Foster-Bell Paul: Wellington Town Belt Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoster-Bell Paul: Wellington Town Belt Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 04 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10776. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E te Mana Whakawā Tuarua tēnā koe tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema o Te Whare. It is reasonably rare in this House that we on this side praise our opponents sitting opposite but I do want to take this opportunity to congratulate my colleague Grant Robertson on having introduced and stewarded through in this House all three readings this bill the Wellington Town Belt Bill which is to the member’s credit and of great use and value to the people of Wellington. I want to join others in offering my congratulations to the hard-working officials—the staff of the Wellington City Council—but also the parliamentary officials the advisers that we had those who have assisted with the drafting of the bill and all others who have been involved in advancing this important and very timely piece of legislation.As someone interested in history I want to touch on some of the background to how we got to where we are today. Wellington is not unique in New Zealand in having a town belt. Of course Dunedin is the other town belt that we think of today although Wellington’s is by far the biggest and best I have to say at 625 hectares which was originally established in colonial times compared with 225 hectares in the Edinburgh of the South. But those two cities were not alone either in having town belts and I think we should remember today that New Plymouth Christchurch Invercargill and Port Chalmers also had town belts. This land was deemed too valuable by the early settlers to be retained as recreation and undeveloped space and was developed very quickly. I am very very grateful that this was not the case here in Wellington. We decided it was too valuable to lose to development and retained it for that reason.This is a local bill promoted by Wellington City Council and it aims to protect the land of the Wellington town belt modernise the governance arrangements—the 1873 trust is being modified in this legislation—and to preserve the land hereafter for the benefit of the people of Wellington. The select committee process that was followed in my view was excellent and I want to put on record my congratulations to the very fine chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee my colleague Scott Simpson the MP from the Coromandel who did an excellent job of ensuring that the 31 submissions from interested groups and individuals were heard and given due consideration and that we took on board some of the issues that were raised because it is fair to say that there have been some amendments to the initial draft of the legislation. These amendments are actually very important for the people of Wellington.A significant issue that was raised with the original draft of the bill was the removal of the applicability of the Public Works Act. This was an issue that was brought up by the Wellington Chamber of Commerce among others which called into question the wisdom of removing the applicability of the Public Works Act and in particular introducing special consultation provisions around the use of town belt land for absolutely essential infrastructure or in fact emergency use. Another submitter that did take exception to this part of the original drafting was the Wellington Electricity Lines company which pointed out that in the event of an emergency situation—for instance an earthquake—the ability to temporarily erect high-tension lines through the town belt to power Wellington Hospital over in Newtown for instance would be something that would either require some sort of special emergency empowering legislation or could be done via the Public Works Act.So I think it was actually wise of the committee having taken on board those suggestions to make the amendments to this bill. It avoids the controversy of this bill being seen to block crucial infrastructure projects. Too often Wellington has been set back by crucial transport infrastructure—like the Basin Reserve for instance and the bypass there which would have actually brought that up to date and to where it needs to be given that is a traffic intersection that is at over 100 percent capacity. It is at something like 105 percent capacity at the moment and getting worse. We would not have wanted legislation that would prevent that kind of important infrastructure which is absolutely essential to enable our capital city to continue to thrive and grow and develop so I was very glad to see that was dealt with in the amendments that were adopted during the committee stage and have been very well gone through during the Committee of the whole House here as well.I do agree with the comments made by Mayor Celia Wade-Brown who said the most important thing was getting a bill before the select committee where the feedback and changes could occur. Like other members of the committee I was listening to submitters including Land Information New Zealand which also backed up the points made by the chamber of commerce and the electrical lines company around the issues to do with not having the Public Works Act applicable to the town belt.This is now a very good piece of legislation. It does protect the town belt as it currently is and also gives the provision to add in or reclaim parts of the town belt that have been alienated. In fact it now is a condition that the council finds itself imposed with that it is not in a position where it can alienate land from the town belt without having to use the proceeds from that to further enhance the town belt by the addition of new land.The point has been made by members opposite that some of the land that has been taken in the past is being put to public use. So it is not the simple planted slopes or the forest land that the majority of the town belt is which is available for the public to walk through. I think that is a very very important part of the town belt.The Vice Regal Park which is added on to the back of the Government House grounds is a public amenity. It is something that is enjoyed by people when they are visiting Government House and I think we should note that His Excellency the Governor-General the Rt Hon Sir Jerry Mateparae has really opened up Government House more so than any previous Governor-General with the addition of a good visitors centre and more frequent school visits and has also opened up the house itself to visitors during occasions such as investitures of those New Zealanders who have achieved a royal honour. So those going to visit the house have an opportunity now to explore the house and the grounds more than they ever have in the past and this is something that I think is a welcome development. It is also using that land that was once part of the town belt and now forms part of the viceregal residence and grounds for a public purpose even if it is not a walking track that might be openly available for every member of the public to walk through at will. So it is certainly not a case of town belt land being privatised or being used for commercial purposes.I agree with the comments made by Grant Robertson that it is actually a good thing that there are limits to the amount of town belt land that can be even temporarily rented out leased or given some usage rights for the operation of maybe a sporting type facility. It could be recreational facilities or it could even be an ice cream stall or a public convenience of some sort—an amenity of that kind. That limit of 8 hectares of town belt land that can be used for these purposes I think is very reasonable and that was something that I am pleased to say there was cross-party support for. So I want to add my voice of praise for the town belt to the voices of colleagues who have spoken so far.The inner town belt—the 625 original hectares which has now been whittled away to around about 400 hectares—is in a horseshoe shape Mrs King. We could call it a boomerang shape or a half-moon shape. It is certainly not in the shape of a horse as the member alleged earlier. That horseshoe-shaped piece of land that stretches from Mount Victoria through to Te Ahumairangi Hill in the north-east is actually supplemented by a larger outer belt. There is almost 5000 hectares of green space that goes from the south coast around to Colonial Knob in Tawa.Scott Simpson: Where?PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Colonial Knob Mr Simpson in the Tawa area. So that wider or that outer town belt is a collection of national park conservation space private space—both protected and publicly available and also private lands—that does form a beautiful adjunct to the central town belt. That is in a roughly horseshoe/circular shape.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I commend this bill to the House.