Henare Tau: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
Henare Tau: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:675;Page:14441] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Assistant Chairman. Kia ora e te matua te heamana o te Whare. I will not take too long. The purpose of the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill is only to stop those who want to go and live in a nice place. And it is to stop those who already live in a nice place from developing their pieces of land that they may have bought 20 years ago. 
Hon Shane Jones 
: What about kaitiakitanga? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh well this is the man who buys houses from the old Meremere Power Station and trucks them all the way up north expecting his whanaunga to buy them for cheap housing—I am sorry Mr Assistant Chairman; I should not have reacted as I did. 
This bill is essentially nothing more than the ladder mentality of those who do not want any more neighbours: “Oh no. We don’t want anybody to share the pristine conditions of the Waitakere Ranges.” And I tell members that most of these people are Labour supporters—dyed-in-the-wool socialists. They are dyed-in-the-wool socialists and they like nothing better than to have a block of land and tell everybody else that they cannot be their neighbours. Is that not right I ask Mr Jones—the real Mr Jones Dail Jones that is. This is nothing more than—what did they used to call it—the bourgeoisie. Do members know that the bourgeoisie used to sit up there on their 20-acre plots and say: “I’m not having any of this. I’m not having any grubby little neighbours coming to live next door to me. Oh no we’re not going to have any of that.”? 
That is the purpose of this bill. That is the reason behind this bill. I am sure that Bob Harvey knows as well as I do that that is the purpose and the reason behind this bill. Part 1 states: “The purpose of this Act is to—(a) recognise the national regional and local significance of the Waitakere Ranges heritage area;”. We did not need a bill to do that. We could have put a sign up at the end of the north-western motorway saying: “We the people of Waitakere—the people of New Zealand in fact—recognise the national heritage of this area the Waitakere Ranges.” They have been the Waitakere Ranges for ever and a day. Why now after all these years suddenly do we want to protect the ranges? They have been protected by some of the good folk who went in and bought the areas and brought up their children. They are the ones who protected it; not the council and certainly not this House. 
This bill is a rort. This is nothing more than some sort of socialist rort basically to give themselves mana. It is not to give anybody else mana but to give themselves mana. I am appalled that some of our members could even think of supporting such a measure. 
Again I say that this bill is nothing more than the ladder mentality which is: “As soon as I have got my property I am going to pull up the ladder so that other people cannot have any of the goodies that I have.” This is nothing more and nothing less than that. If people think this bill is to protect the beauty and the pristineness of the ranges they have another think coming.