committee did remove provisions that it did not think were appropriately timed in respect of Auckland volcanic cones. I am sure my colleague Phil Goff will mention that in his contribution. Otherwise this bill is relatively non-controversial.

I have one final thing to say in respect of Taieri Airport. I recently raised with the then Minister of Land Information why it was that in order to get this clarification as to the status of the Taieri Airport land it was necessary for the Crown to say that in the event that that land is ever sold, they get half of the proceeds of sale. I have never understood the theory for that. The Minister was going to look into it. I have not heard where that has ended and I am afraid, therefore, that the provisions as they stand in the bill will not fix that defect. Having said that, those at Taieri Airport, although they would have preferred otherwise, more important, want the legislation to go through even if it has that provision, which is not to their ideal liking. I recommend this bill to be passed by the House.

This “ROLD” bill, as it has been pointed out, has been waiting some time to come through, but, actually, some of the issues it fixes go back a long, long way. In particular, one I would like to talk about is in the Picton area, which is within my electorate. It dates back to 1903, when the land was illegally transferred to the Picton Borough Council, as it turns out. This bill actually deals with that under clauses 24 to 27. The reason it was done illegally is because the last trustee had died and so it was transferred in haste, unfortunately. So although this is a busy Government, we cannot be blamed for going back to that length of time, unfortunately.

The other issue in my electorate that I would like to talk about is the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board. There is land set aside in the French Pass area for a district nurses’ facility, and, unfortunately, it has just been sitting there and is not on the books of the district health board. It needs to be sorted out. That area, of course, was quite remote. It is still a 2½ hour drive from Blenheim and Wairau Hospital out to French Pass, but nowadays, of course, we do not need district nurses’ facilities in those areas, so that has been tidied up.

Also, there is the Braemar Campus at Wairau Hospital. Wairau Hospital has undergone a reconfiguration on the site and that needs to be tidied up, and it is being tidied up under this bill. So this is a bill that fixes a lot of previous anomalies in the legislation that need to be tidied up, and it is great to have those things set aside for those owners of the land to go forward in a proper manner. Although it has taken some time to get here, it is here and, you know, hang on—help is on its way. This is a good Government, but it takes a long time sometimes to get these things worked through.

I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

May I begin with an apology to the generation of children born since this bill was first introduced—

💬 Richard Prosser: Stop apologising, David. Stop apologising.

—and by acknowledging the work of the—I did not apologise for “Wogistan”. I would like to acknowledge the work of the former Minister for Land Information, David Parker, in bringing this, essentially, tidy-up set of remedial changes to reserves and other lands.

It is, I think, instructive to reflect on the old saying about army life, which is the ethos of “hurry up and wait”. Members of the public will wonder why Parliament is in an extended sitting this morning to debate a bill that has been waiting since hundreds of thousands of children were born—or 2008. I think it is indicative of the management of the House by the Hon Gerry Brownlee that when we were sitting in our procedures meeting this morning we got handed, essentially, an email from the Leader of the House with what he thought the business of the House would be today. It is about as shambolic as it gets, and, unfortunately, it is indicative of the state of the Government that we are in extra time hearing a bill that is 8 years old, and with late notice, at that.

Let me now turn to the substance of the bill. This bill is designed to clarify and to codify a number of issues with reserve lands throughout the country—about a dozen of them. The bill was handled by Richard Worth in the good old days when he was a Minister before he visited the pyramids, and it lapsed after he left Parliament, probably, it could be said, under something of a cloud. It has languished on the Government’s Order Paper for those 7 long years, or 6½ long years since 2009.

It was open for public submissions. It has a number of issues that did excite, believe it or not, quite a bit of public attention. One of them was to change the boundaries of Albert Park in Auckland, and to include the Auckland Art Gallery within its confines. It is a marvellous facility, the Auckland Art Gallery, but it was controversial, with a majority of submissions opposing that inclusion on the grounds that the park itself is a public space and a green space, and it was cleaner to have a consistent definition. However, despite a wave of opinion and the difficult and perhaps less than democratic process that the then mayor John Banks followed to get it to that point, we do not believe that it is sufficiently concerning to pick and choose from the various proposals contained in the bill, and we are therefore going to support the change.

