Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill

Kia orana, Mr Chair. Thank you. It’s a pleasure to rise as the sponsor of this local bill, the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill, where the Palmerston North City Council is the promoter. I intend to make some comments for the benefit of the committee and to place on record, and then, obviously, very happy to take any questions. I have had an opportunity to look at contributions from members as part of the second reading on this local bill; noting, however, that the Environment Committee did report to the House with a recommendation that the bill be passed in its current form with no amendments. This is a discrete piece of land in Palmerston North. It’s located adjacent to and nearby a number of other recreational reserves within the city. Actually, I know that many colleagues who had the benefit of attending Palmerston North for the Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) conference in the last couple of weeks became quite familiar with it, passing that particular space while they spent some time in the city.

I want to just refer back to some of the historical components of the land, because there are quite a number of Acts that touch on this piece of land. The Huia Street Reserve land, as it is colloquially known, is currently subject to three Acts: the Wellington Reserves Act of 1876 and the amendment Act of 1877, which applies to a 138-hectare area set aside in 1876 to be held in trust by the council for use as a public park, recreation ground, and botanical gardens. The Huia Street Reserve is part of that original parcel of 138 hectares, and the original trust requirement still sits and stands with that piece of land. The Palmerston North Reserves Act of 1922 also applies to this land, and it is this Act under which the land is currently held.

Now, the Council does currently have the power to build houses on the land if it chooses to, but it does not have the power to sell the land once the houses have been built. So it’s a situation where the council might invest some capital proceeds or an injection of capital resource but they don’t have an ability to actually sell the land that the houses would be built on. Also, the Reserves Act 1977 also applies to this piece as well. What this bill seeks to do is to remove the Huia Street land from under those three Acts and place it under the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Act of 1966. Of specific relevance is that Act, as it will enable the council, if it chooses to, to potentially do something with the land, with some freedom as well, subject to a consultation process of course. The select committee—and it’s in the Hansard, for members around the House—went through quite a detailed process, a fulsome process, and in their report they specifically note that they were satisfied that due process had been followed, and that was confirmed in their contribution.

I just want to touch on two members’ contributions as part of the second reading, because this is the first opportunity to do so. The Hon Eugenie Sage touched on the need for decision-making principles to be considered as part of the next steps and that many of the issues that were raised by submitters would, none the less, be subject to the normal public notification process, where there’s a time and place notified, 14 days’ notice, and the like. The Environment Committee didn’t delve into whether it was the right thing or the wrong thing to sell or develop the land, but rather whether it was appropriate that the council had the ability to go through a consultation process to do so. The other contribution was from Harete Hipango, who raised the possibility of whether the land should be gifted instead. Now, that still would be a matter for the council to determine, because Rangitāne, as you know, has mana whenua status in relation to this particular land.

The Environment Committee did spend some time and went into some detail looking at the specific relationship that Rangitāne has with the land but also with the Palmerston North City Council. The committee received specific advice that, effectively, confirms Rangitāne o Manawatū settled with the Crown in 2016 and that the Crown was not currently in any active negotiations with any other iwi groups with interests around the city. So there were no current Treaty settlement obligations in relation to this piece of land. However, if there were an opportunity for future settlements with any claimants who might assert that their rohe included the Huia Street Reserve, that would be a matter for the Crown to deal with in terms of other resources. So the relationship with Rangitāne is very strong. It’s a positive one. It’s one based on partnership, and I know that the member for Rangitīkei has noticed that—and, no doubt, those who were attending the LGNZ conference in the last couple of weeks in Palmerston North would have seen the strong relationship between Rangitāne and also the Palmerston North City Council.

Well, thank you, Mr Chair. I wanted to thank the member who has been sponsoring this local bill, the member for Palmerston North, Tangi Utikere. He’s given a very fulsome historic analysis of this small but quite important piece of legislation amending legislation to the Palmerston North City Council. It should be noted at this stage in committee that there is, I think, unanimity across the House in support of this piece of legislation. It’s to the credit of the sponsoring member and the council that they’ve been able to achieve that, because that wasn’t the case some 15 years ago when a similar attempt to resolve this issue was brought before this House and was not completed, and actually withdrawn and failed finally. So credit is due to both the council and to the sponsoring member.

It’s a very small piece of legislation in terms of the number of words printed in the bill, and, indeed, if members and people who might be watching this at home are of a mind to, they could refer to the just three short pages. There are six clauses and one amended schedule. The first four clauses relate to the title, the commencement, the principal Act, and the purpose. It’s actually in clause 4(a) and (b) that the doing bit of this amending legislation is included. That clause 4(a) simply says that “The purpose of this Act is to—(a) vest in the Palmerston North City Council the land described in the Schedule”, and that land in the Schedule refers to the piece of land that the sponsoring member referred to in his contribution. So that’s very clear and precise.

