Point England Development Enabling Bill

I want to speak to clause 7(3), which really goes to the heart of the purpose of the Point England Development Enabling Bill. What clause 7(3) says is that on the commencement date of this bill, on the register for the development land—that is, the 11.69 hectares—“the Registrar-General must record the following: (a) that the Crown is the registered proprietor of the fee simple estate in the land:”. So the ownership of this land that we are debating goes to the Crown on the passing of this bill, or, I should say, on the commencement date of this bill. Why does it go to the Crown? It goes to the Crown so that the Crown can then make it available for the commercial redress component of Ngāti Paoa’s Treaty settlement. I want to acknowledge in the gallery this evening Hauāuru Rāwiri from Ngāti Paoa, who is obviously someone who has a lot of skin in the game in this debate over the passage of this bill through the House.

I want to make it very clear in relation to Labour’s position that we have no beef with Ngāti Paoa on this issue. In fact, I can understand why Ngāti Paoa might take the view that, in the context of their historical experience, the status of 11.69 hectares of land at Point England may be far from the most significant thing for them when they consider the possibilities and the opportunities of their Treaty settlement. If they were to take that view, then I would find that very believable and very plausible.

But this bill is being passed by the Government of the day. It is incumbent on the Government to govern in the interests of all New Zealanders—of the whole community—and therefore the Government has an obligation to take seriously the full range of concerns that might be felt by the community about this bill. I think it is patently clear that the Government has not done that. It has chosen to ignore an obviously superior alternative plan that would offer for Ngāti Paoa, if it was put on the negotiating table, the same sized parcel of land just across the fence in land that is owned by the Tāmaki Regeneration Company, in which the Government is the dominant shareholder. It would provide that commercial redress a stone’s throw from the development land that we are debating in this bill. And, as Peeni Henare and I have proposed publicly, the Government could have offered to transfer the title of the entire recreational reserve to Ngāti Paoa on the basis, as has been negotiated in so many other places, of public access in perpetuity.

The Government could have offered co-governance of the entire Point England recreational reserve in acknowledgment of the special historical relationship and the feeling that Ngāti Paoa have for that patch of land. We propose that a reserve be set aside on Point England for the establishment of a marae so that, as part of this Treaty settlement, Ngāti Paoa would have a place to stand and a place from which to welcome in the local community. It is an obvious win-win, and it stands in contrast to the bulldozing, non-consultative, narrow vision that we have seen from the Minister, Nick Smith, in the way that this bill has been crafted and is being taken through Parliament.

Labour’s commitment to the Treaty settlement process is rock solid, it is mature, it is thoughtful, and it is considered, but it is not a blank cheque for every half-baked scheme that Nick Smith comes up with. The shame about this bill is that instead of a bright new chapter in Ngāti Paoa’s history, it risks poisoning the well of the relationship with the local community.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair, thank you very much. I too want to endorse the words of my colleague Mr Phil Twyford here about the alternatives offered throughout this entire process in a very clear way. It is interesting how my colleague Meka Whaitiri talked about “more or less” and was answered by the Minister in the chair, Scott Simpson. Why let a fence separate this? Why let a fence stop the particular offer that we were endorsing in our negotiations on this bill, which would allow a win-win?

I want to come to Part 2, clause 6(1)(b): “the reservation of the development land as a recreation reserve subject to the Reserves Act 1977 is revoked;”. I thought I would do a bit of due diligence and look into the Reserves Act, and in section 24(2)(c) of the Reserves Act it says that every person claiming to be affected by the proposed changes has the right to object—they have the right to object. If there is one thing that was a serious question from the outset of this particular bill, it was the limited scope the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) was given in its consultation—a very limited scope. It spoke to some stakeholders, not all stakeholders. As the bill progressed to the Local Government and Environment Committee, it was made clear by the 132 submissions that this was an important issue—that the process was a failed one, one that silenced voices and one that did not allow participation, something that we pride ourselves on in this country.

Yet here we are saying that according to the Reserves Act, every person claiming to be affected by the proposed changes has the right to object in writing and to have their submission heard. That is being booted out the door now, and we are relying on the select committee process alone. That is a great concern to me, the proposed process—which we have had from the beginning—that allowed MBIE only a limited scope of consultation. That is of serious concern, because that is evidenced by the sheer number of submissions on the matter—many for, some against, and some just clearly pointing out the flawed process, as pointed out by my colleague Mr Phil Twyford in debating Part 1. One of the quotes from the submitters was “the decay of quality decision-making”, pointing out clearly that the consultation process was seriously flawed.

I want to also talk, in Part 2, about clause 6(1)(d), and it says there: “the development land is set apart for State housing purposes (as defined in section 2(1) of the Housing Act 1955) and becomes State housing land under that Act;”. Having looked up that particular Act, it says in section 3: “The Minister may from time to time determine either generally or in any particular case what land or classes of land may be acquired for State housing purposes and the general scheme of development thereof, the number and classes of dwellings and ancillary commercial buildings to be constructed, and any other matters of State housing policy.”—any other matters of State housing policy. Well, if there is one thing I can say about housing policy from that side of the House—

💬 Meka Whaitiri: There’s nothing

There is nothing. There are ad hoc attempts to try to hide the crisis they have been denying. So if we have a look at Part 2, clause 6(1)(d), and we take the Housing Act 1955—and once again, I repeat: “and any other matters of State housing policy”—we are yet to see what a clear housing policy is. I mentioned it too in Part 1—we are yet to see who is actually going to take responsibility for this, because as social housing comes up, we have got a new face for it, there is a new Minister in charge of that, flipping from one Minister back over to Dr Nick Smith, then back over to another Minister for another particular matter on housing. That does not tell me that there is a clear housing policy from this Government, and what this particular bill is proposing to do is actually strip the rights of our people in Tāmaki-makau-rau to a solid housing plan, one that actually deals with the crisis and the needs of the community, as pointed out in the 132 submissions that were made on this particular bill. That is a really big concern for myself, for the stakeholders of Tāmaki-makau-rau, and, indeed, for those people who are concerned about the housing issue in New Zealand and, of course, in Tāmaki-makau-rau.

So—Part 2, clause 6(1)(d). In the definition given in the Housing Act 1955, Part 1, section 3, it gives quite a large scope around what the Minister’s powers are in relation to this particular development. While we might argue some of the limitations around interpretation in Part 1, and in the later parts of this bill, which I will get to in another contribution, it will talk about social housing and the needs of that particular community.

I will tell you one of the interesting things when the Māori Party—and I am disappointed that the Māori Party members are not here to take a call on this bill. One of the lines that was used by the Māori Party was that it will allow Ngāti Paoa to build homes for their people. I have read this bill backwards and forwards, and in Part 2 it does not say anything that gives Ngāti Paoa the power to make sure that they provide social housing for the housing needs of the people of Ngāti Paoa. Yet if we take the definition as given to us under the Housing Act 1955, and in this particular bill, Part 2, clause 6(1)(d), there is scope here for the Minister—whoever that might be, because, as I have pointed out, there are difficulties actually pinning this on a particular Minister in the House because of the complexities of this issue that this Government has not dealt with. There is scope in that particular part of the bill that is of huge concern, because it says in section 3 of the Housing Act: “classes of dwellings and ancillary commercial buildings to be constructed, and any other matters of State housing policy.” I reiterate the point: where is that State housing policy? Where is something that gives the people of Point England, that gives the people of Tāmaki-makau-rau, and, indeed, the voters of this country some kind of reassurance that there is a clear plan?

It was mentioned in the submissions, the adhockery in the nature of consultation and the decay of process. These are not my words; these are the words of far more intelligent people giving very good submissions on this particular bill—people who know the issues, people who understand the Resource Management Act, people who understand the environmental impacts of such ad hoc housing plans.

Just in conclusion for this particular part of my contribution, I just want to say that my point being made is: no policy, no clear Minister to lead it, and, in the interpretation part—I have already mentioned that—the scope here in Part 2, clause 6(1)(d), once again gives a wide scope for the Minister to do far more than what this bill is actually proposing. Once again, the Māori Party line was that this was to build homes for Ngāti Paoa descendants. I have not seen that in the bill, and I wonder whether the Minister in the chair, Scott Simpson, can answer why it is not there.

New Zealand First continues to oppose this bill, and, actually, we oppose all the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) except one, and that is SOP 317 in the name of Eugenie Sage.

We support that for these reasons. First of all, this bill actually is nothing much more than a blatant land-grab by the Government, and, worse still, it is the theft—and I use the word “theft” deliberately—of irreplaceable park land from current and future residents of Auckland. [Interruption] I know the MPs opposite do not like that, because they do not like hearing the truth. Truth is their enemy, and if you listen to their speeches, you will know that. The truth is that this Government is taking this land by theft, effectively, off the people of Auckland by the most devious means: by using special legislation to avoid the usual Resource Management Act processes, which would require a plan change, and by attempting to sidestep the usual community consultation processes that should have taken place. The Government knows that what it is doing is wrong, it knows the community is upset, and it knows the community is diametrically opposed to this—that is why we are all getting so many emails about this—but it does not care.

