Williamson Maurice: Gisborne District Council (Alfred Cox Park)  Validation Bill — First Reading 
Williamson Maurice: Gisborne District Council (Alfred Cox Park)  Validation Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:627;Page:22067] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
:  
First of all I thank my whips for having allocated me this wonderful slot and also this incredibly important local bill. The reason I like the slot so much is that as we head towards 5 o’clock I get the chance to communicate with my adoring drive-time audience in Auckland and when I come back to the House later in the evening to speak on a couple of other bills at around 9.30 p.m. to 10 p.m. that same drive-time audience will still be in their cars and able to pick up on the second half of my speech. 
However I do not think that members should let a bill that is as trivial as Janet Mackey tries to portray this one to be to go through the House without some scrutiny. I think questions need to be asked. The first one of course is the retrospectivity of it. I do not feel comfortable about that. Janet Mackey made it quite clear that we will be validating some illegal practices that have been going on for some time. How comfortable are members of this House with that? How comfortable would they feel about coming in here one day with a bill about people who have been doing P and saying: “This will make what they have been doing all right.”? We would feel absolute abhorrence at that. Yet in Gisborne—and I feel well qualified to talk on this subject because I have been to Gisborne recently just for a day—this Alfred Cox Park is being used for doing illegal things and there are two of them. That is the other thing that got me about this bill. It is trying to fix up not one illegality but two. 
I thought that this was something where the Internet can play its part. That was the first thing that came to my mind; most people would not have thought of that. I went on to the Internet got the search engines cranked up and found some stuff that I think the House will find important as background material for this legislation. 
The site states: “Alfred Cox Park was included in a parcel of land donated to the Gisborne Borough Council in 1944 by its namesake”—I presume that means by Alfred Cox rather than by the Gisborne Borough Council—“and member of the 30000 Club Alfred Cox.” Janet Mackey is the local member. She must be able to tell us what that is. What is the 30000 Club Alfred Cox? We are being railroaded with legislation where the member who is taking the bill through does not know some of the substance. 
“It is worth a ramble of its own.” the Internet site states “If it’s autumn when you go look out for the bountiful olive trees. The fleamarket held at the park every each Saturday morning should not be missed.” What does that mean? Janet Mackey said it was held biweekly. Does that mean twice a week or does it mean every 2 weeks? It says here that it is held every each Saturday morning. Maybe that is just the way people in Gisborne speak. It says it should not be missed. I hope that the select committee when considering this bill will trundle off to Gisborne on one of the every each Saturdays when it is on to look at it. 
“Not only are all types of produce available but the colourful atmosphere truly reflects the district’s cosmopolitan population.” This is getting really rich. This is where one sees a public relations officer in a small town like Gisborne trying to persuade the district’s cosmopolitan population. I would say that people from south Auckland Otahuhu or Papatoetoe where you come from Mr Assistant Speaker could quite fairly claim that their part of New Zealand is very cosmopolitan. But I do not think it is a fair label to be putting on the Alfred Cox Park. 
The site states that Alfred Cox Park is off Grey Street so it is not sounding a very colourful place to start with. Behind the visitor information centre office there is a mini-golf course a BMX track and a Canadian totem pole—maybe I was wrong about some of the cosmopolitan stuff—and early every Saturday morning there is the local flea market. So here is contradictory evidence already about how often the flea market occurs and I do not think the House can afford to be misled by that. 
There was something written by a lady called Lisa Mills. I thought it was a great article. I know Janet Mackey will know Lisa Mills from the  
Gisborne Herald 
. Janet Mackey said this bill was non-controversial. Here is the opening sentence in the  
Gisborne Herald 
: “Controversy over whether the operation of the fleamarket at Alfred Cox Park is legal may soon be at an end.” So clearly controversy was involved. 
When Janet Mackey hears the end of this article—when House hears the end of this article—we will know that there is more than one view about how this problem should have been solved. It is quite the opposite of what was portrayed as being a lay down misère easy solution. 
