Robertson Grant: Wellington Town Belt Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Wellington Town Belt Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 16 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9830. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I move That the Wellington Town Belt Bill be now read a second time. It is a pleasure to be returning to the House with this piece of legislation which will protect and enhance the green space that surrounds the wonderful city of Wellington known as the town belt. To remind colleagues—who I am sure continue to recall this information but it is perhaps helpful—the three main purposes of this legislation are to provide a transparent statutory basis for Wellington City Council’s trusteeship and management of the town belt on behalf of the residents of Wellington.There is a trust deed that has governed the town belt for the best part of 170 years; that trust deed continues in this legislation but we now have the statutory back-up to that to ensure that the town belt continues to fulfil the role that it has had for Wellingtonians for many many generations as a public recreation ground and green space. In addition to the trust deed there are already a number of pieces of legislation that govern the town belt including the Reserves Act the Wellington City Exhibition Grounds Act and the Wellington (City) Town Belt Reserves Act. This legislation brings the powers of all of those instruments together into one piece of legislation which I think all of us would agree is a good thing.The second purpose of the bill is to impose on the council responsibilities and powers to protect manage and enhance the town belt. The trust deed continues to be the founding and lasting form of guidance for how the town belt should be managed. However over the last 140-odd years there has been a lack of clarity of core aspects of the role given to the council under the deed and how that should be interpreted. This legislation puts to rest those doubts with a series of very clear definitions including in clause 8 of the bill providing a clear description of the legal status of the town belt. The other great virtue that this purpose of the town belt bill has is that it allows us to add land to the town belt because up until now time has been frozen back at the original creation of the town belt in 1873. Although land has been taken away from the town belt for various purposes during that time the idea of adding land has not been possible. So what this bill does is create the opportunity for us to add land to the bill and on commencement of the legislation somewhere around an extra 120 hectares of land will be added to the town belt on top of the nearly 400 hectares that we currently have and that will be a great advance for Wellington to have that land given the same protections as the town belt itself.I also want to note the third purpose of the bill around recognising the history of the town belt and its significance to mana whenua and to the inhabitants of Wellington in general. I have already noted earlier in debates on this that the history of the town belt is an interesting one and is covered in the preamble of the legislation. I think that is a very important point—it is certainly an important point for Wellingtonians that that history will now be part of the bill itself. I think that will give assurance to a lot of people that where we have come from in terms of the protection of this land is now part of the law itself. So they are the main purposes of the legislation. We had a very interesting select committee process. I want to thank all the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee for their work. I particularly want to thank the chair Scott Simpson who ran the committee well. We did have some—Hon Member: Hear hear!GRANT ROBERTSON: Perhaps I should say that again because I am not sure how often I will say that statement: I would like to thank Scott Simpson the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee for his work.We did have a number of submissions; we had around 30 written submissions on the bill and a number of those people asked to speak to the committee. In general they were very positive and very supportive of the legislation. There was a high level of agreement that it was a good idea to provide a clearer legal framework and greater certainty and clarity about the meanings of important concepts that surround the management of the town belt including the concept of public recreation. There was a desire to protect the current town belt and to be able to add land to it. There were—and it does need to be recognised—some submitters who did not support the bill; only two who outright did not support the bill and they believe that the intent of the protection of the town belt would not be enhanced by this legislation. Clearly the Wellington City Council as the organisation behind this bill does not agree or accept that.Then there were a number of submissions that proposed a variety of minor amendments to the bill some of which have been accepted and picked up. I just want to mention the two areas of concern that were raised by submitters. One of them has led to an amendment which I want to focus on a little bit in my contribution. The first area of concern was that by removing the town belt from the Reserves Act and putting those powers into this bill we would undermine the protection of the town belt as a reserve. We got very clear guidance from officials that that was not a concern; that in fact in some ways we were strengthening the powers under the Reserves Act in this legislation because we were taking on the new powers of the Reserves Act amendment that had been slowly winding its way through Parliament. I want to reassure those submitters who were concerned that there would be an undermining of the reserve status of the Wellington town belt that we have been assured that is not the case.The other area that was of some concern for submitters was the application of the Public Works Act to the town belt. This is dealt with largely under clause 23 of the bill. In the course of the select committee considering the bill the Wellington City Council and Land Information New Zealand had some discussions and an alternative clause 23 now appears in the bill. I find myself in an interesting position as the member in whose name this bill is in that it would be my preference that the original wording of clause 23 around the application of the Public Works Act to the town belt were still in the bill. But this is a local bill and it is a bill that the Wellington City Council has put forward to us; it is the language that has been agreed between the council and the Government agencies that now appears as clause 23. Clause 23 as it now is is the status quo—it reflects how things are today in terms of the ability of a Government to use the Public Works Act to take aspects of the Wellington Town Belt as it could for virtually all other land in New Zealand with some exceptions.What is now missing from clause 23 are two important points: one of those is a reference to the inhabitants of Wellington being interested parties essentially and having the right of objection. The original clause 23 reflects the trust deed for the Wellington town belt which mentions the inhabitants of Wellington as being an interested party. That clause has been removed. The other was an important process clause about the need to agree on compensation for land taken before further parts of the acquisition of land would take place. That is different from a normal Public Works Act process but it was included in the original bill by the Wellington City Council to recognise the unique status of the town belt. It would be my preference and the Labour Party’s preference if the original clause 23 was in the bill but that is not the process that has happened and I just think it is important that I outline that today.I want to mention clauses 16 and 17 where I believe there has been an inadvertent change made in the select committee that we will need to look at again in the Committee of the whole House. This is around the question of leases and licences and the granting of those. In the original drafting of the bill no more than 8 hectares in total of the town belt was to be taken under leases. That clause has now been replicated under the licences section and it is certainly not the intention of the Wellington City Council having checked with them for there to be 16 hectares i.e. 8 hectares of leases and 8 hectares of licences. So having spoken to the council we will be able to rectify that relatively easily in the Committee of the whole House stage because nobody involved in this process wants any more than 8 hectares. In fact the submitter who suggested making sure that the licences section did not contain more than 8 hectares was in fact arguing for no more than 8 hectares across both leases and licences. It is a minor point but I wanted to make sure I put it on the record in the second reading so that we can clarify that when we get to the Committee of the whole House stage.I remain very supportive of this piece of legislation. I think the Wellington City Council has undertaken good work to ensure that concerns raised by submitters have been dealt with throughout a very long period of time over a number of years. The select committee process was simply the latest in a series of consultations. We have refined the bill. There has been a very small adjustment made in terms of what the town belt is because we have removed a very small parcel of land that is still subject to a Treaty claim. We had an extensive discussion about that at the select committee. It is a small parcel of land and because it is still subject to a Treaty claim it has been taken out of the town belt. But the good news is that subject to that Treaty claim being dealt with it can be added back into the town belt because we now have a process to do that. I strongly commend this bill to the House.