The Government does not care for two reasons—because from its point of view, it is a good deal. It gets some land for housing—not much, actually; only 300 houses, which is a drop in the bucket—but also it gets a Treaty settlement, as well. That is a cheap way of getting a Treaty settlement for the Government. It is a win-win for the Government, but it is a lose-lose for the community, and that is what I particularly want to speak about in support of SOP 317.

The bill as a whole smacks of National Government arrogance at its worst. It treats the people in the community like dirt by ignoring what they have to say, by not even having a process that they could participate in. It treats the open space provided by the reserve like it does not matter—like it is just a piece of land that you can do what you like with. In fact, Nick Smith just talks about it as grazing land, as if that were the truth, which it certainly is not. It treats the conservation values of this land as though they were irrelevant, and shows just how little regard that party has for the environment and for conservation values. It treats the Auckland Council’s submission with utter disdain. That is the attitude of the National Government, and that is what this bill really represents.

SOP 317 would address at least part of the Government’s shortcomings. It requires the proposals to be treated as a discretionary or noncomplying activity, and I think that is appropriate. After all, this is not just any reserve land; it is reserve land with particularly high environmental and conservation values, and open space for the local community. It could not really be much more important as a reserve, and yet this Government is willing to ride roughshod over all of that. The SOP would require notification, it would allow the public to participate through a notification process, and it would allow public scrutiny of the proposal, which processes so far have not allowed. It would allow for the need for the residential land proposal to be balanced against the needs of the community for open space—not just now but in the future, including the longer-distant future—and, of course, the conservation values as well. That balance has not been discussed and that process has not taken place, and it should have.

The SOP would mean an examination of the adverse environmental effects that will no doubt, absolutely, be the case with this bill, and it would provide an opportunity for people to discuss mitigation measures—an opportunity they have not had so far. It would also allow an examination of possible alternatives. Many of those who have emailed me have said: “Look at this alternative, look at that alternative.” They should not have to email MPs asking for that. They should be able to participate directly in a process that allows them the opportunity to put forward proposals for alternatives. But that has not been done, because of National Government arrogance. Those processes really should have taken place, and they have not. In other words, what this SOP does is do all the things that the Government has deliberately set out to avoid, all for a paltry 300 homes and all because of an apparent proposed Treaty settlement, which is actually not the subject of the bill at all.

Having said that, although this SOP is proposed by the Greens, I am amazed by the Greens’ decision to abstain on this bill—not just amazed but extremely disappointed by it, because that is hardly a commitment to preserve the reserve. It is hardly a vote to keep the open space. It is hardly a vote for conservation. It is certainly not a vote to support the community. What has happened? Have the Greens gone wimpy about the environment all of a sudden? If so, they had better change their name, because this is not a green attitude to this particular bill. Maybe those members should have a look at how they vote on the third reading, because, quite frankly, I have listened some of their speeches and they are completely incomprehensible. They do not make any sense to me, and I think they should make up their minds as to what they really believe in. If they actually believed in the conservation values, the environmental values, and the support of the community, they would be voting against this bill, and not making some wimpy kind of fence-sitting abstention as they are making silly speeches about currently. I am giving them a good telling-off because they deserve it, in this case.

That is not New Zealand First’s attitude to it. We know what we want. We want the reserve to stay a reserve. We want to keep the environmental and conservation values intact. We want the open space kept intact, and we, for one, are certainly going to support the community.

I have said enough about that SOP and why we are supporting it. I want to go on in the last couple of minutes to talk about some of the other SOPs. The most important of the other ones is SOP 321, which the Minister for Building and Construction has put forward. Actually, this is just more National Government arrogance, because what it is going to do now, in this SOP, is tell the Auckland Council, and therefore the entire Auckland community, what it should do about this reserve, in a micro-managing kind of way—where the sports fields will be, how much area will be sports fields, and so on. That is in the face of the submission made by the Auckland Council, which actually opposes the loss of any of this reserve at all. So not only is the Government not listening to the Auckland Council and the people of Auckland, it now purports to tell them, in a micro-managing kind of way, how to deal with the rest of the reserve.

I have a map here that reflects what the breakup of this reserve is going to be. What you see is a great chunk of the middle of the land taken for housing, little bits of reserve around the edge, and one new playing field area, in addition to the existing ones. It actually makes a mess of the entire reserve—makes a dog’s breakfast of it. It is not sustainable, much, as a reserve in nearly the way that the existing one would be, and yet this Government and this Minister are so arrogant. They know best! They do not want to have any process whereby a change of the plan for this reserve would take place with public input—oh, no. The Minister knows what to do! He will just tell them what to do, and everyone can go and take a running jump. That is what he means: “Just do what I say, and we do not care about what you want.” That is what he is saying to the people of Auckland. That is National Government arrogance for you.

This SOP is just a poor excuse for the decimation of the reserve. It is an attempt to appease angry residents, who will not be appeased by it, because they know the truth. It is an admission that the land actually is needed for recreation purposes now, and much more of it will be needed in the future, and that is the opposite of what the bill actually does. This is a disgraceful bill. It should never have been contemplated in the first place, and we will certainly—we will certainly, undoubtedly—be voting against it.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Well, I thank Mr O’Rourke for explaining my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 317. This is because Part 2 goes to the real heart of the bill. It is in clause 6, of course, that the bill overrides the normal processes that would apply under the Reserves Act and the Resource Management Act (RMA). So the Supplementary Order Paper , because there is no plan change process, because the bill sidesteps that—in a plan change process where you are rezoning what is now open space to residential mixed housing urban land, you would normally get an opportunity for public submissions and for those submissions to deal with issues like what the impacts of that zoning change would be and how the plan should have new objectives, new policies, and new rules to guide the future use and development of the land. The provisions in the Resource Legislation Amendment Act, which Parliament debated earlier this year, make a much faster process for the way in which subdivision activity takes place, and there is no guarantee that applications for subdivision consents are actually going to be notified.

So the SOP, as a minimum, requires that there is a resource consent application for the housing development that is a notified activity, and puts in play a number of provisions: that it must protect the habitat of the dotterel and the shore plover, and avoid adverse effects from land disturbance. We have got no certainty, given that the bill sidesteps the plan change process, that there will be adequate provisions to ensure that the development does not lead to quite significant sedimentation in Omaru Creek and in the Tāmaki estuary. We are certainly aware of Ngāti Paoa’s major commitments to enhancement of the people, the land, and the community, but from experience with a number of big resource consent applications and developments, you need those sorts of commitments to be put in as conditions of the consent or as clear plan objectives.

So a question for the Minister is: if this SOP is not supported by the Government, how is the Government going to guarantee that the local communities in Tāmaki, Point England, Panmure, and Glen Innes actually get a say on this housing development and how it happens? How can the Government guarantee that the consent will be notified? The council has said there will be a consent process, but there is absolutely no guarantee, because of the Government’s changes to the RMA, that people will actually get the opportunity to have a say on that.

So we encourage members to support this SOP to make sure that the community can actually participate in how this housing development happens; what sort of density it is; what provisions there are for connectivity, walkways, cyclists, and pedestrians; how the major earthworks that are likely to be required on this very wet site will be dealt with; how sediment measures are to be put in place; and things like site hardening. Given Omaru Creek is a very polluted waterway, if there is a lot more asphalt and there are more large roofs there will be a lot more stormwater generated. The Auckland Council is providing some tens of millions of dollars to improve catchment management for Omaru Creek, but there will be significantly increased stormwater volumes if there is a lot of site hardening with this development.

We would also like to go on and talk to some of the issues around the loss of the reserves and the loss of the playing fields, and the SOP that is in the Minister the Hon Nick Smith’s name. We heard a lot of submissions concerned about the effect of the housing development in doing away with areas that are used for sports. Point England Reserve currently has six full-sized sports fields in the southern part of it. There are four kilikiti wickets. Those kilikiti wickets are used during the week and during the weekend. They are very popular with the Pasifika community, and the Auckland Council, in its sports network needs-analysis report, went through and looked at what the impact would be on the Tāmaki area from the loss of these sports fields and the kilikiti wickets at Point England when they are overcome with housing. That needs analysis shows that there is no potential within the existing sports parks for the kilikiti wickets that are displaced at Point England being accommodated there. That is because of the large scale and size of these kilikiti wickets. It also found that most of the other sports parks in the vicinity have already been developed to capacity, through things like having sand carpets and floodlights, so there will be a significant shortfall in terms of playing hours if this land is sacrificed to housing.

So what has the Minister for the Environment done in response? Well, we have Supplementary Order Paper 321, which cuts across, once again, the decision making by the Auckland Council. Instead of allowing the Auckland Council to look at how the lost sports field capacity should be dealt with, the Minister, through his SOP, will amend the bill to insist that the council provide another 5.3 hectares on the balance of the Point England Reserve, which is not going to have houses put on it, for sports fields. That increases after 12 months to 8.4 hectares.

