Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It's a pleasure to speak on this Local Government (Freedom of Access) Amendment Bill. It's in the name of Jonathan Young who unfortunately can't be here tonight to speak on this bill himself. As I'm sure all members will know having a bill pulled out of the ballot and having the opportunity to speak on the first reading is a great thrill and an honour and I'm sure he's very disappointed to not be here. However Mr Hudson ably stepped up and did the job for him in that first reading speech. I'm disappointed to hear that the Labour Party are not going to be supporting this bill. I think we differ in that I believe there is a need for this legislation.Of course freedom of speech is a basic tenet of our democracy and we all I think agree with that. Having your right of freedom of speech and freedom of expression is always going to be difficult as to where you draw the line. I think one of the civil rights and political rights—one definition I've found in here is The dual aspect of freedom of expression both acknowledges individual rights (that no one be arbitrarily restricted in expression) and implies a collective right to receive any information whatsoever and have access to the thoughts expressed by others. Expression need not be in words and may include symbolic expression including actions and physical conduct."Obviously some of those people that want to occupy public spaces are the case in point of what we're talking about here. We're not talking about in this bill stopping people from actually going through those processes and there have been quite a few decisions. I'd like to quote Brooker v Police from 2007. Chief Justice Elias from the Supreme Court ruled "A tendency to annoy others even seriously is insufficient to constitute the disruption to public order which may make restrictions upon freedom of expression necessary." I can't disagree with that really. In R v Valerie Morse from 2009 in the Court of Appeal Justice Glazebrook said "it can only be in exceptional and extreme cases that the right of freedom of expression (and particularly the right to protest) can legitimately be curtailed through the medium of the offence of disorderly behaviour at least when it is exercised in a reasonable manner." I can't disagree with that either.However having these protests where people occupy land for public spaces for an extended period of time creates a health issue on occasion and it does impinge on people's right to actually enjoy those public spaces. If we look here in clause 5 which seeks to amend section 164 of the Local Government Act 2002 "Seizure of property not on private land" after section 164(1) it would insert "An enforcement officer may seize and impound property that is not on private land if—(a) the property has been erected placed or fixed for longer than a period totalling 5 days in any given 12-month period; and (b) that erection placement or fixture was not done with the necessary consent; and (c) before seizing and impounding the property the enforcement officer—(i) directed (orally or in writing) the person to whom the enforcement officer reasonably believed the property belonged to to remove [that] property;".It goes through several more. We're not talking about going up 10 minutes after the protest has formed and dealing with it. It's in fact a very good go—if people have the opportunity to spend five days there be warned to remove their property and they don't do it.Hon Andrew Little: What an appalling argument. What an appalling bill.STUART SMITH: I think this is an excellent bill—Hon Clare Curran: Why not three days or 10 days?STUART SMITH: —and I'd actually question the motives of what I'm hearing chirping from the other side from a couple of squeaky wheels over there. They really don't understand the issue.Hon Andrew Little: You don't get to tell people how to exercise their rights.STUART SMITH: I really would actually counsel the gentleman to try and calm himself a little bit. So it is with that I take great pleasure in commending this bill to the House. Thank you."