Bennett Paula: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
Bennett Paula: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:645;Page:14879] 
PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 First I want to speak on my amendment to clause 2. I felt that by pushing the commencement date out to 1 April 2009—no 1 January— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: 1 April would have been pretty good actually! 
PAULA BENNETT 
: Yes 1 April would have been a bit better but we thought that 1 January was fair. We think it is reasonable to ask members opposite to give that opportunity to people who live in the Waitakere Ranges and who want to do simple things like complete a granny flat on their property that they are halfway through building or to build another shed on their vineyard or orchard in the foothills. We heard about those things throughout the submission process. I think we need to go back to some of the basics. The reality is that no one wants to see the foothills carved up into a tight-fitting medium or high-density housing suburban area. 
 No one wants to see that—certainly not anyone on this side of Chamber and from what I am hearing not anyone on the other side—and there can be no question about that. Doing a survey that asks whether people want to protect the ranges— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Yeah right! 
PAULA BENNETT 
: —quite frankly gets a “Yeah right!”. If I had been called I would have said “Yes” because we all want the ranges to be protected and there is no doubt about that. What National members say is that this legislation simply will not protect the ranges. To protect the ranges one would give them the highest status in the land and make them a national park. To protect the ranges one would actually put them under a caveat that means they cannot ever be touched. That is what one would do for the public land that is in the ranges. But if one simply wants to take away the rights of individuals who live there and love it and who have seen the area be refurbished and grow more in the last 100 years since people have lived there than it ever did previously then one puts up legislation that will benefit only the lawyers. The only people who will benefit from this legislation are lawyers who are left to try to determine what such phrases as “the quietness and the darkness” of the ranges mean. Does it mean people should not drive through the ranges if their car has a decibel rating of more than 2000? Does it mean people should not drive through the ranges with the lights on because it might affect the darkness? That is how utterly ridiculous this legislation is. 
No one debates that the ranges should be protected. No one debates that their protection is important that they are important for Auckland and that they are certainly important for Waitakere. The debate quite simply is that this bill will do nothing to protect the ranges. The Government has come up with this legislation but no one actually knows what it means and that is where it gets dangerous. People cannot understand how our viewing the land as a fish will help us to protect the ranges. The Government is overriding long-term council community plans that the locals have spent years developing and that the council has been part of. At one stage we were told that this legislation would not overrule the Resource Management Act then we were told that it would—that it would not be worth having this legislation if it did not overrule the national legislation. It is as simple as that. 
Let us talk about “rural character” and what that can mean. I go back to the title of the bill. A correct title of the bill would be quite simple: it is not the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill; it is the “Waitakere Foothills Heritage Area Bill” for it is the foothills that will be most affected and it will be the people living there who have caveats placed over their private land that mean they cannot do what they are already doing within the law. Members on the other side of the Chamber make it sound like there is willy-nilly building going on that people are building monstrosities of houses and that hideous developments are going on. The reality is quite different. Already people work within district plans. Already people work within long-term council community plans. Already the people of Waitakere have what they want and what they need and they do not need this legislation.