Faafoi Kris: Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill — In Committee 
Faafoi Kris: Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:17108] 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Taloha ni. Malo to the Hon Hekia Parata who requested that I speak a bit of Tokelauan before I address clause 5 of the Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill. I would speak entirely in Tokelauan if we had a Tokelauan interpreter in the Chamber—at least I would give it a good go—but unfortunately members will have to listen to me speak in English. 
Clause 5 is the fifth clause of 10 in this bill so we are halfway. We are only halfway. We are looking in great detail into some of the very important implications of this bill. There are three subclauses in this clause and I want to address first especially for Mr Tau Henare’s benefit subclause (1) which states: “The land is no longer subject to the trusts of the last will and testament of George Parr.” It basically takes away the influence of George Parr who gave the land to the Hamilton City Council in 1929. As we have talked about many times tonight he was a visionary a man who cared about how children would be looked after especially in Hamilton. His intention was that the land was to be used as a playground for children and for over 80 years that is what it has been used as. I am sure that David Bennett has enjoyed Parana Park himself with his children and perhaps with his parents and it is because of the vision of George Parr that many generations of Hamiltonians and visitors to Hamilton have enjoyed Parana Park. 
We also know that the house left by George Parr who passed away at 60 years of age—a few years too early—was supposed to be used as a convalescent home for children but over the years it has not been able to be used as that. So the Hamilton City Council for some time and thanks to the local member who is sponsoring this bill has allowed— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: What’s his name? 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: The Hon—no sorry. He is sitting in the Minister’s chair—David Bennett. I will take away the “Hon”! 
This bill allows the Hamilton City Council to use the land in the spirit in which the council and the people of Hamilton want to use it and not necessarily specifically for the purposes set out by George Parr. Sue Moroney said before that during the investigation of this bill the Hamilton City Council exhaustively tried to find the descendants of Mr Parr. I believe that that has not been possible. Clause 5(1) allows us to move on and allows the city council to take complete ownership and control of Parana Park for its own purposes. 
Clause 5(2) is very simple. It states: “The land is no longer subject to the provisions of the Hamilton City (Parana Park) Empowering Act 1958.” My colleague Iain Lees-Galloway referred to that much earlier on so I will not touch on it. But I will touch on clause 5(3) which states: “The fee simple estate in the land is vested in the Council.” That basically gives the council full ownership of this land. 
I want to bring up a point that my colleague David Shearer mentioned before on the mystery around the missing acre. It could be a simple mistake but I hope that the member responsible for the bill will investigate that. Maybe he could call on the resources of the council. It may need the services of a simple calculator or it may need quite a lot of resources to find out where this missing acre is. I would like to congratulate David Shearer on pointing it out. It is interesting that this bill got as far as the Committee stage and no one realised that a complete acre of land that is meant to be gifted to the Hamilton City Council at this stage seems to be in no man’s land. 
Clause 5(3) states that the fee simple estate in this land is vested in the council. We have talked about George Parr and the fact that he was a visionary who gifted this land at his passing. We know that he was very interested in making sure that this land stayed in public ownership. This subclause makes sure that it stays in public ownership as it vests it in the Hamilton City Council. I guess that that is something a little bit foreign to National at the moment because National is quite happy to sell off or mine some of our most beautiful parks and assets.