Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you for the opportunity to take a call in the Committee stage of this bill. Along with my colleagues in the Labour Party we are of course rising to speak against this bill. I might say it is not with any great sense of pleasure because we thought this was a bill for which there could have been a good mutually acceptable outcome. But an unwillingness to engage with the issues has led us to a point where we have no choice but to oppose this bill.Part 1 is a very important part of the bill. My colleague Phil Twyford gave an excellent and pretty thorough account of some of the key terms that are defined in clause 3 Interpretation". There are just a couple of those that I want to delve into a little bit more to ensure that as we commence this debate we have all got a really good understanding about what we are actually talking about in respect of this bill. A couple of the key parts of the interpretation that I want to home in on and reference a couple of the submissions here as well are firstly the significance of what is termed the "Auckland combined plan" and secondly I want to delve a little bit into the definition of "Point England Reserve" itself which is the subject the heart of this piece of legislation.Let us turn firstly to the term "Auckland combined plan". It is defined here in clause 3 as having "the same meaning as in section 116(1) of the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act 2010". Of course that was one of those pieces of legislation—and there are a number of them—that established the Auckland Council when we were going through that large amalgamation exercise. The "Auckland combined plan" as defined in section 116(1) of that Act is defined as a plan that means "the combined document described by section 122". If we go to that section it tells us that the combined plan is a document that "Auckland Council must prepare implement and administer … that meets the requirements" of being "(a) a regional policy statement for Auckland: (b) a regional plan including a regional coastal plan … (c) a district plan for Auckland." It is in the common parlance the Auckland Unitary Plan that we are referring to here.The reason it is really important that we just pause and reflect on that a little bit is that that is the central planning document for the Auckland region. That region—of which until recently I was an elected member—has just gone through a massive planning and public consultation exercise to determine the planning rules that are in the Auckland Unitary Plan. It was a heck of a difficult exercise for Auckland to bring that together but we got there in the end and came up with a document that allows for future growth and that balances the cultural and social and public open space needs of the community. That is what we are referring to here in the interpretation clause—the Auckland Unitary Plan.One of the really big concerns that we have on this side of the House is that having gone through that exercise and got to the goalpost of the Auckland Unitary Plan this piece of legislation rides roughshod over parts of it. Instead of going through the careful processes in the Auckland Unitary Plan to determine what housing should go in what location and at what level of appropriate density we simply have a legislative fiat that comes down on top of that. That really concerns many of us in respect of the fundamental principles of democracy and community participation.The second aspect of the interpretation clause that I want to touch on is the Point England Reserve itself. We should not lose sight of that in this debate. Of course there are political feelings in this Committee about this issue but we are talking about a much-loved piece of reserve land and I believe it is incumbent upon us that that piece of reserve land is given due respect. We listened to the people of the community who actually care about that reserve land and care enough to really engage in this process. I was standing up in a community protest about this issue earlier this week and the people of this community have come and they have submitted. They have given their views they have engaged with their parliamentarians and sometimes they have not been listened to. I do not think they have been heard well enough.I just want to reflect on one of the submissions that was received by the Local Government and Environment Committee. This is the submission of Helen Momota who is a very passionate member of that community. She spoke about Point England Reserve which is defined here in the interpretation clause. She talks about how important it is to a growing community. She said that "When I enter Point England Reserve from Point England Road the great expanse of flat green land is so inviting. It engenders a sense of freedom offering so many possibilities—to feel the grass beneath your feet to dance and sing with joy to breathe in lungfuls of sea air to watch the seabirds wading and soaring"—yes they do soar apparently. That is what this bill is about. A growing community—and this community will grow under the Auckland Unitary Plan—needs that precious open space. I hope that we pay credence to that in the remainder of this debate."