Calder Cam: Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill — Third Reading 
Calder Cam: Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:672;Page:18358] 
Dr CAM CALDER (National) 
: 
 It is a great pleasure to rise and speak on the Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill. Philanthropy is the performance of charitable or benevolent acts. Like the quality of mercy it blesses those who give and those who receive. It was very common in Victorian times and as we know some of the world’s richest men such as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are actively promoting the idea of philanthropy globally around the world today. 
Acts of philanthropy have played a significant role in the development of New Zealand’s communities and I am thinking of a number of them as I stand here. Atiu Creek Farm for instance just to the west of Wellsford has a large waterfront frontage and beautiful standing trees and wetlands. It was given to the people of New Zealand by Pierre and Jackie Chatelanat and became Auckland’s 23rd regional park in 2006. This was a very very generous gift because its value at the time was some $10 million. 
Rotoroa Island of 82 hectares and just to the east of Waiheke Island is a beautiful island. It was closed to the public for about a hundred years and was owned and used by the Salvation Army in a bid to treat alcoholics and help them on the road to recovery. It has been opened up to the people of New Zealand by the generous involvement of a couple who have bought the lease from the Salvation Army and who have allowed the land to be opened to the public. The money is being used by the Salvation Army to progress its work in the meantime. 
Sir John Logan Campbell is another philanthropist who springs to mind. In 1901 he gifted Cornwall Park to the people of Auckland and this is a park that people throughout New Zealand have used and enjoyed for many many years and continue to do so to this day. I remember as a young lad coming up from the Naki to Auckland and it was a great pleasure to drive through those beautiful fields with stock grazing on them surrounded by stone walls. It was a reminder—certainly seeing the stock in the fields—of home even though I was all those miles away. 
Sir John McKenzie was a well-known and successful businessman. He formed the J R McKenzie Trust in 1940 which has a very good deed that allows board members to give money for charitable and educational purposes in whatever manner they so wish. As a young boy growing up in a single-parent family and off to Otago University I received a donation from the J R McKenzie Trust which was gratefully appreciated at the time and indeed is appreciated to this day. 
We have heard that the land from Parana Park was originally gifted in 1929 by George Parr. I submit to the House that he was yet another philanthropist worthy of recognition and it is totally appropriate that we should be thinking of him and mentioning his name in the House today. He was a farmer and someone mentioned he was a Liberal farmer so his giving was in the tradition of his beliefs. He gave the land to Hamilton City to be used for a children’s convalescent home initially for patients from Waikato Hospital. In the 1950s it became apparent that it was no longer suitable for such use and this bill will vest Parana Park in the Hamilton City Council as a recreational reserve. Parana Park will for ever be a testimony to the philanthropy and benevolence of George Parr and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.