Lees-Galloway Iain: Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill — In Committee 
Lees-Galloway Iain: Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:671;Page:17558] 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 Before I get on to my contribution on clause 9 of the Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill I would like to clarify some statements I made during the debate on clause 8. I have been advised by a learned colleague of mine in the Chamber that gift duties within the family apply to those gifts over $27000 a year which is a number I referred to. I believe that outside of the family if there is no family link they apply to gifts over $10000 in 1 year. I would not want to be accused of misleading the Committee so I wanted to clarify that at the outset. 
I will go back to clause 9 which I am sure the Chair is concerned that I do. Clause 9 is about the Registrar-General of Land who is authorised and directed to make entries in the registers under the Land Transfer Act 1952. Section 4 of the Land Transfer Act 1952 states: “There must be a Registrar-General of Land appointed under the State Sector Act 1988.” and that person must be a barrister and solicitor of the High Court which is important. This is a particularly important part that I would like to discuss. The Registrar-General of Land in exercising or performing the powers and duties of the registrar must have regard to the following objectives: ensuring an efficient and effective system for registering dealings in land; managing the risk of fraud or improper dealings; ensuring public confidence in the land title system; and ensuring the integrity of the register and the right to claim compensation under Part 11 of the Land Transfer Act. 
There is some concern—and my colleague Sue Moroney raised some of these points—that if we have not got a proper description of the land and it appears that there may be 0.4 of a hectare missing from the description of the land in the Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill 2010 then that potentially undermines public confidence in the land title system and it may in fact undermine the maintenance of the integrity of the register. We may find the need to claim compensation under Part 11 of the Land Transfer Act. I think we have approached with some jocularity the question of this missing parcel of land. But in terms of the duties of the Registrar-General of Land I think it is very important that we do get to the bottom of this. We need some clarity. We would not want to put a public servant in a difficult position or in a more difficult position than he or she already finds themselves under the current Government. I think that it is important that the member in charge of this bill does give us some clarity on that anomaly between the description of the land before it went to the Local Government and Environment Committee and the description of the land after it came back from that committee so that the Registrar-General of Land is able to properly fulfil his or her duties as set out in the Land Transfer Act 1952. 
I think there is a problem in ensuring confidence in land title systems. I think it is important that to retain public confidence in the land title system we make sure that when public land is transferred from one form of ownership to another or is vested in the way it is in this bill that the land is properly accounted for and is properly valued. We have a problem with a piece of legislation that is going through the House at the moment making amendments to the Crown Pastoral Land Act and that is in reference to pastoral leases in the South Island High Country where by devaluing the rent that the Crown charges on that land the National Government is devaluing that Crown-owned land—in fact devaluing a State asset. Given that for that particular State asset we do have a process by which it is privatised we need to ensure public confidence in the land title system and we need to make sure that the public can have confidence that the Crown is actually valuing that land appropriately so that when that land is privatised the Crown can realise the true value of that land. That land belongs to 4.4 million New Zealanders. 
Those 4.4 million New Zealanders ought to receive the true benefit of the value of that land. But what we have seen for a long time now—and I am prepared to accept that the situation at the moment is bad enough as it is but this Government is making it even worse—is a massive transfer of wealth from the many to the few. I believe that something like 28 landowners who have received land under tenure review have sold on small portions of that land for massive profits. Those profits have gone to those landowners not to the Crown. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Can we get back to clause 9? 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: The reason why I bring that up Mr Chairperson is that the powers of the Registrar-General of Land referred to in clause 9 require the Registrar-General to ensure that there is public confidence in the land title system and to ensure the maintenance of the integrity of the register. This particular legislation I think is excellent. 
The member in the chair David Bennett is nodding his head and looking rather pleased with himself. He has got a bit of a Cheshire cat grin on his face but let us be honest—this is not a Government bill. This is a local bill. If this were a Government bill this would be called the “Parana Park (Sell it Off to the Lowest Bidder so They Can Make the Money Out of It) Bill”. That is what would be going on. Thank goodness the Hamilton City Council has brought this bill to the House! The member is doing a fine job of representing his local electorate and bringing this bill to the House on behalf of the Hamilton City Council. This legislation ensures that a public asset remains in public hands. I think it does an excellent job of ensuring public confidence in the lands title system and it ensures the maintenance of the integrity of the register. I have no doubt that there will be no claim to compensation as long as we figure out where that 0.4 of a hectare has got to. It is very important that we find that. 
Clause 9(2) states that the Registrar-General must: “(a) issue a new computer register in the name of Hamilton City Council for the land; and (b) enter on the computer register the words Recreation reserve subject to the Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Act 2010”. Before this bill was referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee it had the words “without fee” but now “without fee” has been struck out and it states “on application”. In fact even in the commentary on the bill the select committee has said that to align the bill with the Land Transfer Act 1952 it believes that the issuing of computer registers must be undertaken on an application basis and accompanied by the relevant fee. This will of course mean an increase in costs for the Hamilton City Council and we all know what happens when councils have to increase their costs. They pass those costs on to the ratepayers. Who are the ratepayers? They are ordinary hard-working Kiwis who already have to face massive increases to their costs of living whether they are at the supermarket at the doctors at after-hours care or at the petrol pump. In all manners of life we are seeing massive increases in the cost of living under this National Government and this will be just one more thing that will push rates up even further. 
I know that ratepayers all across the country have to scrounge around looking in their bank accounts to see whether they have the money to pay those rates bills every quarter. The change that the select committee has made to clause 9 will increase costs for the Hamilton City Council and those costs will be passed on to ratepayers in Hamilton City. I bet that they will be coming to their local member and asking: “Why did you allow an increase in costs to the Hamilton City Council and why did you allow that cost to be passed on to us your constituents and the ratepayers in your electorate? Our costs are high enough already.” That is what they will be saying to David Bennett. Ratepayers will be saying to him that when they go to the supermarket their costs have increased when they go to the petrol pump their costs have increased and when they visit the doctor their costs have increased. Now because of this bill they have one more cost to deal with.