Kaye Nikki: Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Kaye Nikki: Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 June 2012. Volume:680;Page:2954. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
: 
 I am very pleased to be speaking on the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill. Can I start by acknowledging the member who has just spoken Te Ururoa Flavell the member for Waiariki. I also want to acknowledge the Hon Simon Bridges who I know did work hard and I know he has had a number of discussions with the previous member on this piece of legislation. The Hon Simon Bridges is a very hard-working member for Tauranga. He has a small majority of about 17000 and I know there are other members in this House who care deeply about Tauranga.  
I want to touch on a few things that have been previously said by the member who spoke before me. The first thing is that this bill is being obviously sponsored by the Tauranga City Council but also with support from Nga Potiki. I think we need to acknowledge in this House the speech we have just heard from Te Ururoa Flavell about some of the cultural issues that have obviously been involved in some of the background to this bill coming to the House. We also need to acknowledge something that the member has just said. He said—and this is a bit of a positive point—that we can see a good relationship between the council and Nga Potiki. That is a really positive thing for the future.  
When I think of the Mount—I have visited there and I have done public meetings with the Hon Simon Bridges—I think of a place of the future. This is a city that is growing. We know that it has gone from something like 48000 to 103000 in a very short period of time. What is really important for the future is that we are able to look to it and really ensure that there is good community infrastructure there. That is why it is very relevant that with this bill we are dealing with waste water and discharge because that is actually fundamental to a city being able to develop in the future. I acknowledge Te Ururoa Flavell’s speech and the cultural issues that obviously still surround this particular area of land. But the reason we are here is that the council and Nga Potiki have come together along with local MPs to say that we need to repeal the original Act.  
If we look at some of the history in terms of the legislative history what we see is that the original Act the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act authorised the Mount Maunganui Borough Council to reclaim tidal lands constituting part of the bed of the harbour of Tauranga and to develop such reclaimed land for sewerage and other municipal purposes. The land was then transferred as part of the seabed of Tauranga Harbour to Mount Maunganui Borough Council which was authorised under the Act to transfer a total of about 73.5 hectares. The council reclaimed only about 23.5 hectares.  
We then saw that the authority to reclaim the balance of the area was revoked by the legislation of 1991 so that the principal Act had no legal effect. But what happened here was that during an application process to upgrade Tauranga City Council’s waste-water treatment plant iwi and other stakeholders expressed grievances regarding the scope of the land that could be reclaimed under the Act and the adverse effects as has already been mentioned by the previous speaker in terms of the waste-water treatment.  
So where we are at is that both the Tauranga City Council and stakeholders concur that we need to repeal the principal act returning the legal status of the land to what it was before 1975. We on this side of the House believe that this bill should go to the Local Government and Environment Committee. We believe that it is appropriate in the context of these grievances and concerns to repeal the original legislation. That is why we here on this side of the House are supporting this bill. But we also believe as we have seen with other local bills that have gone through this House that it is important to have local members of Parliament—like the Hon Simon Bridges and like Te Ururoa Flavell—who really get into the community and talk to people who are involved and affected by situations like this and ensure that people have their voices heard.  
Some people will see this as a small piece of legislation but for other people who have been affected in the past it is significant. I acknowledge the work of local members to bring it to this point. I acknowledge the future of the Mount the fact that it is a growing city and that some of these issues are integral in terms of community infrastructure and development in the future. I support this bill to the House.