Ardern Shane: Overseas Investment (Queen’s Chain Extension) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Ardern Shane: Overseas Investment (Queen’s Chain Extension) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:619;Page:14651] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 That was an interesting contribution from the ACT member and we take stock of a lot of what he said. But the reason that I am willing to support the bill to select committee tonight is simply that for months and months now since before Christmas last year we have heard from the Labour Party how it was going to have a working committee that would come back to this Parliament with a report on land access in general across private property. We were promised that that would happen in February of this year. 
Members opposite look like stunned mullets. If they are wondering what I am talking about it is the Acland committee that was set up under their Minister Jim Sutton. We were then promised that the report would come back in March. Now we have been promised that it will be some time in August. We are into August now but there is still no sign of it. I note with some interest that the Government is supporting the bill to a select committee even though Government members are sitting over there with strange looks on their faces. If nothing else sending this bill to a select committee will pull out submitters and it will force the Government to make a decision on where it is going with this whole process. 
As a farmer myself I have looked at the bill and I see nothing in it that would threaten most farmers. In fact the point made by the Hon Nick Smith about farmers giving access to the public as a part of our culture in New Zealand is absolutely so. In my own farm at home in Taranaki I have 12 hectares of river bank running right through the centre of the farm. I have had many requests for access from trout fishermen and the like and I have never ever turned one down. They have always always obeyed the rules as far as I was concerned but there has always been some concern about what would happen if I were to say to one of them for whatever reason: “No you cannot come across my farm at this time of the year or at any other time of the year.’’ because they were not obeying the rules or playing by what would be seen to be a fair right of access. 
That is a fear that most rural people—most farmers and landowners—have. So it is high time that the Government came out of the closet as it were with this approach and told us exactly what it is intending to do with its land access working-party. I think if nothing else this bill is a good vehicle for that process to take place. It is also a very good idea in the sense that there is a major concern particularly in the area where my colleague the Hon Nick Smith comes from where major investment has been made in one of New Zealand’s most pristine areas. Around the sounds and the Nelson area people have been denied access because of a difference of culture or a difference of approach by foreign investors or people who have come in here and denied access. I have not heard anyone who has contributed to this debate tonight tell us what will be done about that or how the Government would get around that problem. 
This bill looks like a sensible approach. As the Hon Ken Shirley said it does not put any further restriction on people over and above what happens under the Resource Management Act when a subdivision takes place. If I were to subdivide my farm at home I would end up with 20 metres on both sides of a 12-hectare river flat being taken off me supposedly for the public good with no compensation whatsoever. In fact I have experienced that situation in relation to a property that I have bought. Not only is that land taken but one is required to fence it and to keep the weeds under control. Now if members go to a river bank somewhere and notice that it is clean and grazed to within a sensible distance from the river where there will probably be a riparian margin planted and step out 20 metres they will find out how big a piece of land it is that would be there for weeds to grow for no good whatsoever and there would be no access to it whatsoever because it is landlocked. Members should go and do that. They should try it in practice then come back to this Parliament and tell me how it was that that nonsensical piece of academic work was allowed to pass through this place. 
At the end of the day that is about as mad as it gets and this legislation does not provide for that to happen. I cannot understand the concerns that have been raised by members such as Dail Jones or Ken Shirley because we are asking only that the bill go to a select committee where it can be properly discussed.