Bennett Paula: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
Bennett Paula: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
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PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 There are a few points I want to get through on the preamble and one we have much concern about really is the vagueness of the bill—the fact that it is open to interpretation—and it is the opinion of this side of the Committee that the only winners out of the whole bill will be lawyers. We will see more litigation we will see lawyers in courts and we will see them try to battle out this piece of legislation that quite frankly is not succinct and does not accomplish anything. I would like to add that I think some good people in the community have gone into this with perhaps a good intention and their intention I think has been to protect the very ranges and the heritage area that the bill lays out in the schedules. But all good intentions aside what we are dealing with in this Committee is the fact that the bill will be enacted legislation. The concern on this side is that we actually believe it will be yet another layer of bureaucracy and we will see lawyers having to interpret statements a little bit like “natural and dynamic character;” clause 8(c)(i). 
Hon Shane Jones 
: Give us examples. 
PAULA BENNETT 
: Now that phrase may actually even explain the member who just interjected. We may speak about that very member and say he is natural and of a dynamic character in some way or another but do we define a piece of land that way? What does that mean? I think that in this Committee alone we could come up with 121 definitions from members of what “natural and dynamic character” actually means. Another example which we could apply to that member is “the quietness and darkness of the Waitakere Ranges” in clause 8(e). So are we concerned about bird calls? Are we concerned about cars driving through the ranges on a scenic road and heading out to Piha? 
Hon Member 
: Turn their lights out. 
PAULA BENNETT 
: Should drivers turn their headlights off to protect the darkness of the ranges? Should we let only a certain cc rating of vehicle drive through the ranges so that we actually protect the quietness? As a westie I could say there is the odd person who likes to hoon it up a little. So are we actually going to start restricting the cc rating of vehicles that can run—[ 
Interruption 
] 
For those who cannot hear them I tell members that the Greens are speaking up now. I will be most interested to hear them speak on this bill because during the bill’s first reading I must say that at least Nandor Tanczos said they had some very serious concerns about it. During the first reading they raised concerns about singling out one piece of land within New Zealand and asking why one particular place was being singled out for special attention in a bill and they had real concerns about that practice being shared throughout the country. I think that concern is incredibly legitimate. 
I will give just one more example because I know that the member Shane Jones is excited about hearing one and it is a quote from clause 8(i)(ii): “the distinctive harmony pleasantness”. So to reiterate the types of things we could expect to hear in future court cases and could expect to hear time and time again will be the sorts of language around natural and dynamic character the quietness and darkness of the ranges and distinctive harmony and pleasantness. They are just three examples that are picked out quite easily from the bill and that this side of the Committee has genuine concerns about. If we debated them quite openly I think members would find there would be many different meanings from many different people. How can a piece of legislation possibly hope to legislate for that sort of language? 
When we talk about the ranges it is so easy to do the sort of “devil developers” and “eco-angels” labelling used during the submission process but quite frankly I think that that is a very naive way to try to define this argument. People on both sides have come from both sides of the argument. We certainly heard people in the submission process talking about the environment the rehabilitation of the ranges and their natural resources and the fact that people who live there and who have moved in during the last 50 or 60 years have done more in relation to the natural resources of the land than those who were there before. They are the ones who have replanted they are the ones who have looked after the land and they are the ones who have regenerated it. That is something that the Greens should take into consideration. People are not always the enemy.