Another issue that is addressed in the bill is the treatment of Auckland’s volcanic cones. There were a number of submitters who were opposed to the change contained here, in that instead of the Governor-General’s signature being required to excavate on a volcanic cone, now it is the Minister for the Environment’s signature that is required. We are relaxed about that, because in effect it was the Minister for the Environment who made the recommendation to the Governor-General, so we do not believe that there is a substantive weakening of protections here.

May I turn to one issue that affects my local area of west Auckland, in regard to Waikumete Cemetery, and I turn the attention of colleagues to clauses 47, 48, and 49 in Part 2 of the bill. Clause 48 states: “Waikumete cemetery land is a part of Waikumete Cemetery.” It is Crown land, classified as a local purpose reserve, a site for a cemetery. It is one of the largest—I think it is, perhaps, the largest—cemetery sites in the Southern Hemisphere, certainly in New Zealand. It is a massive and very poignant place, and it hosts every year some now 20,000 to 30,000 people who come on Anzac Day to remember our dead. It has a very large Auckland RSA presence, and it is a very important place for west Auckland.

However, in 1995 the then Waitakere City Council, without clear lawful authority, disposed of the Waikumete cemetery land to a local authority trading enterprise. The local authority trading enterprise in turn subdivided the cemetery land and sold it to private owners—some of it—as fee simple titles. Most of that land around the edges is now developed, with residential buildings upon it. The clause states: “because the titles to the Waikumete cemetery land were created by an invalid process, and contrary to section 112 of the Reserves Act 1977, the land retains its reserve status and remains subject to that Act.” Therefore this bill revokes the reserve status on the Waikumete cemetery land. Can I say that it is with some sadness that we support that change—not because it is unnecessary, as it is clearly necessary now, but because we certainly would regret any further diminution of the reserve space at Waikumete Cemetery.

The Primary Production Committee made a number of recommendations when it worked on this bill. There were several Supplementary Order Papers that included new items in it. Supplementary Order Paper 206 provisions relate to Lookout Point in the Waitaki district, and also Māhinepua Bay as a Māori reservation. There was comment by the select committee, as I alluded to earlier, about the Auckland volcanic cones issues, and there was amendment in respect of the Sugar Loaf Islands Marine Protected Area, where the committee recommended deletion of clauses 42, 43, and 44 from the bill to allow further consultation with affected parties.

The list of reserves that are affected beyond the Auckland Art Gallery and volcanic cones include the good old Dunedin Octagon, Kahurangi National Park land, Lookout Point, Māhinepua Bay, certain areas within Marlborough District Council’s Picton office area, Nelson Marlborough District Health Board land, Paparoa National Park, Port Chalmers Recreation Reserve, Sugar Loaf Islands Marine Protected Area, good old Taieri Airport, Waikumete Cemetery, as I mentioned, Waipā District Council land, some areas of Westland National Park, and, of all things, Winton Racecourse—

💬 Todd Barclay: Yes.

—a matter dear to the heart of the member for Clutha-Southland, who may still have been at school, I venture, when this bill was first brought to the House. However, it is good to see that the Government has moved with such alacrity that he is now of age and able to participate in its passage.

It is with those few comments that I record that Labour does support the bill. It has been a long time coming. The fact that we are here in extra time to pass a bill that has languished on the Order Paper for some 7 years, I think, tells us something about the state of organisation of the Government. But we will not let that get in the way of a bill that is essentially a worthy tidy-up exercise. Thank you.

Before I call Todd Barclay, I will ask members to refer to the bar 3 version of the bill, which is the one that is currently before the House.