Mr O’Rourke called it micro-management, and I agree. It is the Minister, once again, as is characteristic of him, imposing his will on Aucklanders, rather than allowing the democratically elected council to deal with this issue of the shortfall in sports fields. We have the Government not responding to submissions, because a lot of the concern amongst many submitters was about the loss of open space. There were fewer submitters who were concerned about the loss of sports fields, but those who were, were concerned. This SOP of the Minister’s has come out of left field. It was not signalled in the Local Government and Environment Committee, and it is the Government attempting once again to be seen to be doing something when all it is doing is undermining democracy.

The loss of the sports fields is significant, because the Auckland Council paid out over $60 million to Auckland University in 2016 to buy Colin Maiden Park. That has got a number of sports facilities in it. The council does not have the resources to keep doing that—to buy more land for sports fields. The Government has completely understated the impact on, particularly, the Pasifika community, through the loss of the kilikiti area, when the Pasifika population in the Tāmaki area is expected to increase by 42 percent by 2038. It has not looked at how the Auckland Council is supposed to deal with the loss of the sports fields for housing, and, instead, is just doing this quick and dirty SOP to require that the rest of the reserve be sacrificed for sports fields instead of the open space that it currently is. The regulatory impact statement notes that the changes in the SOP are unusual, because, once again, they are being done through primary legislation, which is overriding the normal processes in the Reserves Act and the RMA for the council to actually decide what should happen on the balance of the land, which remains as council land.

So this SOP of the Minister’s is really symbolic of the provisions of the primary bill, which cut across local democracy and cut across local decision-making. I do want the Minister in the chair, Scott Simpson, to answer what guarantee there is, if the bill goes through without my SOP, that the community in Tāmaki will actually get to have a say on the resource consent application. We are not having that normal plan change process and there is no ability to constrain the housing development to ensure that it is sustainable, to deal with issues like coastal hazard, sediment, density, public transport access, connectivity to other reserves like Tāhuna Tōrea, and connectivity to the local shopping centre, unless those sorts of issues are discussed through the resource consent process. At the moment there is absolutely no guarantee that that consent application will be publicly notified or that there will be any opportunity for locals to actually have their say.

I am very happy to take a call on this part of the bill, Part 2. I am reminded of a situation I have on the domestic front at the moment. We have debated Part 1, which is the entrée to the bill. The domestic situation I have at home is that upstairs there has been a bit of a stink. I had not quite been able to work out what it is. I did a bit of investigation on Sunday morning and found out we have got a blocked drain downstairs full of putrid, fetid water. We found the source of the contamination, and Part 2 is the source of the contamination in this bill, because it is the odious part of this bill that does the business of stripping away precious public reserve land from a community that treasures and needs that land. I just want to work through some of the key sections of Part 2, particularly clause 6, with a bit of reflection on some of the very good submissions that were produced and then summarily ignored by the Government as this piece of legislation has made its way through the process.

If we read through Part 2, particularly clause 6—and clause 8 as well, which I will come to—it is all there in pretty sort of technical and bureaucratic language. But, fundamentally, what it does is stomp all over community interests and the due process that we normally expect people to be given in this country when major changes are made to their community. It stomps all over provisions that we would usually see enacted through the Resource Management Act (RMA) and the Reserves Act. I want to turn to some of the very good submissions we received that spoke to these points.

The first one was from the Auckland Council. I have got to say that I think it is pretty significant that we have got Auckland Council—the largest local authority in our country and the unitary authority set up by this Government—speaking in extremely forceful language about the way in which this bill cuts across what are, quite frankly, pretty close to constitutional arrangements in our country in terms of the relationship between local and central government. Here is what it says first up. It says “Use of special legislation to lift reserve status and provide for housing development outside normal statutory processes sets a concerning precedent”, and in other points it is called a “dangerous precedent”. For a formal council submission, that is extremely strong language from a council that needs and wants to have a good relationship to use with the Government. I think that shows the level of alarm in local government about these steps from the Government, and we have seen plenty of them over the course of this year, but in this bill there is indeed a very concerning precedent that we see coming through.

Further on in Auckland Council’s submission, it goes on to talk about the way in which the bill and, in particular, clause 6 of the bill, really cuts across the Reserves Act provisions that usually govern any changes to our precious public reserves. In the Reserves Act we set a high bar. We deliberately set a high bar for changes to public reserves because they are so important. They are really important because, generally speaking, once public reserve land is gone, it is gone. So it is extremely important that it is protected and that the community that benefits from it is able to have a real say over those changes and that the interests of the reserves are protected.

What the Auckland Council says in respect of this is “The Reserves Act sets out stringent steps that the Minister of Conservation must follow before revoking the reserve status of part or all of the reserve.”—and, of course, it is clause 6 here, which by fiat revokes that reserve status of part of Point England Reserve. “If that process had been followed in this instance, the Minister would have been required to set out the reasons for the proposed revocation and invite comment from Auckland Council. Public notification of the proposed revocation would have been required. Affected members of the public would have had a right of objection. The Minister of Conservation would have been obliged to take any such objections into account and would also have been subject to the principles of administrative law—the decision could have been reviewed by the courts.”

I wonder, where is the party of people like Jim McLay, who once would have stood up for those kinds of principles—the principle of the rule of law and due process and people being able to have a say about these kinds of things? Instead, we have a bill that is going through and cutting across all of those sorts of rights that people in our community can reasonably expect.

The Maungakiekie Tāmaki Local Board, in its submission, talked on this further, alongside, I think, five other local boards, including a number of local boards primarily dominated by National Party members. It has expressed its concern about what it terms the “dangerous precedent” in line with Auckland Council’s comments. It has noticed that this is a fast-track development and that it avoids a robust public consultation process, including a right of appeal. These are extremely serious concerns from a local board that is the most local form of democracy in this community, and those concerns have been completely ignored. The local board did a patch-up job by trying to have some local consultation of the kind that the Government did not have when it tried to slip this bill through its early stages over the summer period. It is actually interesting to read in the submissions and in the notes of that public meeting the serious concerns of the community, not just about the loss of their reserve but their concerns that in the future the public reserves of other communities may be taken away by this kind of approach as well.

Continuing through the submissions that point to these very serious process concerns, there is another excellent one from Forest & Bird. Forest & Bird is a serious organisation that for 70 or 80 years has fought for our ecology, has fought for public open spaces. It is not politically partisan; it is interested in the common good and it is interested in fair and due process as well. Here is what Forest & Bird says: “Of significant concern to Forest & Bird is the removal of the [RMA] statutory requirements around consultation, public engagement and environmental assessment for subdivisions.” Again, I would ask the Minister, actually, about this, because it has come through in submission after submission: where, actually, are the environmental assessments that we would expect to see on a piece of public reserve land that has notable environmental and ecological values that have been assessed by a number of experts? We have seen absolutely none of that.

Another submission, by Julie Chambers, who has led the Save Point England group and is a person who is very well known in the community for serving the community over many, many years—

💬 Phil Twyford: A long-time National Party member.

A long-time National Party member—not any more. But she makes the point that “The inclusion of Section 8”—we turn to clause 8 now—“forces Auckland Council to carry out a major Plan Change”, and this is the bit that imposes a particular kind of zoning, mixed urban housing, on the land that will have reserve status revoked, “that will convert the use of treasured public open space into residential housing”. So not only are we taking away the reserve status, but then, through an Act of Parliament rather than public consultation, we are also dictating exactly the kind of urban form that will go on to that public land, whereas across all of the rest of Auckland we have had a thorough consultative process through the unitary plan to determine what form of housing should go on what site. There has been none of that in the case of Point England.

I want to touch on a couple of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that go to these points as well. Eugenie Sage’s SOP 317, which we fully support, tries to backfill some of the deficiencies of process that are embedded in this bill. It does that by asking whether, after all of these egregious breaches of process, we can at least ensure we have a basic RMA process, in terms of the development that will occur on what everyone acknowledges is a sensitive site in many ways. I think that is the least that the people of the community could expect after having all of their other rights trampled over in this process.

I always like contrast, and in contrast to that good SOP, well, we have got Dr Smith’s SOP 321. It is less an SOP and more a doodle on the back of an envelope done over at Bellamy’s one night, I think. It is absolutely pathetic. It is about the Minister trying to get an extra 500 votes for Denise Lee in the coming election in that seat—trying to save a few votes for her by banging an extra playing field on the reserve, with absolutely no background work done on that whatsoever.

What has the Minister done—this is a question for the Minister in the chair, Scott Simpson, actually—to understand Auckland Council’s sports field development capacity project, which has actually worked out on an evidential basis where sports fields should go and what kinds of sports fields there should be? Should it be a grass turf or an artificial turf or a hybrid turf? Has any of that work been done as Nick Smith put forward this SOP? What engagement has there been with Auckland Council around its open space development strategy, which actually determines the kinds of open spaces that we want in different places? There is absolutely nothing in this SOP. It is simply not worth the paper it is written on, and from a public policy point of view, I think that even that Minister, Minister Smith, who is responsible for so many cack-handed pieces of legislation, should be ashamed of that particular SOP.

