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) 
: 
 I stand to speak on the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill which is being promoted by the Waitakere City Council. First I will address the way in which the community has had to deal with this issue. Although differing opinions are a good thing and it is good to come at things from different angles there is absolutely no doubt that this bill has split the community to its detriment. That is a fact. The member speaking previously David Cunliffe spoke about surveys being put out that show 81 percent support it but we need to ask what question the people answered on that survey. Is there any doubt from members of the public living in Waitakere that they want to see those ranges protected? There is none. I have not yet met one person who does not want that protection. Certainly members of Parliament from this side of the Chamber can stand proudly and say they wish to see those ranges protected. 
The preamble to this bill talks a lot about what those ranges mean not just to the Waitakere area but also to the wider Auckland area in general. Yes for those of us who live there and look at the ranges we do think they are jolly special. The National Party stands up and says that if we really think the ranges are as special as that then we should protect them and we should give them the highest protection in the land by turning them into a national park. There are no national parks north of Taupo and if we are serious about seeing the Waitakere area truly protected then there is no greater protection that we could give the ranges and the regional park than to turn the area into a national park. That is what the National Party puts on the table. It is not the first time we have said publicly that we think that idea should go to the New Zealand Conservation Authority and that it should be given due consideration. 
But this bill affects all those people who live in the area. The population was 21000 in 2005 I say to Mr Jones although I think it is more than that now. I do not have an exact number at this stage but I think we are talking about significantly more people than that. As a consequence this bill is putting a caveat over those people’s land and if it is not then why do we have the bill? It is as simple as that. If this bill will not affect detrimentally what people can do with their own land then why do we have the bill? 
Let us put a few other facts on the table at this stage as well. This area is not being carved up willy-nilly for town houses and medium-density housing let alone high-density housing. This area already has very strict rules about what can happen and the way in which it can happen. There are already rules about the land within the heritage area affected by this bill. People cannot just build a house right next door and they are restricted in what they can do with their property. Communities within the Waitakere Ranges have spent not just months but years working on their land area management plans. They have consulted talked and met and they have been in consultation with the councils and have decided what is best for their area. And now we have legislation coming along that says doing all that is not enough. That is fundamentally wrong. 
What can happen in the land affected by this bill at the moment—the land mass and the boundaries that we are talking about—is incredibly limited. There are families on 8 hectares who would like to build another home for their families. That is the sort of stuff we are talking about; it is not mass land development. We are not talking about subdivisions like Henderson Heights where I live and places like that where some of us choose to live. We are not talking about areas like that. In the argument on this bill over the years we have managed to have hysteria around mass housing and subdivisions and there has been talk about the land being unable to cope with those things but that simply is not true. 
We are talking about development in an area such as Piha for example. I think I heard from the council just recently that something like only six sections are for sale now within the Piha area. The development that can go on in an area like that is fairly limited. I would be one who would stand up to say that if we were to put any caveats on property then perhaps that is the sort of area where we might do it. We might say that we do not want a lot more housing going into an area like that purely because of the way the land is.