It gives me great pleasure to speak in support of the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill. To touch on Mr Cunliffe’s last point, I think, given the importance of the Winton aspect of this bill, that it was a deliberate strategy of the Government to await my arrival into the House. It has taken a long time to report the bill back to this House—that is true—but we are a busy Government with a large legislative agenda, and we wanted to take time on this particular piece of legislation to ensure that the consultation was robust and sufficient. Although these changes are non-controversial and are supported by most communities, we cannot take the risk of making changes that may have an adverse impact on people.

I just want to touch on the Winton Racecourse and to draw the attention of members to clauses 56 to 58, which will provide community and independent input into the management of Winton Racecourse in Southland. Under this change, the Minister of Conservation will be able to appoint up to five trustees for the racecourse at any one time and to limit each appointment to a 3-year period. Currently, three trustees are appointed for life by the Minister of Conservation, and the responsibility for their replacement still lies with the Minister of Conservation. The Winton Racecourse, for those who are not aware, is a 1,600 metre course and it tends to favour horses that can race up to the pace. It is a very important aspect of the Southland community, and the fastest horse always wins on that course.

So just on behalf of my constituents, I would like to thank the House for considering this piece of legislation. I hope that all other members will support its passage through as well. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I think the name of our country, New Zealand and Aotearoa—the land of the long white cloud—reflects the sense of place that New Zealanders have and their connection with our land. I think we have heard that today in the House with the special connection that members individually have referred to—areas of land that the bill deals with that are in their constituencies, that they have dealt with, or that they have a particular affinity with.

Although it is a bill that tidies up the law—it deals with land that does not justify a particular bill in its own right, but tidies up the status of reserves where there have been roads widened through Westland National Park, Westland Tai Poutini National Park, Paparoa National Park, Kahurangi National Park, and the land that was part of the national park but now becomes part of the road reserve. So they are small changes like that. But the bill is also significant for the way that it has been changed in its progress through this House.

The Green Party has been particularly interested in the Walls Bay Esplanade Reserve in Northland. We congratulate the former Minister for Land Information Maurice Williamson and the current Minister for the Supplementary Order Paper that removed clauses 34A, 34B, and 34C from the bill, because those clauses were inserted by the Primary Production Committee in response to submissions. Effectively, they overrode the provisions of the Reserves Act and sought to grant a particular benefit to an individual, in contravention with normal practice.

There has been quite a lot of concern in Northland, because this Walls Bay Esplanade Reserve is, as I understand it, the only esplanade reserve in the Ōpua area. It is part of the Bay of Islands walkway. It is an important area for mana whenua. It is the subject of a Treaty claim, and it is very close to the pouwhenua that were planted at Ōpua by the Ngāpuhi leader Sir James Hēnare.

On this particular bit of esplanade reserve Doug Schmuck has a boat yard, and although the Department of Conservation has been prepared to grant him the right to take boats out of the sea and take them to his boat yard, he was also seeking the right to use the reserve for cleaning boats, for scraping them down, and that compromised the use of the reserve by the public for picnicking and other uses, and just completely changed the amenity value.

The changes that the Primary Production Committee made to, effectively, privatise the reserve, and which the Supplementary Order Paper that we dealt with in the Committee stages has now taken out—those amendments—preserves the integrity of the Walls Bay Esplanade Reserve. So we congratulate the Minister for doing that, because otherwise we would have a situation where bills are going out for comment, some members of the public make submissions, others are not aware of the issue, and Parliament could, potentially, have changed the law without affected parties being able to comment.

The changes were controversial, too, because it was the Northland MP at the time, John Carter, who had assisted in the advocacy around them. I guess the concern now, when Parliament was dealing with this through a Supplementary Order Paper in the Committee stage—I now understand that locals are concerned by the Far North District Council’s attempts to do the same thing through changes to the Walls Bay management plan. But because those provisions around Ōpua and the esplanade reserve were removed, the Green Party is supporting this bill, because all of the other changes are uncontroversial.