But it’s in clause 4(b) that the meat of this amending legislation sits, and that clause 4(b) says, “enable the council to sell that land if the land becomes surplus to the Council’s requirements.” And, really, it became clear during the submissions that the Environment Committee heard from council and others that council actually does intend to sell this land. And so my question to the sponsoring member is: if it’s very clear that this land is to be sold and developed for medium-density, high-density housing that is needed in the city of Palmerston North, then why are we sort of dancing on the head of a pin with the pretext of words like “if the land becomes surplus”? It’s pretty clear I think to everybody that the purpose of this amending piece of legislation is to do exactly that, and I think, in terms of the drafting, we could have been perhaps a little bit more clear. But I do understand that, ultimately, what this piece of legislation does is give the power and authority of the council to make the final decision as to what will happen to the land to the elected representatives of the Palmerston North City Council.

So, on that note, I don’t want to make any further contribution. It’s a very minor matter, but I think it is worth the sponsoring member at least addressing it. But on this side of the House, we support this piece of legislation. We think it’s practical, it’s prudent. And in coming to our deliberations on this side of the House, we took considerable cognisance from the hard-working and diligent member for Rangitīkei, and his advice and guidance helped form our caucus’ opinion on this matter with clarity and distinction. So, on that note, I will sit down and look forward to a comment from the sponsoring member.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m happy to respond to the member’s questions, and I thank him for his contribution. It’s worth noting that, yes, this is something that the Environment Committee did return to the House with unanimous support across parties, and also again worth noting that this is not the first time that this piece of land has been subject to a parliamentary process—one in recent times has been successful in relation to the Palmerston North Girls’ High School, which the member will be aware of. The more recent opportunity, however, is where there were concerns about this piece of land not having gone through an appropriate process at a local level, and I’m delighted that the select committee did tease out some of those concerns to ensure that there was not a repeat when the bill came back to the Parliament this time round.

The member is also right in that the bill itself does enable the council to sell the land. Whilst that might be the intention of the Council—and what was placed before the select committee were some examples in terms of potential developments on that site, and that will be subject to a resource consent and other consenting process—none the less, the council has been quite clear in its view that there would still need to be some public consultation process. So whilst this frees up the land, it doesn’t necessarily direct the specific type of development that might follow. The position of the council is that that is a conversation that would still have to be taken with the local community. The meat, as I’m advised, is in clause 5 of the bill, and the amended section 3, which is the amending component to that 1966 Act, does the changeover from those three Acts to the 1966 Act—noting, however, that any subsequent decision of the council will be still subject to a consultative process.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Well, it was an unusual pleasure to sit through a bill in consideration at the Environment Committee, which resulted in unanimous recommendation that the bill proceed.

But some really interesting issues were raised during consideration. What struck me as being remarkable—and the member sponsoring the bill, Tangi Utikere, has already raised it—there are three separate pieces of legislation that need to be modified in order for a district council of, I think, a tier 2 metropolitan area. So not one of the big councils, but one that has a very important role to play in provincial New Zealand. Is it the capital of Rangitīkei? Rangitīkei District, is that right?

CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): Ha!

Well, why on earth should it take—

CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie):No.

—such—am I lost? Has Google Maps failed me?

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Should have taken an opportunity to visit the site.

No, I say—I’ll get to that.

Why on earth should it take an Act of Parliament to allow Palmerston North Council to make decisions about how it uses surplus land? Land that was set aside in 1876 for use as a public park, recreation ground, and botanic gardens.

I mean, in 1876, they wouldn’t have known what a telephone was in New Zealand, let alone facing the issues that we face now. With the need to build infrastructure, we recognise the need that we want to densify and intensify cities and have mixed residential and commercial districts. None of these things would have been understood in terms of the pressure on land required to deliver infrastructure and social and economic benefits back in 1876.

So, look, in my experience working at Auckland Council, there were many, many different types of reserve land that, in mix, all together contiguous, continuous pieces of land with this underlying reserve status that made it very, very difficult to change the use of that land—often doing nothing but growing thistles and weeds and not even suitable for active recreation—unless the status of the actual Reserve Act that it depended on permitted active recreation. Some of it could only be looked at.

So that’s not helpful in the 21st century. Local government needs to have flexibility as to how to repurpose the land that it needs to do other stuff with. It shouldn’t have to come to Parliament and take up hundreds and hundreds of hours of officials’ time, of members of Parliament’s time to present a case as to why they should be allowed to use their land to do something different than it was used for in 1876.

So while I’m pleased that the report has come back to the House with a unanimous recommendation that the bill proceed, I was shocked and disturbed by what I learnt through the process.

