Woolerton R Doug: Walking Access Bill — First Reading 
Woolerton R Doug: Walking Access Bill — First Reading 
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R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First will support the Walking Access Bill to go to the Local Government and Environment Committee and we will be pleased to hear about the discussion that takes place at the select committee. I think it is absolutely essential that we have a Walking Access Commission— 
Nathan Guy 
: Will foreigners be able to walk? 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: I am not sure what that intervention meant. We think that this legislation is very important for the workability of walking tracks and access throughout the country. We cannot see that it can be done by any of the other agencies because those agencies are not independent and it is the independence of this commission that is the important thing. I personally hope that in the future this commission will have some power will ensure that the decisions and the negotiations made on people’s behalf will have some ability to stick and will go forward to answer all of those questions that have been raised in the main by National Party speakers. 
In this country we have a changing environment as far as land ownership goes. My own brother my dearly beloved brother has a farm that encompassed 10 farms when I was young. It is all very well to talk about access and going to him the local cocky to ask “Can I go down to the lake at the back of your farm—or to the river or whatever?”. He is not at the farm most of the time; it is run by managers on various properties and so on and so forth. The National Party more than any other party in this Parliament will understand that. Those managers in many cases do not have authority to grant access for people to come over the property and in many cases they are unwilling to because why should they shoulder some responsibility if they do not have to? 
I will talk about a situation in Hamilton. In Hamilton we have a little peat lake called Lake Rotoroa. It was a lake of which only half of it could be accessed. There were parks around half of it and the other half to the lake itself was land owned by people. Well it was not actually owned right to the lake itself in most cases. In a few cases it was but in many cases owners owned land to the edge of the lake but not to the water. It was proposed I think by Margaret Evans the then Mayor of Hamilton that there should be a walking boardwalk right around the lake. And there was hell to pay. 
Martin Gallagher 
: And the deputy mayor. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: And proposed by the deputy mayor indeed. Martin Gallagher was the deputy mayor a very forward-looking deputy mayor I must say who went through fire and brimstone for the people of Hamilton including myself for which I am everlastingly grateful to him. Anyhow there was hell to pay in Hamilton during those days and I hope Martin Gallagher will talk about that to us. There was infringement of property rights and barbed wire put up if I remember. All sorts of things were put in the way. And to this day there is still a little bit where the council could not negotiate with one owner—I ask Mr Gallagher whether I am right—and that little boardwalk had to go out on the water around that person’s property and then go on. 
Suffice to say that is one of the most popular walking places in Hamilton City. I do not know of landowners suffering any harm to their properties; I do not know of any trespass by people. There might have been some but by and large the boardwalk has worked very very well and to the advancement of Hamilton City and its environs. 
I think that that is where we are going with this bill into the future. We in New Zealand must preserve one thing above all else in this country and that thing is not even money. We have never been the highest-salaried country in the world we have never been the richest citizens in the world and we have never been able to keep all of the people in New Zealand. If someone wanted to be a rocket scientist it would not be much use that person trying to find work in Hamilton. But what we have and what we must retain for evermore is a lifestyle—a lifestyle that is the envy of the world. We must retain that at all costs and I believe that this bill goes some way towards ensuring that. 
It is no use saying that things are the same as they were 30 years ago or even 20 or 10 years ago. More and more people are concentrating in the cities and farms are becoming bigger and more remotely controlled if I can put it that way. But everybody knows the benefits of taking a walk. In many cases they are not even fishing or hunting; people just want to get out and exercise walk and enjoy their country. I believe they should be able to do that in the safety of knowing they are not doing it at the grace and favour of a landowner such as we have read about in the old country from where many of us came. 
Nobody in this country should be doing things at the grace and favour of another and I will fight to my dying day to ensure that that does not happen. So we need walkways. We need walkways that are marked on the map and we need walkways that are marked physically. We need walkways that have conditions and rules around them so that farmers are not under any obligation as to trespass liability or any of those things. We need those things set out clearly so that farmers know where people are supposed to be and where they are not. 
We also in my view need to pay farmers some sort of small recompense for the very fact that these paths may go across their land because one of the other things I believe in is that we should not be asking private individuals to pay for public good. We cannot have people out there wrecking fences and making nuisances of themselves and this is one way to ensure that the interests of those in the city who want to access our beautiful countryside are not impinged upon and that there are no arguments with those who hold property rights and in many cases have paid excessive prices to be able to farm the land. 
I know that this can be accomplished but it cannot be accomplished by having an add-on to some other department. I think some long-sighted people have been looking into this and I commend the Labour Government most highly for not going any further with this bill. It has set up a commission and it is now up to the commission to negotiate and to see how these things can be done. And they will be done district by district around the country. I think that in this way many of the things that have been pointed out as being weaknesses will be in fact the strengths of this bill. The process should evolve over time. It should go slowly at first. It should encourage landowners to participate and it will give them some sort of comfort if not a guarantee that they will not be put out by this move with regard to either their farming operations or their property right. 
All of these things can be done. I look forward to the wonderful day when we can roam across dedicated paths around this country keep ourselves in trim and enjoy the benefits that this beautiful country provides. We look forward to seeing this bill come out of the select committee and to voting for it in the future.