In finishing my comments at this stage—and I would like to come back and take another call on some of the environmental aspects later on—I do have a couple of questions for the Minister in the chair, in addition to those ones that I have already offered. The first one that I would like to ask is, in respect of clause 8 of the bill, can the Minister explain why once reserve status is revoked we would not simply have a plan-change process that would be open to public consultation to determine the appropriate form of density and urban form on that site? I think the people of the community of Point England would like to know that. Thank you.

I want to address my comments to Supplementary Order Paper 321 in the name of the Hon Nick Smith. What this amendment does is that it legisla—legislative—oh, I will try that again; it legislatively directs Auckland Council to devote 3 hectares of land that it owns at Point England to be turned into sports fields. And, secondly, it directs the Auckland Council to ban the Point England Reserve from having cows on it. This is wacko stuff. Dr Smith has wandered off the reservation once and for all. There is a kangaroo loose in the top paddock. The Minister is using the time of this Parliament to tell Auckland Council not to run any cows on its parkland that it owns. This Supplementary Order Paper 321 is telling Auckland Council that it must turn over 3 hectares of land for playing fields. It is absolutely wacko stuff. I have never come across anything like this in 8 years in Parliament—thank you very much, Dr Smith.

If there is a sign of how exasperated Auckland Council is about this, it is that the Mayor Phil Goff today took the unusual step of releasing a letter to the media that he has written to Dr Smith. The language that is used in this letter is very strong. He points out that the lack of consultation is simply not acceptable. It is clear from this letter that Dr Smith tabled this Supplementary Order Paper in the House without even consulting Auckland Council, but he purports to use the law to tell Auckland Council how to manage the detail of its parkland.

The letter from the mayor points out that there is a total lack of consideration of the technical feasibility or the environmental impacts of what Dr Smith’s Supplementary Order Paper tries to do. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has confirmed that it has done no technical work to assess the feasibility of establishing the 3 hectares of playing fields on the only bit of the reserve that could accommodate them, and that is the headland. Open space on the precious headland at Point England is going to be turned into playing fields, by the edict of Dr Nick Smith. This is the Bizarro World of the Minister for the Environment in this National Government. I cannot believe what is going on here.

As it stands, the Point England Development Enabling Bill, if passed into law, will halve the area currently available for the dotterel. We are going to have more to say about the dotterel, the northern New Zealand dotterel, in this debate. This heightens the importance of the headland for these species, because that is the only bit of land that is left for them, but Dr Smith, under this bill, wants to turn that last remaining bit of habitat into playing fields. It absolutely beggars belief.

The other really bizarre thing about this Supplementary Order Paper from Dr Smith is he is telling the council that it has to turn over this land into playing fields. The law will require—the Resource Management Act (RMA) will require—the council to seek a resource consent for that. The legal advice that the council has had is that it will not get resource consent to do what Dr Smith’s Supplementary Order Paper requires it to do. So Dr Smith wants to tell it that by law it has to do this thing, the RMA tells it that it has to get resource consent to do it, it probably will not get resource consent, and, therefore, it is going to be in breach of Dr Smith’s law. This is wacko stuff.

This is what it has come to, under Dr Smith’s tenure as the Minister for the Environment and as the Minister for Building and Construction. It is an absolutely bizarre and weird circumstance that we find ourselves in. Government members should be embarrassed to be sitting here in the House tonight, debating this Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Dr Nick Smith. It makes a laughing stock of the Minister and this Government. If Government members have got a shred of self-respect—if they have got a shred of self-respect—they will vote against this Supplementary Order Paper from Dr Smith and consign it to the dustbin, which is where it belongs.

That was a great contribution from my colleague Phil Twyford, and I want to continue on Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 321 in the name of the Hon “Dick-ter”—ha, ha! “Dick-ter”! I apologise—Dr Nick Smith. It is interesting; there is this big fuss being made about cows grazing on a marae, and, in the same breath, the Minister says that Ngāti Paoa will have the opportunity to have their own marae, to do what it takes to maintain the marae. Well, I suggest to that Minister, and to his SOP, that you allow them to graze cows still on that land. Let me tell you why. Approximately a year ago, when Te Puea Marae actually helped this country in a housing crisis, I, on behalf of that marae, wrote to many farms, wrote to many tribal entities, and asked them for fresh meat and fresh produce. And guess who replied? Nobody. Guess who sent meat from all the flash Māori farms we have got, which the Minister for Māori Development is trying to boost with Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill? Nobody.

This particular SOP by the Minister is proposing that the council will stop grazing on that land in a management plan in the future. I would suggest letting the cows graze. I would suggest giving those cows to the marae that is being proposed to be built on Point England. Why? To sustain the people of that marae, because that is what it takes. As a member in a Māori electorate and a person who grew up on a marae, I can tell that Minister that that is what is required if you are going to take this seriously—to give Ngāti Paoa the opportunity to actually sustain their own people, not build houses for this Government’s failure to build houses and deal with a crisis that has been looming for however many years. Let the cows graze, I say, and give them to Ngāti Paoa.

This particular SOP will say “No, no, cows are no longer welcome there.”, and it is going to be the council’s obligation to actually have a management plan that will get rid of them—to get rid of them.

💬 Sue Moroney: Banning cows.

Banning cows. Well, it is the two-legged cows I am worried about. Some of them are trying to push through legislation in Tāmaki-makau-rau to solve this housing crisis that the Government has ignored for so long, and it is just not working. So this particular SOP says there in proposed new clause 10, “Management plan for remaining reserve land deemed to be amended”, in subclause (1)(a): “on and after the expiry of 6 months from the commencement date … of the Reserves … farming or grazing are not permitted on any part of the remaining reserve land;”.

In support of Ngāti Paoa, I want to once again acknowledge them, and as a member of Ngāpuhi—and it is important that we mention this, because my colleague Mr Kelvin Davis talked about the particular interests in Tāmaki-makau-rau. I want to acknowledge Ngāti Paoa, because Ngāti Paoa actually gave my tupuna Patuone land over on the North Shore, in acknowledgement of Ngāpuhi’s place in Tāmaki-makau-rau. That is an important link that cannot be forgotten. So it is not just this particular land we are talking about; we are actually also talking about the relationships of Ngāti Paoa across Tāmaki-makau-rau—across Tāmaki-makau-rau. That is of importance to us, because if we carry on with this bill, and if we consider the ability for Ngāti Paoa to build a marae, there is a wider conversation to be had here. This particular bill and this SOP being promoted by the Minister actually do not allow for that to happen. It puts the onus on the council to try to tidy up some of the failures of this particular bill—namely, no more cows grazing on the land.

My colleague Mr Michael Wood had a great interjection, I thought, on one of the contributions earlier, talking about: “Well, there goes Cornwall Park.” There goes Cornwall Park: cows, sheep—they all graze there at Cornwall Park. If time permitted—because I have only 30 seconds left—I would give the history of what my connection is to Cornwall Park, which actually goes the point that Mr Davis was talking about, about these places being important to all of us. I think that in this particular SOP the Minister is actually trying to tidy up a failed piece of legislation that has gone through, and I think the contributions on this side have highlighted those failures.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I find this a very complex and interesting bill, and I am really wanting to just point out a couple of things in the very interesting debate that we have had tonight and the excellent Supplementary Order Papers that Eugenie Sage and the Opposition have put up.

I also want to bring us back to something, and I just want to quote the words of the kaihautū of Ngāti Paoa Iwi Trust and co-negotiator of the iwi’s Treaty settlement, Hauauru Rawiri: “The bill is Treaty settlement legislation. For Ngāti Paoa to regain ownership and control of significant customary land at Te Tauoma is central to the historical Treaty settlement between the Crown and Ngāti Paoa. Without this land there will be no Treaty settlement between the Crown and Ngāti Paoa.” That is where it gets complicated, because this has undoubtedly been a messy process. It has undoubtedly upset the local people who live there at the moment, very much. It has undoubtedly been a bad use, in a way, of the legal process, because of all of the people who have been shut out. But there is a deeper issue as well, which is why it is a nuanced and complex situation, despite the failures of this bill.

I live in Hauraki, and I look across to Ngāti Paoa. There is not a lot of land under their control and they do not have all the opportunities in the world. Many people who are settled, living in the city with their good homes and their gardens and their lovely views and their right to enjoy themselves, need to also think about the history of colonisation in this country and how the Reserves Act, in its previous iterations, has been used to actually strip Māori land from people. So if we are going to talk about the word “reserve”, we need to acknowledge some of the history.

The other day I was up at Ngāti Whātua ki Ōrākei, and I said to them: “What’s your view of this bill? Because it’s really complex and difficult and seems to be very badly designed.” The people I talked to said: “It’s Ngāti Paoa land—end of story.” That does not make it any easier when the Crown has actually got another agenda, but that is their view.