I endorse the comments made by the Hon David Parker, having been on the Local Government and Environment Committee when we dealt with Jacqui Deans’ Act in terms of the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Act, because that was seeking to catch up and overtake this bill, which it duly did, in resolving the status of Lookout Point Reserve and Cape Wanbrow. So I commend the bill, and thank you.

I am pleased—actually, relieved—to be standing to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First, my final call in the debate on this bill. I am relieved because at the end of this process, a bit like the pulling of a tooth, it will at long last be over—sort of. In fact, it will not really be over at all, because, as I have said throughout the various stages of this bill, we are destined to revisit it again almost immediately. We are destined, or doomed, if you prefer, to do that because, as others have said, this is a bill of a type that does come before this House with rather regular monotony.

This House has passed, in fact, no fewer than 66 bills bearing the name “Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill”—that is 66 based on my count from the listings available on the New Zealand Legislation website. They date back to 1926, and the latest one to go through that I have been able to find was the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Act 2003. And if we add to those Acts the Acts from this House bearing the title “Reserves and Other Lands Disposal and Public Bodies Empowering Act”, then there are another 19 pieces of legislation of the very same type in the statutes of this country, and they date back to 1901. That was 6 years before New Zealand even became a country, before we gained self-government—6 years prior to becoming a country we were already disposing of reserves. So we have had a total of 85 bills of this type in the annals of this Parliament, going back 114 years, at an average of roughly one every year and 4 months.

So we are, in fact, overdue for another one. In fact, if it were not for the fact that this particular bill has languished on the back-burner of the Government’s priority stove for 6 years—two entire terms of Parliament—we might, in fact, be due for another two. That was my point in the second reading and again during the Committee of the whole House: this bill is now so outdated, and so much of what it started out with is now so superseded and irrelevant, that I genuinely believe that it should be scrapped in its entirety, or sent back to select committee where a fresh set of eyes can go over it. Then it can be brought back to the House in a form that can include all the new cases that will inevitably have popped to the surface since the initiation of this bill 6 years ago.

During the Committee of the whole House I did note that of this bill’s original 17 items and 58 original clauses, something like 11 of those items and 21 of the clauses have now been dealt with, or superseded or amended or done away with altogether by other legislation in the 7 years since this bill was drafted. There will be more. There will be more that have not been noted, there will be more that come to the surface, and there will be others that will need to be included in the next bill, which, as I say, will have to immediately follow this one through the House.

We will pass this bill, obviously. The House has indicated that and the Government obviously has the numbers, so we are going to pass this bill—it is going to happen. I have registered my disappointment and my party’s disappointment about that, in the sense that Government members themselves have admitted that there are people out there whose lives have been affected and continue to be affected by the matters that this bill seeks to address, and the fact that they have had to wait so long for some sort of redress is, frankly, unacceptable.

I do not intend to take up any more than is absolutely necessary of the valuable time of the House in revisiting yet again everything that is wrong with that part of the process. I have said time and again that Government members do have the option of either scrapping this bill or sending it back to the select committee for a complete overhaul. We know that they will do neither. We also know that we will be back here debating yet another one of these in some ways banal pieces of legislation, which will be the 87th after this one since 1901, possibly before the year is out, but certainly before the term of this Parliament is out. For that reason, New Zealand First does not support this bill. We believe that is the only sane position that any party can take on it. Thank you.

I just want to take a short call on the third reading of the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill. The bill was sponsored by Minister Louise Upston. As part of the parliamentary process and also the work that central government does with local government and communities, there comes a time when there needs to be some legislation of this kind of nature that really just enables the local communities to use properties, especially reserves and other lands, in the manner in which they need to and to address any anomalies that there may be in the system. Bills like this do come along. I know that in Hamilton we had the Parana Park bill many years ago, which dealt with a very similar situation. My good colleague from Hamilton West, Tim Macindoe, will remember that as well. So these things do happen, and this is one of the cases where the Government just needs to assist local communities, and we are doing that through this bill. There are a number of different projects that will be assisted through this bill, and so we commend it to the House and thank you for the support of this bill.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this particular bill. It is a bill that Labour supports. It is an omnibus bill; it deals with authorisations, transfers, and the validation of matters relating to reserve lands, Crown land, and other lands that are being held for public or private purposes.