It must be time for a new look at the role of local government to give it the incentives that local government needs to actually succeed on behalf of their community. Incentives like sharing 50 percent of the GST on every new build that they sign off on, actually, so they can cash flow infrastructure. A real reform of the Resource Management Act so that they can make decisions about how they use their land without having every NGO and pressure group that wants to save a special grass or a snail or a frog turning up to padlock themselves to the gates and turn up in the Environment Court and say, “No, you shouldn’t be allowed to do it. We once had a game of hacky sack here and this reserve’s special to us.”

In fact, local government have one of the biggest challenges. How do we repurpose land so we can make our cities great again? How? How? This bill is one way, but what an awful palaver. So to the member, Tangi Utikere, congratulations on progressing the bill. All the best, Palmerston North. Make the most of it.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just have one question—not so much related to the substance of the bill, that I think is actually in very good shape, but in relation to why we’re here on a members’ day in the committee of the whole House considering this Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment bill. The reason I ask that is because for the better part of the last hundred-and-something years, this Parliament would pass a bill that since 1906 was an annual process and since about the 1930s was called the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill. And then in the 1980s, it happened every three or four years. Then we certainly hit quicksand under the Key-English Government because of a sticky issue that was part of a bill that was introduced in 2009. But my question to the member is: did he or the Palmerston North City Council pop along to the Minister for Land Information—and if he hadn’t, he could perhaps do that now; he’s not that far away from him—and find out why it is that it was necessary to use members’ day time to do what is a pretty straightforward thing, but which had in the past happened multiple times?

The reason I ask that is because if it becomes the sort of the precedent that a city or district council has to come to Parliament to free up land or otherwise dispose of it or do something different from what the reserve requirements had of it, then members’ day will become a bit crowded with local bills for that purpose. So I am quite interested—I can’t ask the Minister for Land Information because it’s not his bill, but I would be interested in hearing from the member in charge of this bill what the circumstances were that led to us being here talking about a local bill. I think that’s quite an important aspect of the framework we might be using in the future for bills of this type.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to start by following in the footsteps of my Environment Committee colleague the Hon Scott Simpson in congratulating the member for ushering this bill through the select committee process and this House. Now, on the Environment Committee, we didn’t visit the site, but we did get very good visual material of the site and we saw the different uses that the land is put to. One of those uses is a tennis court, and I believe there is a tennis club and it has a lease to use that land. So my question is, really, if we could have an explanation of what is going to happen to these existing leases. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I thank members for their questions and I’ll endeavour to work through them. The first one from Mr Court, I’m surprised and disappointed that the member is unaware of the fact that Palmerston North is not even located within the Rangitīkei district; it’s within the Manawatū district. But, then again, that’s an example perhaps of a member not being on the ground in the regions. So that’s the first thing.

The second is that this is subject to a legislative process that goes back as far as 1876. The trust was created over the land, and, actually, what the Palmerston North Reserves Act 1922 did was exactly what the member was seeking to do, albeit a hundred years ago, to give effect to that suggestion. The Reserves Act component is captured because of the current usage and way in which the land is currently defined to ensure that there are recreational considerations around that. This, just to be clear, is only having a legislative change upon the 1966 Act, none of the other Acts that have been referred to in the time line are largely affected, except this adds a change through to the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Act 1966.

In response to the Hon Michael Woodhouse, Parliament specifically, at the time—and I take the point that there are a number of historical components and elements to this, but, none the less—determined that it was appropriate to have these different pieces of legislation. The whole process of bringing a local bill to the House, as we’ve already experienced today, is to effect change at a local level. So this is something that, no, I have not had a conversation with the Minister for Land Information about specifically related to this bill or this piece of land, but it is only able to be actioned as it stands currently by way of legislative change. The council gave effect to the process that’s outlined in the appendix to the Standing Orders in terms of all of the notifications being certified and the like, but no, I’ve not had any conversations with the Minister for Land Information. It does raise an interesting point that if there are a number of statutes on the statute book that relate a bit more specifically, that there might be a piece of work around that. I said, as my response as a local member, the Palmerston North City Council has done all the footwork around this, and I’ve shepherded it through the process.

In response to my colleague Rachel Brooking, a hard-working member of the Environment Committee, I know, she is correct. There is currently a lease on that land that falls or is drawn in favour of the tennis club. What this, effectively, would do, in terms of the legislative change, is the bill makes section 3 of the 1966 Act apply to this piece of land by vesting it in the 1966 Act. It removes the trust requirement of the 1877 Act and, therefore, how the 1922 and the 1953 or the 1977 Act—it’s a little bit confusing—is basically applicable. But it specifically leaves all current leases in place, such as the one for the tennis club—that would still be a contractual negotiation between the two parties, of course. But probably what’s also worth noting is that the encumbrances that are currently in place, and there are some that the member probably may recall from the drone footage and the maps, there were some that ran around the skirt of the carpark to Palmerston North Girls’ High School. So those access opportunities to any of the surrounding land are still preserved under this process.

Clauses 1 to 6 and the Schedule agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.