Mackey Moana: Walking Access Bill — Second Reading 
Mackey Moana: Walking Access Bill — Second Reading 
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MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am happy to stand in support of the Walking Access Bill in its second reading. As chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee I want to thank all the submitters who wrote to us emailed us and came along to the select committee to express their support for or their concerns about the bill. I think that we as a committee managed to incorporate without too much difficulty most of the issues that were raised. 
I also want to thank the officials who advised us on the bill. Certainly the advice we received was very timely and of a very high quality. There is no doubt that there was a lot of passion amongst the officials for this legislation and it was a pleasure to work with them on the bill. I especially want to thank the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee—both the permanent members and the members who were subbed on including the member who has taken his seat. It was clear that the members had a wealth of knowledge and the select committee was able to tap into it. As a little thankyou to the honourable member Eric Roy we made sure that his crossbow was covered by the legislation. 
Eric Roy 
: My longbow! 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Oh the member’s longbow. We had that discussion many many times. It was a small price to pay for the wealth of knowledge and experience that that member brought to the select committee. I thank the walking access panel which did a huge amount of work on this legislation and this policy that the select committee was able to add to. Of course the numerous groups that had gone before it had also done a lot of work. 
I am sure members in this Chamber are well aware of the history of this particular legislation. I am very pleased that we are able to stand here in the Chamber today with what I hope will be very strong support amongst this Parliament for a very important step for walking access in New Zealand. 
Certainly I agree with what the previous member said. Sometimes the perception and the reality can be quite different and in New Zealand we have a number of areas where we need to face up to some of the realities when they do not match the perceptions. We need to do this when it comes to the environment when it comes to our own sustainability as a country and also when it comes to walking access. New Zealanders pride themselves on having open access to the great outdoors. I suspect that if one polled people about it of those who would say that they used those rights probably fewer would actually use them. But the reality is we pride ourselves on being a country that does have that access. 
I think this Parliament needs to step up and do what we can to make that more of a reality because as we have seen land use change as we have seen our agricultural and horticultural sectors become stronger and as we have seen urban sprawl I suspect that many of the rights that people naturally assume are there and will always be there have been eroded away. That might not be because the people who own the land that some of these access ways are on do not believe they should be there; it might be that they do not realise they are there. It might be that they do not believe that the access ways are appropriate any more. I think this country has come to a point where we need to address this issue through Parliament and I believe that the Walking Access Commission is a very good way to do that. 
I come to some of the changes that the select committee made. We wanted to make it quite clear that the Walking Access Commission is able to deal with forms of access other than just walking access. The select committee looked at this issue quite closely. Unfortunately it became clear that changing the name of the commission which seemed the simplest thing to do to make sure that people were aware that it was not about just walking access—although that is clearly the main focus—was outside the scope of the bill given that the bill is called the Walking Access Bill. Changing the name of the commission would have been quite a substantial change and outside the scope. So we shifted to the purpose clause something that was already in the bill in order to make it clear that other types of access associated with walking access such as access with firearms dogs bicycles and motor vehicles are included. We also made it clear that wheelchairs and other mobility vehicles are included as are companion dogs that are used for example to help blind people. We wanted to make it clear that those things are part of the commission’s work and that we believe them to be important. People should not read into the legislation that it is only about walking access and not about any other form of access at all. That was one of the changes that the committee made. 
Probably the next most significant change that we made was around an issue that a number of us had received numerous emails on and that was the concern of four-wheel drive groups in particular but other groups as well about the creation of walkways over unformed legal roads. It seems there was perhaps a bit of misinformation out there about what the bill was doing. In order to be completely clear that the intention was not to get rid of these access ways we simply deleted the clause that people had concerns about. We removed it entirely. I do not think we could be any clearer about the fact that that was certainly not the intention of the Government and certainly not the intention of the select committee as one can see from the bill that has been reported back. 
A number of the submitters raised concerns about the level of involvement that they may have or that may be required under the bill in terms of public notification of and public consultation on the creation naming and removal of walkways. So we have bolstered that part of the bill a little bit and made it clearer who needs to be involved who needs to be consulted and who should be informed when these kinds of changes are taking place. It was the will of the select committee that people be as involved as they possibly could without causing onerous stress on the Walking Access Commission local authorities and other groups. Once again we expect that common sense will be used when these matters are being considered. 
We wanted to leave the bill as flexible as possible because of course this Walking Access Commission is going to be covering a variety of different parts of the country different types of access and different levels of access. We certainly did not want to tie it up in a whole lot of processes that mean that significant projects require far too little consultation or public involvement or to go the other way—that relatively simple matters require far too much. So we tried to leave the bill as flexible as possible whilst ensuring the basic public right to be consulted on what is happening. Issues about safety and security were also raised with the select committee and we clarified the liability of those involved. 
I think this reported-back bill is a very good piece of work done by the select committee. I am pleased to hear the National Party is supporting it and I commend the bill to the House.