Brownlee Gerry: Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Brownlee Gerry: Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 07 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6388. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 I am very pleased to speak on this last stage of the Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill. Throughout the stages— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Order! The member must move it first before he moves to the third reading. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I so move. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: And the title. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I move  
That the Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. 
Hon Annette King 
: How long have you been here Gerry? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I tell you what Parliament is one of those places where you learn something every day. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: We could give you a list to start on. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: You could give me a list Ruth but if you were to write out what I do not know then you would be writing for the rest of your life and would therefore—for perhaps the first time in your life—be gainfully employed. 
Can I just say that one of the features of this particular bill has been the speeches that members have made throughout its passage to date. Riccarton Bush is the sort of place that evokes a lot of good feelings from people because it is unique. The story that goes with it is quite touching in many ways. 
Riccarton Bush is a small remnant of the podocarp forest that used to cover most of the Canterbury Plains. It exists because one of the first families to settle in Canterbury post-European times were the two Deans brothers James and John Deans. They came to Canterbury having previously been in the Wairarapa to look for some land that was suitable for a sheep farming operation. Sadly James Deans died in a drowning accident trying to move some sheep to shore fairly soon after the brothers had come to Canterbury. John laboured on for about another 10 years I think setting up the property before he returned to his native Scotland to marry his fiancée whom we know as Jane Deans but who was Jane McIlraith. They then came back to New Zealand. He caught what is described as a chill while crossing the isthmus of Panama and died within about 6 months of them arriving back at Riccarton. So it was really Jane Deans—Jane McIlraith—who did such a splendid job in developing that estate over a period of time and then her son John Deans II after her.  
The other point that is useful to note in this is that the Deans brothers became fairly fluent in Te Reo Maori and the lease they had is to this day recognised by Ngai Tahu as being a very genuine document. It gave them a leasehold over a radius of 6 miles from the site of Riccarton House today. It was when the European settlement was begun in a big way in 1850 that the property began to be split up and they eventually took up some holdings in the Malvern Hills. The contribution of that family to Canterbury has been enormous and it will continue to be so. 
The trust today is chaired by Charles Deans a descendant of the family. The real gem that is there is not the splendid house which has survived the earthquakes nor is it the first house which was built on the Canterbury Plains nor the oaks that were planted from seed provided by Governor George Grey but in fact the perhaps 1000-year-old or 1500-year-old bush that grows there today just as it once did across most of the Canterbury Plains. 
This piece of legislation updates several previous Acts of Parliament that have seen the trust survive since 1914 when the Deans family first gifted the bush to the city; from 1947 when the property was sold at a very reasonable rate—that is the remaining property—to the city; and then of course through the amalgamation period of 1989 when it was put inside Christchurch City but remained as a separate trust entity. This bill protects that. The Christchurch City Council has done a great deal of work in ensuring that that does happen. My association was as a trustee and then chair of the trust for quite some years. We had a good relationship with the Christchurch City Council which saw proposals to turn the very historic home there into a sort of wine bar and nightclub instead of the wonderful restored home that it is today. It is a piece of Canterbury’s history a piece of Canterbury’s heritage and very well protected because of the work of the trust. So I wish the trust well in the future commend this bill to the House thank all MPs who have taken such an interest in it and look forward to its passage very shortly.