Wagner Nicky: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Wagner Nicky: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6622. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Speaker— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I will just make a point—I am sorry to interrupt. I take it the Greens were not taking the balance of their 5-minute call? It is a 10-minute call—Nicky Wagner. 
NICKY WAGNER 
: It is my great pleasure to talk to this Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill and I would like to thank Jacqui Dean for bringing it to the House. It has been a really interesting bill because it has become a bit of a historical whodunit. As we have heard from many of the speakers here tonight the bill originally focused on three pieces of land—three pieces of property—in the Oamaru area. There was little debate about the first two pieces. There was very little debate about the Palmerston Showgrounds—that is Palmerston in Otago—or about Lot 1 DP 345820 which is actually in Oamaru. The reason there was no debate was that both Ngai Tahu and the Department of Conservation agreed with the council and its proposed actions. There was no opposition and there were no submitters on that part of the bill. So those two pieces of land were very easily and quickly dealt with. 
But the status of Lookout Point which is also known as Forrester Heights is a totally different matter. It is a particularly interesting piece of land a beautiful piece of land and a piece of land that the people of Oamaru have used for a long time and have regarded as a reserve. At first glance at the documentation it seemed to have changed description several times over the years. Indeed there have been many twists and turns in how the property has been recorded hence the question over its final status. The people of Oamaru have been dealing with this issue for a long time. I thought it was interesting to note that it has come to the House before and it has been discussed but we have never been able to get a solution. So we were very keen to be able to work our way through this process. It has been fascinating trying to untangle the various iterations. I would like to thank the submitters who came to us for their interest and for the documentation that they produced. There was a lot of detailed information and it was very interesting to us. 
The Local Government and Environment Committee was very conscious that we had to get this right. You do not want to carry on with another error and keep this going on and on. You want to make a final decision so we were very sure that we had to get to the bottom of it and get it right. I think that regardless of the official status this land has been considered by the people of Oamaru as a reserve as a public place for many years. It was interesting to see Eugenie Sage’s photographs of Arbor Day. The people of Oamaru have gone there and planted it over the years. I would like to compliment our advisers. They did an excellent and thorough job researching the history of Lookout Point and establishing its status. It was originally put aside in 1885 by Order in Council as endowment land. It was reserved as endowment land to fund the Oamaru Borough Council. I think that is where the confusion has come about—the word “reserve”. It was reserved it was put aside as endowment land but the word “reserve” has been used in a much wider sense and the people of Oamaru have seen it as a reserve. 
We went back to our advisers and we said that we needed to have a detailed background of that. So they went back to their books and they searched high and low and although there have been many changes—they went through each of the changes as they were recorded—the status of the land has never formally been changed. Although there were many changes in how the status was recorded and the way it went through the process it was never formally changed. Our advisers told us that Land Information New Zealand agreed with that the Department of Conservation agreed with that and Ngai Tahu agreed with that. But understanding the level of controversy over the land in the community the select committee checked again and double-checked and checked again. We are convinced that despite the recording errors the status of the land is still as originally set aside—reserved—in 1885 by Order in Council for the purpose of endowment to aid the funds of the Oamaru Borough Council which now of course is the Waitaki District Council. 
The committee tried to make this very clear in our report. So we were very disappointed to read the headline in the  
Otago Daily Times 
 that said: “Forrester Heights status likely to change”—obviously it had missed the whole point of the report and the nuances behind it—and it commented: “The reserve land status of land at Forrester Heights at Oamaru is almost certain to be revoked after a parliamentary select committee report agreed that its status should be changed.” Well I have to say to the  
Otago Daily Times 
 that that is not right. The status of the land has never officially changed which just goes to show that you cannot believe everything you read in the newspapers so remember that. The issue is emotive and there has been a lot of confusion surrounding the land. You can see that the newspaper has mixed up the purpose of the bill because what it has ended up doing is focusing on the public’s desire to use and enjoy the reserve land. That is not relevant to this bill. 
We all understand that people like reserve land and that people like green space in their community. And I do have to agree with Phil Twyford that although people enjoy that this is to do with local decision-making—nothing to do with the bill at all. Unfortunately I do not agree with all Mr Twyford says but in this case I think he made a very valid point. Everybody does understand that local people want to enjoy the ongoing use of reserve land. Our job was not to decide whether this was reserve land or not; it was to clarify the status and the historical background and that is what we did. What happens now to that land must be a local decision and then people must talk to their council about that. It is nothing to do with us. Our job is to clarify the status. This is endowment land. There is absolutely no doubt about it. It is not a reserve. The confusion I think has been about the fact that it was reserved as endowment land. But I think we can be very clear and the committee was sure. 
I would like to thank Jacqui Dean for sponsoring this bill. I think she has done a really good job. It has been a difficult time and there has been a lot of controversy in the community. I would like to thank the advisers for their detailed careful and thorough research and for checking double-checking and checking again. And I would like to thank the committee for its commitment to getting this right. We did not just skate over the top of it. We were sure that it was important that people had clarity that they knew what the results were and that we did not go on perpetrating something that was not true. Thank you. I support this bill.