Blumsky Mark: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
Blumsky Mark: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:645;Page:14883] 
MARK BLUMSKY (National) 
: 
 When we take the Government benches which I hope for the sake of this country is in the not too distant future and when we as the Government draw up a list of those bills that were passed in the Labour Government’s time that really were not good law and did not meet the requirements of the community I hope we have the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill at the top of our list of bills to repeal. I say that quite sincerely because I have sat through the entire process unlike many of the other speakers from the Government side and I have heard every submission and read every bit of paper that has come out on this particular local bill. 
This local bill did not have the local community support it should have had or deserved. For that reason it needs to be right at the top of our list of those bills we will repeal. Local bills need to have full community support. I sat through the submissions and heard the conflicting stories of neighbours. They did not understand; they were confused. I heard people who were the loveliest people and who had never submitted in their lives being painted as developers. They were painted as being bad evil persons who might be developers because they did not like this bill. I thought it was incredibly sad that we had a local bill that was being driven through the process by the council using things like polls with “Do you love your mum?” sorts of questions. I thought that if ever there was a “constructed” local bill that was being driven through this was it. It will not deserve to stay on the statute book—it will not deserve to stay on the book. 
Many good community people came before the Local Government and Environment Committee who were passionate about the ranges—and rightly so. They were all passionate actually and rightly so; that is not in argument. But they did not understand and they were very very confused. I thought that was wrong. I felt that Bob Harvey should have had the courage to pull back and say: “I really should look at how I bring this back again in a way that people understand in a way that meets the requirements and in a way that actually delivers on the promise but maybe in a different way. Maybe I could do it in the way a national park should be or some other way because this is not working. My community is not comfortable with this.” To call it a local bill I think is a big misnomer. 
One of the most interesting things that struck me through the submission process was that the bill does not actually address one of the biggest issues in the ranges the biggest threat the ranges have in regard to their surviving the centuries as they should which is the fact that the bill at no stage talks about visitors. I do not know whether members realise that 2.5 million visitors go through the ranges annually. There is no discussion in this bill about these people going through the ranges and about what harm they can do. They are not the people who live within the ranges’ boundary who love the place to bits and who would hate to see anything happen to it—not those people; they are the nice ones—but they are the people who come through have things in their car chuck cigarettes out of the window and have the music up far too loud or whatever. It is a huge issue for me that this bill does not address that quite significant impact on the ranges. 
I stress that this bill is a local bill but does not have community support. I suppose I challenge the Maori Party a little bit because they talk about the power of the consultation process and about how Bob Harvey will involve them. I just want to raise with them a letter I received which was given to me. It is a letter between the representative of Ngapuhi and Bob Harvey where he talks about his relationship with Maori. I will quote from the letter: “Those f…king black faces don’t f…king vote. They are f…king lazy and do nothing for themselves and if you don’t help me your organisation is finished in this town.” That is Mayor Bob Harvey talking to a Ngapuhi representative about the relationship he has with Maori in his community. I have quoted directly from a correspondence from the mayor to those people stating that black faces do not vote that they are lazy and do nothing for themselves and that if Ngapuhi does not help him then they are finished. That is a direct quote. Maori Party members can say that the Mayor of Waitakere will consult; I think that is a farce.