The critical question that has to be asked, even at this late stage of the debate, is why this bill has taken 7 years—the entire length of this Government’s tenure in office—to pass through the House. The Minister who introduced this bill is the gentleman sitting to my right, the Hon David Parker. He was 7 years younger—although he has aged particularly well—and he pointed out that there are children in my electorate who have been at school for several years who were not born at the time that this bill was introduced. So, at the very least, the next National speaker, instead of mumbling some inanities like David Bennett did, should at least explain to the House—or the Minister should have explained to the House—why there has been the delay in this bill.

This bill is, for the most part, non-controversial. There were two clauses in relation to volcanic cones that have been dropped, which I applaud. Largely, the bill was non-controversial, but it was important to certain communities. David Parker talks about the area known as Forrester Heights in the Ōāmaru region. This bill was necessary so that the Waitaki District Council could go ahead with the sale of land that it had entered into contracts with buyers for, not knowing that an incompetent Government would take 7 years to pass this legislation. The result of that was twofold. Firstly, the contracts were voided, and I understand from my colleague that that cost to the Waitaki District Council was some millions of dollars. So this Government is responsible for loading the cost of its incompetence on to a small local authority. Then the measures were finally passed by the local member bringing in a local bill. The time and the money that it cost to pass that local bill could have been invested in getting this bill through, but this Government, which has no money to meet some of the pressing social needs of this country, was prepared to squander it on its own incompetence in failing to get legislation through in a timely manner.

There are a number of things here where the bill passes legislative changes that are of benefit to local communities. Given that is the case, again, you have to ask why the Government did not organise its legislative programme so that these non-controversial measures could have been passed through into law. Why, for example, has the Government made the Dunedin City Council wait 7 years to regularise a long-term lease for the use of reserve land by the Port Chalmers Bowling Club? It has prolonged by that period of time the uncertainty that that club faces by not having the ability to have that land passed to it. Why has it delayed allowing the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board to make more effective use of five blocks of land, for which it held the title, at the expense of being able to provide health and disability services utilising that land? It is another cost to another small community caused by one thing: the incompetence of successive Ministers and this National Government in getting the legislation through in a timely way.

Why did it delay passing to the trustees of a Māori reservation adjoining reserve land in the Māhinepua Bay in Northland—why was that Māori trust forced to wait for 7 years to have the land passed to it when everybody in the community supported that land being passed to it? Generally, Reserves and Other Lands Disposal bills deal with only non-controversial matters, but there were some issues that excited a degree of controversy. One of them was in relation to land in Albert Park. As a former student at Auckland University, I have a particular affection for Albert Park.

💬 Hon David Parker: Oh, too much information.

Yes—I am not going to go into details of that. It is a beautiful—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!

Ha, ha! The member in the Chair knows well from his own experience. But, I have got to say, it is a truly beautiful piece of land. It is in the heart of Auckland City. It is extensively utilised by Auckland University, and also now by the Auckland University of Technology, and, generally, I would be absolutely opposed to passing across the title of part of such an important park for another purpose. Most of the submissions to the Primary Production Committee—and we are now talking about, I think, July 2009 when the committee heard these submissions; some of the submitters will no longer be on this earth—were against that, but I have got to say that there are exceptional circumstances here.

I do not think that the process followed by the then council was as good as it needed to be, but the fact is that the land that was passed across was a very small piece of land on the fringe of the reserve and it was passed across to the Auckland Art Gallery. One of the most beautiful buildings in Auckland—and, indeed, in New Zealand—is the Auckland Art Gallery, dating back to the 19th century. I have got to give credit to those who designed an extension to that art gallery. It is a new, modern wing to the art gallery, but it is as aesthetically pleasing, in a very modern form, as the heritage building was in the form that it was created, based on a French chateau.