I think it is interesting to consider the whole question of good faith here. Because this bill is so poorly designed and has created so much negativity, it actually impacts on Te Tiriti settlement that Ngāti Paoa are trying to advance, and this bill is part of that for them. That is where we need to be a lot more sophisticated in this country in the way that we deal with this, because we do not want the population who currently live in Auckland to have a complete lack of understanding about what is possible. I think Ngāti Whātua ki Ōrākei give a good example of how you can have housing for income streams, housing for papakāinga, and how you can have high standards of environmental protection—in fact, I would say that Ngāti Whātua have got some of the highest standards of community-based environmental protection across Tāmaki. Ngāti Paoa have indicated that they want to go down that track as well and have talked about how they might do it, but that has become lost in the conflict over the inability of the Crown to design a bill that actually has good process in it.

So it is ludicrous to pretend that this is a simple issue and that it is just about people having green space in Auckland, because it is not. Once upon a time, in Tāmaki-makau-rau, that land was all land belonging to different iwi. Now they are forced into these situations where people are talking about them as if they could not possibly manage their land with conservation values—because only we have conservation values? I think that is really problematic, and it is not helpful to the local people. Because they have felt really deeply excluded by the way that this has been gone about, it is not going to help them to understand Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and that is really bad for our country.

It is really important, actually, that we look at Point England and everywhere else in terms of other mana whenua people, who were there before, who suffered the same if not far worse alienation from their land as the people in that area are feeling like they are experiencing now. It concerns me deeply when I see Pākehā people protesting on the reserve, saying: “We’re having our land taken off us.” It concerns me deeply that people are saying that, not understanding—because they feel abused by this process through this Parliament—that, actually, they need a relationship with the mana whenua, that the mana whenua have legitimate expectations around their own land, and that this is a pre-settlement bill, but it has been done in such a way that it has caused people to feel like they are the most aggrieved party. But, actually, we have to understand history. If we look at the Reserves Act, which is mentioned throughout this bill and has been treated cavalierly in many ways, it has done some pretty bad things. If you look at Hauturu—Little Barrier Island—they did some pretty bad things to create that nature reserve.

So let us try to actually include everybody in this conversation, and let us have some faith that Ngāti Paoa and the local community, with the right support, could actually craft a solution to this that does not polarise everyone against each other and does not turn into, supposedly, the Treaty versus the dotterels, which it should never be characterised as—and it is not, because they also have a whakapapa connection to those manu. We have to be more sophisticated than this. We have to try to look at this bill and say that, from the point of view of the manu whenua, they are trying to work towards their Treaty settlement and this is the shot they have been given in Auckland, where there is very little whenua. It is OK for them to want to have an economic base as well as a marae, as well as a reserve, which they have shown no interest in excluding people from in terms of its long-term future.

But that has got lost because of the way that this bill has been structured, the way it has been worded, and the way the process has been managed. It has pitched the people—mana whenua and local people—against each other, when instead the Crown needs to take some responsibility for this mess. It concerns me deeply because, actually, Te Tiriti is a good thing. Historical grievance needs to be resolved, land that was taken should be returned, and trust that has been broken should be supported, on all sides. We need our local communities living on the coast in Tāmaki to understand that, yes, they want to keep their space, but they can have that in relationship to other people’s needs as well, and recognise manu whenua and recognise Te Tiriti. But that has all got lost, and it is very, very disturbing.

There are better ways to go about this. I was at Parihaka 2 weeks ago. That is a better way to go about it—where there was a genuine and careful process whereby the manu whenua got to advance their need for reconciliation before they got to settlement. This legislation is another form of pre-settlement, but I just feel very deeply for all the people involved in this who feel they have been abused. But do remember who lost their land originally and how that happened, and what pittance they were paid so that they could be alienated from that beautiful coastal land, that lovely bit of coast. It is amazing around there.

So if we are going to be precious about it, we need to have a bigger conversation and be capable of more than just talking about one set of interests in the 21st century. We cannot escape our history. We do not want to escape our history. We want to uplift it and do better. This bill is written in such a way and has created such a lot of confusion that all it has done is make people feel that they should prescribe for Ngāti Paoa how they should be and what they are capable of, which is actually not the Treaty of Waitangi, Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It is not article 2 at all. So we have a problem, and we need to be more creative than this bill is, but not at the expense of recognising the legitimate and absolute right of the mana whenua to assert their relationship to their whenua. They have never said they are going to exclude everybody else. Sometimes when things have been done badly, the people who have done those things assume that the other culture would do the same back. Let us actually be a bit bigger than that, and let us have a bit more generosity.

So I say it is complex. It is not simple, and it is not going to be easily resolved through this bill. I am afraid of what gets left behind, after the bill passes, but I am absolutely committed to supporting Ngāti Paoa, because they do not have the homes, the land, the income streams—

I would like to talk to clause 6(1)(b), which is about the reservation of the development land as a recreation reserve, subject to the Reserves Act 1977 being revoked. There is a lot of information in the regulatory impact statement. In particular I refer to paragraph 34, where it says that “It must be clearly established the land is no longer required for its present purpose or any other reserve purpose.”

The Government is both blind and dumb—and I do not mean dumb as in “mute”; I mean “stupid”. Surely it can see that the reserve is being used for the purpose it is meant to be used for—i.e., for sports fields, for recreation, and for people of the area being able to just enjoy it. I say “stupid” because it just shows such short-sighted thinking—that the present purpose, using the land as a reserve, is not going to be necessary in 20 to 30 years’ time, when the population of Auckland is expected to be something like 2 million, and that area in particular is going to grow by 20,000 over the next few years. Where on earth are those people going to be able to use a reserve in the way it is meant to be used?

Somewhere else in this regulatory impact statement it says that the scope within the wider reserve network to absorb some of the impacts of the loss of the development land will be impacted on. So the land is being used as a reserve. The population is going to grow over the next 20, 30 years—it is going to double in Auckland by 2043, I think—so we are going to have even more need for reserve land. How crazy it is just to say: “Well, there’s a bit of green grass. Let’s go and build houses on it.” There are many, many other ways that we could have actually achieved the same thing.

In fact, under Labour’s plan, Ngāti Paoa would have got their housing development. Under Labour’s plan, Ngāti Paoa would have got a marae. Under Labour’s plan, they would have got recognition of their special interest in Point England. But, of course, the National Government did not think of anything along those lines. Really, the Government just wanted to push this through, because it has run out of ideas. It did not listen to anybody who submitted. The Government is at a loss here.

My colleague Peeni Henare has raised the issue about the cattle being on the Point England Reserve. He also stole a bit of my thunder, because I was going to talk about Cornwall Park and the sheep. Last time I—in fact, it was not the last time. The first time, in about 1985, when I was at teachers college, I jogged through Cornwall Park—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): That is not in the bill. Focus on this bill.

OK, Mr Chair. I heard Nick Smith say that the reserve land was being used for cattle. If you use that rationale to build houses on a reserve, then what else is up for grabs within Auckland? What about the park down the road where the kids have their swings and slide? Can the reserve status of that land be revoked? What is next? Is this the thin end of the wedge?

If this is what the Government has got up its sleeve to create more housing, is it going to just take all the reserve bits of land around Auckland? The Riccarton Racecourse was an example of what it has done. Now it is the precedent that has been set. The thing is that it says it has used the precedent of the Riccarton Racecourse legislation. That is exactly the issue. That is exactly the problem, in terms of a precedent. If it can do this to Point England—if it can revoke the reserve status of Point England—then it can revoke the reserve status of any other land around Auckland. Of course, we need all the reserve land that we can, for the simple use of—

Tēna koe, Mr Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to Part 2 of the Point England Development Enabling Bill, and I specifically want to talk to my Supplementary Order Paper 320. I want to read out what this Supplementary Order Paper is seeking to do. It says: “In clause 7, after subclause (4) (page 4, after line 2), insert: ‘(5) Section 136 of the Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau Collective Redress Act 2014 does not apply if notice under section 120 of that Act is not given in respect of the development land following the registration of the memorial under subsection (3)(c).’ ” The relevance of this particular Supplementary Order Paper actually rests on what section 136 of that settlement Act says. What it does is provide that right of first refusal land can be disposed of where it is held for State housing purposes and the Minister considers the disposal is to achieve or assist in achieving the Crown’s social objectives in relation to housing, which is exactly what this bill is going to do. It is going to provide this land for social housing.

We have heard that this bill is all about Ngāti Paoa’s Treaty settlement. I want to acknowledge Hauāuru Rāwiri, who is here representing Ngāti Paoa. We have seen letters—well, I have seen letters—from the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations dated 13 October 2016 stating that. But nowhere in this legislation is that recorded, because before that can actually happen, this legislation needs to pass.

The relevance of this Supplementary Order Paper needs to be looked at within the context of the 9.5-hectare Moire Road development in Massey—which was Ministry of Education land—because, in fact, the justification for that land not being right of first refusal land was essentially that it was to be used for State housing purposes, as I have quoted above. So the intention was to sell it as residential - mixed housing urban to Fletcher’s, and when Ngāti Whātua heard about that, they decided, along with Waikato-Tainui, to take the Crown to court.