“The issue was raised by Kathy Sheldrake”—again I see the member for East Coast nodding her head; she knows who Kathy is—“at yesterday’s Gisborne District Council’s community development committee when she asked for an update on the situation. In May the committee was told a legal challenge had stymied a bid”—we were not told about this—“to legalise the fleamarket’s operation at the park.” So it sounded like it was all sweetness and light and everyone was behind it but clearly people in Gisborne whom we have not heard about were taking a legal challenge to stymie what one would only call bulldozer-type legislation that was driving over the top of people’s rights. The legislation was taking things that had been going on illegally in that park for years—and I am sure that a lot of illegal things go on in the park—and suddenly making them legal. 
Why do we not add to the list? Can we just not amend it and put a few other illegalities in there? I am sure that a couple of members from the Greens will want to put a few things that go on in the park on to the list of activities that will now be validated by this legislation. 
Phil Heatley 
: Cycle tracks. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: That was not what I was thinking of. The member has such a clean mind that it is disgusting. 
The article continued: “The council had promoted a ‘local bill’ to be presented to Parliament in April 2003”—what has Ms Mackey been doing? We are now in July 2005 which is over 2 years later before we have seen the bill get here—“after it was discovered that the Gisborne Visitor Information Centre and the fleamarket were operating in contravention of the Reserves Act. Their operation was also seen to be contrary to the deed of trust set up when the land was gifted.” Well that is the first question that we should all be asking. What do we think Alfred Cox would think of that? 
Shane Ardern 
: Not much. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: He may not. He may have said that he did not want people riding roughshod over his wishes and that he would gift the land but if people were to run private enterprise and making-money types of things they could do them elsewhere. 
Mr Cox may have been a sort of hard-line lefty from the Alliance end of the political spectrum who did not like private sector enterprise capitalists or anything or he may have been a good free-market right-winger who would have said he did not care and that there could be 12 flea markets in his park—I do not know. We have not been told that by the member for East Coast. There has not been a mutter not a murmur and not a word about what Alfred Cox said in the gift deed back in 1944. [ 
Interruption 
] The war was still going. 
Again the  
Gisborne Herald 
—and I am sorry to be losing a number of my devout audience because of the importance of this speech—has stated quite clearly: “The local bill was seen as a way of rectifying the situation ‘righting the wrong’ by way of legislation. However Tourism Eastland did not agree.” Janet Mackey was talking about how Tourism Eastland was happy with this. Tourism Eastland did not agree with that. 
“At yesterday’s meeting Ron Atkinson said Grey Power”—I do not know how Grey Power comes into it; I love local newspaper stories that run along about some piece of land and about whether the legislation works when suddenly there is a mention of Grey Power—“had been looking at the matter for some time and had been given a copy of the private member’s bill. But nothing had ever happened in Wellington he said.” Now that is typical of Janet Mackey. If one wants to know about the Labour Party members in this House they had been given a copy of the bill back in April 2003 and “nothing had ever happened to it in Wellington” Ron Atkinson said. 
The article continues: “Chief executive Bob Elliott said there was some dispute over whether or not it was needed.” Again Ms Mackey should give an answer to the House. She should stop chatting to Ken Shirley about his stuff and answer that one. Mr Atkinson—whoever he is—asked the council whether it was even necessary to pass this bill. 
Hon Member 
: They come around to get a better view. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: They have come to get a better view—that is great; my crowd is still here. 
I would hope for the sake of Janet Mackey and others that we are not wasting valuable time in this House reading out things that are not of that much value when it turns out that a chief executive does not think there is a need for this legislation. 
I am happy to say that with regard to the National Party I do not know quite why we came to the conclusion that we came to. But I understand from Mr Ardern that we are going to support the bill. However I still think that Janet Mackey needs to come up with some of those answers in her right of reply. What would Alfred Cox actually think about this park and the fact that we now are validating the illegal activities that go on there? 
The article then states: “Surely legal advice would have said if we needed it. Corporate affairs manager Douglas Brit”— 
Janet Mackey 
: Douglas Burt. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Yes the member is dead right. I have the wrong person. I apologise. 
All I can say is that I think Tourism Eastland had some concerns. The member has not told us why those concerns are not valid. I am happy to vote for this bill but I am telling members that I will lose sleep for some time over it.