Copeland Gordon: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Copeland Gordon: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:612;Page:9289] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 United Future lent its support to the first reading of this bill and we will vote in favour of its second reading. We will also vote in the Committee stage in favour of the amendment suggested by Dr Nick Smith in terms of the Card Creek ecological area. I have visited the Card Creek ecological area. I have been there I have studied it I have looked at the options and I have worked for months now with the Minister of Conservation to try to bring some common sense and some logic into the situation that exists there. I must say I am extremely disappointed at the conduct of the Department of Conservation and its Minister in this matter which I can only describe as bordering on fanaticism because of the completely unbending and in my view unbalanced and irrational manner in which the matter is being approached. 
I want to put some facts on the table. First of all Ian Ewen-Street correctly said that Card Creek is an ecological area—that is right; it is. We are looking to use only 9.6 percent of that area for the Dobson dam. Mr Ewen-Street mentioned the birds that live there. Well they all have wings and they can all fly. That is not a logical thing to say. In addition to the birds there are numerous stoats weasels possums and other things there. If logic and common sense were able to prevail it is quite possible that TrustPower Ltd which wants to build this dam would be quite happy to put a considerable amount of money into reducing the number of possums stoats and weasels in that area so that the birdlife there could flourish. We can have a classical win-win situation. 
However it goes further. At the moment through the West Coast District Council the good people of the West Coast own 720 hectares of land in the Mount Buckley block. They are prepared to gift that land to the Crown in exchange for 500 hectares because they want this scheme to go ahead and they want the electricity. That is a gain of 220 hectares to the conservation estate that could immediately be redesignated as an area of ecological significance and we could all gain again. 
This process lacks any kind of integrity because the reason the Minister and the Department of Conservation give for not wanting to do that is that the 720 hectares owned by the West Coast District Council is already in the conservation estate and it does not add to it. I find that completely dishonourable and lacking in integrity. But it goes further. Mr Ewen-Street mentioned that there are some regenerating kahikatea there—and there are; I have seen them and they are pretty average trees in my opinion. Just up the road on privately owned land and accessible to far more people there is a stand of similar kahikatea. The only difference is that it does not have wet feet and it is in better nick. Again I would say that the proponents of the scheme would be quite happy to buy that private land and gift that kahikatea to the nation in exchange for the inferior trees in the Card Creek area. Again it cannot be done because it is already a place of national significance apparently. 
The owners’ property rights mean nothing. In other words the Department of Conservation says: “We already have that little bit of land under our control. We know that it is privately owned but effectively it is ours. We will not compensate the owner for it but effectively it is ours anyway.” To me it completely lacks any kind of integrity to have those kinds of dealings. 
The bottom line is this: the people of the West Coast want this project to go ahead. It can be done in such a way if common sense prevails that it is a win for everybody. It is a win for the birds for the kahikatea trees for electricity for the people of the West Coast and for the people of this nation. Why on earth do we not do it? No one in all of these discussions has been able to come up with an answer except to say that it is illegal under the present Act. 
 But is Parliament not here to remove legal obstacles that restrain the economic development of this nation and that act as a constraint on its conservation plan? Why on earth should we hide behind a law when we can change it in the House? I congratulate Dr Nick Smith on coming along and proposing that we jolly well change it. 
There is another aspect to the whole thing that is most unsatisfactory. Nick Smith’s amendment allows the bill to have a resource management hearing. What could be fairer than that? It should go to a hearing at which everybody can have their say including the Department of Conservation—but no we are not prepared to let it go to a hearing. Why? Because in this case the Minister says he is not only the judge but also the jury. He wears two hats. The case has been to him and he as the jury has decided that it will not go ahead. 
I ask him where people go and on what criteria the decision has been made. Where is the transparency the openness and the due process of the law? Where is natural justice in all this? I am told that it is “whole of Government”. In other words the only way we can get this changed is to convince the Prime Minister to change it. Again where is the transparency and openness? From the point of view of a company that wants to develop the power station it is completely unsatisfactory to be told that the only way it can be done is go ahead and convince the Prime Minister to do it. We in this House should be encouraging open and fair processes and arbitration of these questions. None of that will occur in this situation and I for one have found trying to argue something on the basis of a win-win a gain for everybody—particularly for people on the West Coast in this case—to be a most unsatisfactory experience. 
One person said to me that it is to do with tourism. I said to him that there are about four people a year who get there. Let me be generous—perhaps 100 people ayear might hike the day’s journey in to see those trees—but the fact of the matter is that if we are not careful the tourists who come to this nation to see the beauty of the West Coast will be going past houses that are not painted and have rusty roofs because the people on the West Coast are being denied economic self-sufficiency. That is ridiculous. It put snails and birds ahead of people and that is wrong.