What resulted from that has been incredibly interesting. A couple of weeks ago, Ngāti Whātua went to the Court of Appeal, because originally they had gone to the High Court, which decided it was not going to hear the case. So the case in the Court of Appeal is really about clarifying overlapping iwi boundary issues from Ngāti Whātua’s perspective. Those issues are really relevant if you look at lands that the Crown has in Tāmaki-makau-rau and at what it chooses to do with those lands, because under that 2014 collective settlement redress Act, the mana whenua of Tāmaki-makau-rau actually do have right of first refusal over all lands, except for those that are designated for social housing purposes. I am not sure what the Court of Appeal is going to find. Presumably, because the Crown is using this piece of land as a Treaty settlement, what the court is going to say is that this House, and ultimately Parliament, has jurisdiction—the court does not have jurisdiction, but the House does.

So we have struggled all along with this piece of legislation. From Ngāti Paoa’s perspective, this is Treaty settlement legislation, but when you look at the regulatory impact statement prepared by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, it is really clear that this proposed legislation remains outside Treaty settlement policy, and therein lies all the conflicts in what the Crown has said to justify this piece of legislation.

In fact, in justifying this as Treaty settlement legislation, as I pointed out before, it has managed to circumvent what would have been an Auckland Council process of consulting with the people of Point England. Who was consulted? Actually, from the information that I have gathered, it was Auckland Council under Mayor Brown, who is no longer the mayor; it was the previous chair of the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board; and it was the Tāmaki Redevelopment Co. But because this was going to be used for a Treaty settlement, the council did not want to breach confidentiality, and it actually chose not to do what it should have done, which was engage and consult with the community. So we are here totally by design, and totally by the design of the Government.

We do have a problem with the process. We do not have a problem with Ngāti Paoa at all. Actually, I do believe that in 2015, Ngāti Paoa came up with this idea themselves, because they knew that the Government had identified 500 hectares of land across Tāmaki-makau-rau. They saw what had happened at the Moire Road development in Massey, which, by the way, is now a joint venture between Fletcher’s and Ngāti Whātua—Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Whai Rawa Ltd. Ngāti Paoa said “There is an opportunity for us here and we are going to take it.”, and the Crown has decided that it will use this land for the Ngāti Paoa Treaty settlement. But that is why I believe my Supplementary Order Paper is vital, because what this will mean is that only Ngāti Paoa can get this piece of whenua as part of their commercial redress for their Treaty settlement. Without this, the Minister for Building and Construction can do what he did in the Moire Road development and actually put it out for tender and give it to somebody else acting as a third party—Fletcher’s. I know there are three preferred providers, but Fletcher’s is the one that has been mentioned by the local community.

This bill is now about some form of reconciliation. Do I think Treaty settlements have a special place in the Parliament and in the history of our country? I do, actually—it is part of our truth and reconciliation process. But the manner in which this bill has been progressed through the House has actually hugely compromised that process because of what the Crown has done deliberately by not ensuring that Ngāti Paoa have taken the public with them.

I am very supportive of Treaty settlements that will enable our mana whenua to create a capital base for us to be independent, and I know that the housing that Ngāti Paoa will build on that property actually is going to house some of the whānau in State houses that are part of the Tāmaki development. They are interlinked. There is a relationship between the housing development that Ngāti Paoa will lead and the Tāmaki development, because Tāmaki needs to move people from State houses into this development to then develop those lands. That is a 7,500-house development and 2,500 of those houses are State houses, so the only positive from my perspective is that the people who are living in those State houses are going to have an opportunity to actually remain in the community that they have called home. So if there is one positive that I want to highlight, it is actually that. But, other than that, I know that for a lot of people who live in that community this has been incredibly stressful and distressing.

We have put everything on Ngāti Paoa to try to address the lack of process through this bill. We have asked them to go and talk to the community, and, actually, when we had the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations before the Māori Affairs Committee a couple of weeks ago, I asked him what is his responsibility. What is the responsibility of the Office of Treaty Settlements to do some of the work that Ngāti Paoa has had to do, because they are not the ones whom people should be angry with. The only people to be angry with in this process are Nick Smith, the National Government, the National caucus, and their coalition partners, who have allowed this situation to occur.

So I implore my colleagues across the House. I know New Zealand First has said it will not support the Supplementary Order Paper, but I am hoping the Government will. It is a sign of goodwill. I think that would also allay some of the fears that the community has that this could be developed by somebody else. I do think that the community will enjoy working with Ngāti Paoa, who will build a marae and will continue to have a relationship with that community beyond the development of these houses. Kia ora.

I rise to address clause 6 in Part 2, and particularly Supplementary Order Paper 321 submitted by the Minister, the Hon Nick Smith. Supplementary Order Paper 321 prescribes the form of development that should take place on this land. It says there should be no cows or grazing. It says that after 6 months there should be at least 5.3 hectares of sports fields. It says that then there should be no less than 8.4 hectares of sports fields. What gives the Minister the right to dictate these precise terms for the use of land and override the democratic process and the interests of others? This is, from our perspective, an example of high-handed dictatorship by the Minister on the use of this hugely important land.

I echo my colleague’s interventions in talking about how important this land is. It is vital for a just Treaty settlement for Ngāti Paoa, and we respect that. But it is also vital land for the local community and open space in an area that is increasingly going to become short of open space. It is important ecological habitat for two endangered species.

My concern is about having those considerations overridden by the Minister dictating to Ngāti Paoa about having to use their land for particular purposes—for housing and other purposes—and dictating to the local community and to Auckland Council. As we have heard earlier in the debate, the Mayor of Auckland has been forced to write in strong terms to the Minister. This is vintage work from the Minister Dr Nick Smith. It is, in short, a mess. It is another example of the Government using legislation to tell mana whenua, local people, and the Auckland Council what to do. But we are not North Korea, and the Minister is not Kim Jong-un. We oppose this overriding of democracy.

I support Supplementary Order Paper 317 put forward by Eugenie Sage. This would ensure there are basic consultation processes that are applied by using the resource consent process. That would bring some considerations of consultation and would guard against some of the haphazard and dictatorial methods that have been applied to this bill so far.

This bill has pitched mana whenua against the environment and against local people. This should not be the case. We should be able to work out a satisfactory arrangement for the benefit of all. This is unique open space. It is habitat for the northern dotterel and shore plover. It is Treaty settlement legislation by another name. But it is bad legislation. We support Ngāti Paoa in reclaiming a small part of their land as redress for their land having been stolen. But we also support open land for conservation, and we support maintaining the habitat and protecting two endangered species. This bill is a mess. It has created division where there should be none. It is bad legislation, and we should rightfully be concerned as a House when legislation like this gets forced through by the Government. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Thank you very much for this opportunity to make a contribution in this debate on Part 2. I would like to make some opening comments around clause 6, and I want to acknowledge the submitters who appeared in front of the Local Government and Environment Committee. They raised some important issues that I would like to acknowledge in this Committee tonight. Of course, the key issue that many submitters shared in front of the select committee was the loss of open space and green space. We had 132 submissions received on the bill, and 84 of those submitters raised serious concerns around the loss of open space. Of course, the bill facilitating the rezoning of 11.69 hectares of the reserves into development land was clearly, for those submitters who appeared, of grave concern. I want to acknowledge those who took the time to come and share their concerns around the loss of space.

Then I want to talk briefly on the second issue. A critical issue that was raised was the impact on the bird habitat. I want to acknowledge our Green colleagues here but also those who took the time, again, to appear in front of the select committee and raise the concern about the impact that this, if this legislation goes through, will have on the life of our native birds that inhabit that area.

💬 Brett Hudson: What about the houses?

For the member who is calling out on the other side of the Chamber, it is important that we acknowledge submitters who take their time to come in front of our select committee, because it is part of our democratic process in this country, so I do not waver because of that member’s interjection from acknowledging those who came. Of course, another key issue is the loss of sports fields, and many, again, came in front of the select committee and raised that it would impact on them. And, of course, the other key issue was the precedent and the process that we are about to undertake with this bill going forward.

But I want to acknowledge and draw the Committee’s attention to clause 7. There has been a lot of talk in this House about this being a Ngāti Paoa Treaty settlement enabling bill. Nick Smith would want us to believe that. The Māori Party has attacked the Labour Māori MPs—particularly my colleagues—and said that this is a Treaty bill we are opposing, but I only have to look at this bill. I look at this bill from page 1—a very small bill—and do I see Ngāti Paoa’s name in this bill? Does anybody see Ngāti Paoa’s name in this bill? No. It is not there, and the only iwi referenced in this bill is in clause 7, under “Computer freehold registers”. There you go. Under clause 7(3)(c) we are talking about “a memorial under section 148”, and as far as this bill goes, the first right of refusal on the development land does not go to Ngāti Paoa. It does not go to Ngāti Paoa; it goes to the Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau Collective group as part of that Treaty settlement, Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau Collective Redress Act.