💬 Hon David Parker: International awards.

It has won international awards, as my colleague says. It is something that we as Aucklanders are incredibly proud of. It has not detracted from the effective utilisation of Albert Park. In fact, the nature of the building, sited on the edge of the park, is probably something that enhances the value of the park and, certainly, the public amenity. So I support the recommendations of the committee. In fact, the building is in place—it has been in place for many years—so it is simply acknowledging a fait accompli. I sympathise with those submitters who, perhaps as a matter of principle, said that we ought to be extraordinarily cautious about utilising our parkland—particularly a park like Albert Park—for other purposes, but, in this case, I think that the use is warranted.

Finally, I want to touch upon the volcanic cones. The bill, as it was introduced in the House and went to the select committee, proposed amending the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Act so that decision-making powers in relation to excavations on private land adjoining or abutting public reserves containing Auckland’s volcanic cones would be dealt with by the Minister of Conservation rather than by Order in Council through the Governor-General. The rationale for this was that it was inefficient for the Governor-General to be required to make minor amendments, but the select committee, quite rightly, I think, rejected clauses 10 and 11 of this bill and said that the status quo should remain. It said that the present system was preferable to giving sole power to the department or to the Minister and that the status quo should be maintained until a review seeking means of protecting the cones in perpetuity could be carried out.

I have got to say I have a particular affection for the maunga—the volcanic cones—in the Auckland area. They are historically important, they are important to the tangata whenua, they are important aesthetically, and they are important as areas of recreation. I was brought up in the Three Kings area, and I have my electorate office there. Two of those “kings” have been decapitated—absolutely decapitated. We would not do that again. They were used for quarrying purposes. More recently the New Zealand Transport Authority, in its wisdom, was going to carve out the side of Puketāpapa—Mount Roskill—to put State Highway 20 through. Fortunately, the Auckland Volcanic Cones Society, the local board, and the local people stopped that happening, but this emphasises the wisdom of the select committee’s decision. We should delete those clauses—and we have deleted those clauses—but we need to focus on the need to provide protection for an incredibly important part of Auckland’s heritage.

Dr Kennedy Graham—5 minutes.

I just want to give a split call to pick up seamlessly from where the Hon Phil Goff left off, and reaffirm that the Green Party will be supporting this bill, for the reasons, essentially, outlined by my colleague Eugenie Sage.

The only critical issue here is the process by which the bill has worked its tortuous way through the New Zealand Parliament to its third reading today. It has taken a very long time indeed. Our Labour colleague David Cunliffe said that it was 7 years, I think. New Zealand First seemed to think it was 6 years. I can add value to this debate by having checked, and can say that it was introduced on the Order Paper in July 2008—[Interruption] Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Yes, I can confirm what you are conveying with such grace and eloquence to the New Zealand public—I can confirm that it is 7 years and 2 months since it has been on the Order Paper.

So now that we have cleared that up, we can acknowledge that all parties, I think, are supporting it, with one exception, and that is New Zealand First. I tried to fathom the reason why it would be opposing it and I gather that the reason is that the bill is “old and irrelevant” and that, therefore, the only sane approach would be to oppose it. So picking up on sanity as being the principle criterion on whether to oppose or not oppose a bill—it is not a bad criterion to use, I suppose—we would question whether, in fact, if a bill is very old, that is a sane reason to oppose it.

On that, we find that one of the principal reasons why it was deferred is the difficulties that arose with regard to the way in which the legislation would apply to the land issue in Ōpua, as Eugenie Sage has said. And that, apparently, seems to have been the misfortune of a Minister at the time in seeking to essentially privatise a particular aspect of a public land. I think that that particular issue is best summed up by my colleague David Clendon, who is worth quoting. He said: “The extraordinary thing is that it took so long for the minister to see that the proposed ‘easement’ would have effectively privatised part of a public reserve. While it’s a small area, the precedent it set could have created real difficulties for protecting larger sites in the public domain”. I think, as he said, sanity finally prevailed and those clauses were withdrawn.

