Jones Dail: Auckland War Memorial Museum Site Empowering Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Jones Dail: Auckland War Memorial Museum Site Empowering Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:611;Page:8378] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 As I said during the debate on Part 1 I am concerned about the lease provisions in this legislation. Part 2 quite clearly refers to a power to lease land in the Auckland Domain. One wonders whether this is perhaps meant to be a public domain an example of a public domain is that owned by the Auckland City Council—so it is a domain that is public and owned by someone. All I can say is that anyone trying to use the word “domain” to signify non-ownership of something will have some problems. However this part talks about the power to lease the land in the Auckland Domain and refers to the Auckland Domain Act and the council—meaning the Auckland City Council—having the power to grant a lease to the board in respect of the area of land described in the schedule. It is pleasing to note that the annual rent is only $2 per year. One wonders why one has to go to the problem of having a lease for $2 per year when the actual— 
Richard Worth 
: It’s a peppercorn rent. 
DAIL JONES 
: It is a peppercorn rent—exactly. I am sure everyone in the Committee knows what a peppercorn rent is but I will leave that for Mr Worth when he takes a call. He knows a bit about peppercorn rents although I am sure that a peppercorn rent or charge is not something that would be familiar to his law firm. But I will leave that to Mr Worth to explain to the Committee. 
I ask the Minister what the timing of this is going to be. We note that this legislation will come into effect on the date it receives the royal assent. So what type of lease will this new lease be and what did the select committee do when it looked at this new lease to make sure that it complied with all the various legislation that exists around leases? One looks at say the Reserves Act which is a very important piece of legislation with regard to reserves. One would expect that the overall domain is well and truly regarded as a reserve of Auckland. When will the existing lease come to an end and be annulled? When will the new lease begin? Has the revocation of the old lease been prepared? Has the new lease been prepared and has it been signed? When will it be signed? 
 We would not want to have a situation where the old lease is cancelled and there is no lease taking its place and we have a vacuum and a period when there is no lease whatsoever. So I think the Minister should indicate that to us to let us know what physical mechanisms are taking place to make sure that the will of Parliament is properly carried out by those people who are given the authority to act in terms of this legislation. 
I note that clause 5(3) has been inserted by the Government Administration Committee and I think one has to be very critical of the way in which it has been drafted. It is always poor in my view to start off a clause with: “To avoid doubt” then say “(a) section 5 ... ” and “(b) section 5 ...”. It suggests that the legislation has been rushed through. New Zealand First is of course cooperating with this legislation going through this Chamber very quickly but whenever one says “To avoid doubt” one can be sure that a lawyer will look at it and say: “Now I think there’s a loophole here. We may have some means of overturning this legislation.” I am sure that would never happen in this case because no one would ever have the ill will to try to upset the Auckland War Memorial Museum which is such a wonderful building as I have already said and we are looking forward with such excitement to the development of $45.5 million of the site. I think the select committee could have perhaps worded that better. 
I wonder also what the provisions of section 5 of the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal and Public Bodies Empowering Act 1915 were to be because here we have an Act of Parliament repealing something that was passed in 1918 and which on the face of it might still have had something from a 1915 Act of Parliament applied to it—also we ask now to remove the effect of section 5 of the Auckland Domain Act 1987. I think the Minister owes the Committee an explanation as to what all that means so that we are much better informed as we pass this bill through the Chamber and as we discuss it with various people in the Auckland area—nit-picking lawyers for example—who might want some ideas about it.