Simpson Scott; Utikere TangiHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): 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years ago when a similar attempt to resolve this issue was brought before this House and was not completed and actually withdrawn and failed finally.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.TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): 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."