Those are the kinds of reasons why bills are held up unnecessarily. But that is not a sufficient reason to oppose it, and, of course, there are other clauses in the bill applying to other areas of land as well. If it is irrelevant, that would be a reason to oppose, but it is very clear, listening to Government explanation of the bill and Labour’s comments on it, that it is not irrelevant. It is highly relevant. It is necessary, and so, therefore, the Green Party is very happy to support it. Thank you.

I am delighted to follow Dr Graham after that learned and considered oration, but I just want to return to the speech of the previous speaker, Mr Goff, which was certainly one of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But methinks that member does protest too much on this occasion. Mr Goff, of course, has two stock speeches that he delivers in this House whenever he needs to fill in a little bit of time. One is the speech of mock outrage about an arrogant, unprincipled Government that is rushing legislation through at breakneck speed and trampling over the democratic rights of the people. The other speech is the one about this unbelievably lazy and incompetent Government that cannot sort out its own legislative programme and takes years and years to deliver. Of course, the fact is that neither of these two actually applies.

This is simply a case, as he quite rightly noted, of a bill that is largely uncontroversial. It is obviously going to be supported by people over there. Nevertheless, the reason it has taken some time is that there are many communities throughout the length and breadth of the country—we have heard from people from the north right down to the very sage and rapidly ageing new member for Clutha-Southland, who spoke of the dramatic impact of this bill in the fine metropolis of Winton. The point is—and it is a serious point—that all of those communities had a legitimate interest. They did need to be consulted. The Government has, therefore, taken the time to do that job properly. And, of course, this is not one of those bills that have to be pushed through at breakneck speed.

We are a very busy Government with a very full legislative agenda. We have been focusing on issues that matter. That is why we have these extended sitting opportunities—in order to be able to get through some of these other non-controversial measures, and I am very pleased that we are doing just that. I thank all members for supporting it.

I rise to take a short call. There have been some really useful contributions on the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill, and I do want to make the point that this is a bill that will tidy up a whole lot of issues in local communities.

I really want to make only two particular arguments in this final debate on this bill, and one is about community consultation. The previous speaker, Tim Macindoe, talked about the length of time it has taken for communities to have input into this piece of legislation. I think 7 years is an extraordinary amount of time to require communities to contribute to this piece of legislation, and I think it is a little disingenuous of that member to suggest that that is why it has taken so long to pass this bill through the House.

When Minister Lotu-Iiga introduced the third reading he made three statements that I think are very relevant. He said that this bill determines land use of both public and private property; he said that it meant that obstacles are being removed; and he said that the community interest is at the heart of this process. I want to say that this bill is absolutely about, and it should be about, community consultation processes and how local and central government can work together to ensure that community interests are, indeed, at the heart of the process.

This is where I want to make my second point in this discussion. I want to perhaps pass a cautionary note for when this type of legislation may come to the House in the future with regard to what will happen around the residential red zone in the Canterbury area, in particular the 80 or 90 percent of residential red zone in Christchurch that resides within the Christchurch East electorate. What will happen at that time will be some very difficult conversations about the future use of that land.

Why it is relevant in the context of this bill is that the council and the Government are talking about swaps of land that may be used to ensure that the public have facilities that are useful for future use. It may mean swaps from what is currently council land to what will become public land in the ownership of the Crown. It is important to recognise that at the time that those consultations happen the public, the people of Christchurch East in particular, and the people of the wider Christchurch and Canterbury region need to have a fulsome opportunity to discuss the use of that land so that we are not bound up in legislation at a future time to unpick the difficulties and the issues that may come about because of that.

I am not going to speak any more on this. This bill has taken a long time to traverse its passage through the House, and I commend it. Thank you.