We have been advised in the select committee that there was a letter between the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and Ngāti Paoa saying that this enabling bill will go to meet some of their commercial dreams, but the issue is whether we have got an agreement between the Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau Collective group and Ngāti Paoa, because that is what the bill says has the right of first refusal over this development land. Maybe the Minister in the chair could get up and say that there is a letter or an agreement between Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau Collective and Ngāti Paoa. If he can get up and say that, then that may give some assurances to the Committee that this development land is actually going to end up in Ngāti Paoa’s hands, because as the bill in front of us is written, there is no mention of Ngāti Paoa.

I would like the Minister to get up and take a call on what guarantees there are, because the entity that receives the right of first refusal under the development land, and then—further on in clause 4—for the remaining reserve land, is not Ngāti Paoa. The question I have is why we have not got Ngāti Paoa in this bill. If it is a Treaty bill, or if it is an enabling bill for Ngāti Paoa to complete its Treaty settlement, then I would like to know from this Minister in the chair—

I have been sitting listening carefully to contributions from members on the other side of the Chamber, and I have to say that the debate has been more measured than I perhaps thought it would be earlier on. I particularly want to comment on several of the contributions from Green Party members, who I think—particularly, Catherine Delahunty made a very good historical analysis of the dilemmas and situations that we find ourselves in. I am not one who normally agrees with much of what Catherine Delahunty has to say, but I thought her contribution in this debate was actually very thoughtful and useful.

Members have made a number of points in various speeches about ownership of the land, and clearly some of them have not even read the second paragraph in the explanatory note, which makes it very clear that the development land is Crown-owned. Minister Smith, in a contribution in this debate earlier this afternoon, made it very clear that this is land that has been funded and purchased by taxpayers, and, as such, is entirely appropriately available for housing, for Treaty settlement issues, and for the purposes of this bill.

What I have found particularly unusual is that not too many months ago, in this very House, Labour members supported the Riccarton Racecourse legislation—which was a reserve piece of land—for exactly the same types of purposes as are being explored by this piece of legislation, and now, on this piece of legislation, they simply do not. What I am keen to know is what has changed. What is it in amongst the Labour Party that has changed from its support for the Riccarton Racecourse legislation that it now finds itself unable to support this legislation, which seeks to achieve very similar objectives and goals?

Phil Twyford, in his contribution, made the point that Labour actually has no beef with Ngāti Paoa, but then he went on to say that it was important that Governments govern in the interests of all New Zealanders, which is exactly what this bill seeks to achieve—not for any other reason than that. Ngāti Paoa came to Minister Nick Smith seeking this opportunity, and they did not actually want another piece of land. So it is arrogant, I think, of Labour members to assume that they know best what Ngāti Paoa want and that they themselves should be making decisions about Ngāti Paoa’s aspirations for this piece of land. This is a historic situation where, for the first time in this Parliament, Labour will not be supporting what is, effectively, a Treaty situation.

I want to talk to the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 321, where the Minister has actually gone to some considerable lengths to listen to the submitters who submitted in the very good and thorough select committee process. His SOP is aimed and directed exactly at addressing many of the issues that were raised by those submitters. So there will be, as a result of the Minister’s SOP, a guarantee that Auckland City will cease grazing. The SOP from the Minister makes sure that that will occur.

The second thing that the Minister’s SOP seeks to achieve is that it requires that the area of playing fields be retained. That is exactly what submitters wanted. The Minister’s SOP gives an absolute assurance that 8.4 hectares of playing fields will be retained, and it provides certainty for that community.

This bill has had the total support of Ngāti Paoa, and I think that some members across the Chamber seem to have forgotten that. There were a number of contributions from members. Peeni Henare, for instance, asked about the right not to object. Well, this bill has been part of a very full, appropriate, and normal select committee process. There were hearings held in Auckland, there have been submissions that have been available, and it was well submitted on by members of the public. So it seems that Labour has been happy to rely on the same process on some pieces of legislation but not on others, and it is this selective picking of sometimes supporting an open and full select committee process and sometimes not that allows it to be, I think, somewhat conflicted in this kind of legislation.

Denis O’Rourke from New Zealand First made a very typical New Zealand First kind of speech and contribution to this debate. I do not think that it added anything to the debate at all. He spoke about the conservation values, but, on the other hand, he would much prefer to have cows grazing on this piece of land—and so too, it seems, would members of the Labour Party. He said that he wanted to support the community, so I guess what that actually means is that, really deep down, New Zealand First does want to support this bill.

Eugenie Sage made a point about what guarantee there was that there would be a notified consent process. Well, that is a matter that Auckland Council will address. I cannot speak on behalf of Auckland Council, but I do think that it probably will take it on board. I understand that the mayor has written a letter to the Minister Nick Smith, and Auckland Council will, I am sure, take on board the issues raised by Eugenie Sage. So the Minister has, I think, addressed most of the issues that have been raised by submitters in his very good SOP.

Michael Wood gave an interesting contribution, because here is a relatively new member to this House, who barnstormed his way through the Mt Roskill by-election saying that “housing, housing, housing” was the most important issue. Now, suddenly, he comes to the Parliament and he finds that—under the whip of the Labour caucus, actually—suddenly housing is not the important issue for Auckland after all. Housing is not the issue that he came to Parliament to support, and suddenly now he wants to support cows rather than houses.

So I think that as we have heard from a number of speakers in the debate, Louisa Wall has been the one who has most coherently and articulately really summed up the conflicted and difficult spot that the Labour Party finds itself in. Louisa Wall has really tried to find as much justification as the Labour Party could for not supporting this bill, and she acknowledged that she found it difficult and that it was a difficult situation for the Labour Party to struggle with this piece of legislation. I think that that just typifies the internal wrangles and difficult philosophical positions that the Labour Party finds itself in.

I have been interested in listening to these speeches, and I guess we will listen to a few more yet to go.

I am not going to waste any time in this call responding to that mumbling mediocrity from the former chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee Scott Simpson. I want to directly address the claim that Nick Smith has made that this bill represents somehow an attempt to address Auckland’s housing crisis. This is the Minister who has spectacularly failed to build any houses. Two years ago he promised 500 hectares of Crown land would be used—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Keep it focused on this bill, though.

—and 10,000 houses, and I think that promise he made is somehow some kind of inspiration for this bill, which would take 11 hectares of prized public parkland and turn it over into housing development. This is the Minister who promised 39,000 houses in his special housing areas and has seen, 3 years later, only 2,000 houses built. This is the Government that has presided over a shortfall of 40,000 houses in Auckland, but it has the gall to come to this House and pretend that taking public parkland to build 300 houses is some kind of credible solution to the housing crisis. Well, it is not.

It is not a solution, and it is not a solution for a community that is about to get 20,000 extra people living in it thanks to the intensification that is going to be taking place as part of the Tāmaki regeneration—an extra 20,000 people. Where are the kids going to play in that community when Nick Smith has sold off one-third of one of the most precious expanses of open waterfront urban parkland in the middle of a city that is going to get an extra million people in the next generation? Many of those people will be living in high- and medium-density housing. They need open spaces. This is absolute—it is the height of stupidity, of short-sighted, narrow vision, from the Minister from Nelson who thinks it is OK to tell Aucklanders that houses should be built on their parkland.

This is not a credible response to the Auckland housing crisis that has built up on this Government’s watch. This is Nick Smith thinking that he is being clever. He thinks that he is making a point. He thinks that he is making a point—that Michael Wood and I call for houses to be built in Auckland, and yet we oppose his madcap scheme to turn precious parkland into housing. He thinks that is clever and that he is making some kind of political point. It is not; it is just sheer stupidity.

One of the things that really concerns me about this bill is that we need lots of urban redevelopment in Auckland. We need investment in communities like Glen Innes (GI) and Tāmaki. We need more warm, dry homes. We need better parks and open spaces. We need a better-built environment for communities like GI that, frankly, have been neglected. They have suffered from under-investment in their houses, their parks, their town centre, and their transport infrastructure. But this bill is not doing them any favour. In fact, it is the historical neglect of GI that means that its parkland has not been properly looked after for decades, but that is no excuse to take it away. That is not a reason to take away its parkland, because this generation needs that parkland and future generations need that parkland. It is so incredibly short-sighted.

But when the Government does what it is doing with this bill—when it rides roughshod over local communities; when it takes away parkland but gives nothing in return—all that does is create cynicism and resentment. It divides the community. It creates cynicism and resentment against a Government that will not invest in the community; it just takes things away. We need more good quality redevelopment in Auckland. The danger with a bill like this is that it takes away the public’s willingness to go along with redevelopment. We need development by a Government that will take the community with it and that will give it more than it takes away, but that is the opposite of what this Government is doing. It is damaging the social licence for Government to do urban renewal and urban development, and that is a dangerous thing.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you for this opportunity. I want to draw the Committee’s attention to Part 2, clause 9, “Exercise of powers under Housing Act 1955”. I first turn to the submission made by Te Matapihi, the Māori housing network established under Te Puni Kōkiri. Its submission says, and I agree with this wholeheartedly: “It is our position that iwi-led, non-market approach to regeneration with strong Government support”—with strong Government support—“holds the key to solving Auckland’s housing crisis.”

I turn to clause 9, “Exercise of powers under Housing Act 1955”, and it says: “… unless the Housing Act Minister has consulted the following bodies about the proposed development:”. It lists the Auckland Council, which makes sense to me—the Tāmaki Redevelopment Co. Ltd—hmm, yeah, I guess that makes sense to me—and “the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board established under section 10 of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009.” Where in there is the strong support from this Government for Ngāti Paoa, for the mana whenua o Tāmaki-makau-rau?

If the Government was serious about allowing iwi-led developments to ease the housing crisis in Tāmaki-makau-rau, it would have in that particular clause Ngāti Paoa. It would also have in that clause Ngāti Whātua. It would also have in that clause ngā mana whenua o Tāmaki-makau-rau, allowing a precedent that forces this Government—which supposedly supports these initiatives by iwi to solve the housing matters in Tāmaki-makau-rau—to work with them. But it is not doing that in this particular bill.

In fact, just as I mentioned earlier the limited scope by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment in the consultation on this bill, this particular clause, clause 9, will continue that—it will continue that—by making sure that only the Minister has consulted the following bodies: the Auckland Council, the Tāmaki Redevelopment Co. Ltd, and the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board.

💬 Meka Whaitiri: Where’s the iwi?

Where are the iwi in that conversation? Where is this supposed support from this Government to allow the iwi, to allow ngā mana whenua o Tāmaki-makau-rau, to actually have a meaningful part and leadership to play in solving the housing crisis in Tāmaki-makau-rau?

I want to repeat that submission from Te Matapihi: “It is our position that iwi-led, non-market approach to regeneration with strong Government support holds the key to solving Auckland’s housing crisis.” I agree with that 100 percent. If that is the case, I would ask the Minister in the chair whether he could get up and explain, then, after his contribution previously, why Ngāti Paoa and why ngā mana whenua o Tāmaki-makau-rau are not clearly a party that the Minister, under their powers, must consult with—must consult with. The others are easy to understand, but if this Government wants to try to tell us that it is supporting wholeheartedly the iwi engagement in solving and contributing solutions to the housing crisis, can the Minister please rise to his feet and tell us why they are not included in clause 9. I think that is a pretty fair question.

Mr Hudson seems to be in full support of Ngāti Paoa. I would encourage him to make a contribution too, and answer why they are not included in this, to make sure that the Minister’s powers cannot override them—to make sure that the Minister must consult with mana whenua, and, in this particular instance, Ngāti Paoa. I will leave that question for the Minister to consider.

I move, That the question be now put.

I am going to hear from Meka Whaitiri, because she is on the select committee.

Because I am a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee, I do want to touch on the same line I was saying in my previous contribution, and that is the commitment to this bill, under Part 2, to Ngāti Paoa. I just want to draw the Committee’s attention to the report tabled in the House by the Local Government and Environment Committee, which obviously received not only the submissions but considered the bill and reported back to the House. I do want to acknowledge the members on the select committee, particularly as we try to be constructive members on that select committee in terms of getting ourselves really clear on where Ngāti Paoa’s Treaty settlement sat with this particular bill. I do want to draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that we did ask officials, to ensure that we understood Ngāti Paoa’s Treaty settlement per se, and how it related to this bill, because we knew from what submitters were saying, and what the Minister was saying in his first address, that this was an enabling bill for Ngāti Paoa’s Treaty settlement.

What I want the Committee to know is that despite members asking for copies of Ngāti Paoa’s Treaty settlement so that we could answer some of the questions, and the confusions we have had in this Committee in tonight’s debate, we were unable to get a copy. We were told it was outside the brief or scope of this particular bill. We wanted to investigate all possible options that the Crown, in the negotiation of Ngāti Paoa’s Treaty settlement—that all options around commercial redress, particularly around land return, were actually addressed. We were unable, as select committee members, to receive a copy, despite asking through, obviously, our officials, the Office of Treaty Settlements whether we could please have a copy. The upshot is that we were left—well, I can speak for myself as a member of the select committee—extremely confused as to whether this bill actually had a relation to Ngāti Paoa’s Treaty settlement, and we had to trust that it did. But I want the Committee to know that there were many members asking for copies of it.

In that vein, we were asking whether other land was considered as part of Ngāti Paoa’s Treaty settlement. It is an important point to make, because we are not just getting up here and debating to be difficult for difficulty’s sake. There are some members in here who are mandated and we support Ngāti Paoa’s Treaty settlement, and we want to make sure that all avenues are explored to ensure we have a full and final settlement when it comes to that point.

Coming back to this bill under Part 2, and particularly the work of the select committee, all I want to inform the Committee of is that I felt that I was not fully equipped because we were not given the information we sought to ensure that this bill actually formed a part of Ngāti Paoa’s Treaty settlement. That was denied to select committee members, and I thought it was an important piece of work that we should have had in front of us to then come to this Committee fully informed with how this fitted in with Ngāti Paoa’s Treaty settlement.

So my statement stands—Ngāti Paoa is not included in this bill. I have yet to hear from the Minister in the chair, Scott Simpson, to say that I am wrong. I have yet to hear. I have asked the Minister, because the right of first refusal in Part 2, clause 7, does not reflect Ngāti Paoa; it reflects the collective. So I have yet to have an answer. I have come and I have asked of the Minister in the chair whether he would please take a call to make it really clear for all members in the Committee that Ngāti Paoa has an agreement with the collective so that the right of first refusal over both the development lands in clause 7 and the remaining reserve lands in clause 7 actually goes to Ngāti Paoa. That is not clear in this bill.

I want to make some comments in my final contribution on this part, on the part of the bill that revokes the Reserves Act. In Part 2, it is clause 6(1)(b) that, basically, revokes the reserve status of the land under the Reserves Act. I make the point that in cutting across the Reserves Act, what this bill does is, basically, circumvent an established democratic process that is written into the legislation that is there precisely for the purpose of dealing with a situation where the Government wants to repurpose some reserve land in the way that the Government has the intent of here. The point I want to make is that it is unnecessary—the bill is unnecessary—given that that democratic process already exists. By cutting across those rights that are enshrined in our legal system, it undermines the rule of law and confidence in the legal and the planning system, and that is very unfortunate.

So what is the existing statutory process? Well, it exists under the Reserves Act 1977. All it requires is for the Minister to undertake consultation with the administering body—that would be Auckland Council—and the public before issuing a Gazette notice advising that the reserve status will be revoked. Affected parties have the right to object to the revocation, and decisions of the Minister may be judicially reviewed. Well, if the Government is so sure of itself that this is a good thing to do with this particular bit of land, if it is so convinced that the public policy purposes stack up, and if it is so convinced that it is going to be socially and environmentally the right thing to do for the community, then why will the Government not subject this proposal to the normal statutory process that exists under the law?

The next thing I want to do is talk about the cutting across of the Resource Management Act (RMA) in this proposal, and the provision in the bill that essentially changes the zoning. From the commencement date it changes the zoning from public open space to mixed urban housing—it just cuts right through the provisions of the RMA. So what is the existing process to do that? Well, what would happen normally is that a developer would request that the Auckland Council makes a plan change under Part 2 of schedule 1 of the RMA, and that plan change would have to consider a number of factors: the effects on the neighbourhood and the wider community; the physical effects on the locality, including the landscape and visual effects; the effects on the ecosystems; the effects on natural and physical resources; and a description of the mitigation measures to prevent or reduce those effects. Would you not think that was a good thing? Would you not think that all of those factors, which are enshrined in the RMA and the established democratic processes for a proposal of this sort, were good things to be considered? I would.

I want to quote from a submission to the Local Government and Environment Committee by Jen Vella, who is a resident of Point England. She lives there with her family. She is a resource management lawyer with over 15 years’ experience. She told the select committee that there are existing processes available to achieve all of these outcomes. They would ensure a robust assessment of this proposal, but the bill and the select committee process have done none of those things. There was no robust consideration of the evidence on all of those factors that I have just set out. She makes the point that overriding the normal, established processes to achieve the Government’s objectives in this case undermines the rule of law and undermines public confidence in the Resource Management Act.

Finally, in this contribution, I want to acknowledge Shaun Lee, who made a number of submissions to the select committee on the environmental consequences and the effect of this bill on the breeding habitat of one of New Zealand’s most endangered species, the northern New Zealand dotterel. There are only 2,000-odd of these birds left on the planet, and, actually, about 20-something of these birds live and nest on the land at Point England. The development that this bill will enable will destroy 50 percent of their breeding habitat. There has been no consideration of the environmental consequences of this bill.

I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 321 in the name of the Hon Dr Nick Smith to Part 2 be agreed to.