Sage Eugenie: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 16 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6766. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I think the name of our country New Zealand and Aotearoa—the land of the long white cloud—reflects the sense of place that New Zealanders have and their connection with our land.I think we have heard that today in the House with the special connection that members individually have referred to—areas of land that the bill deals with that are in their constituencies that they have dealt with or that they have a particular affinity with.Although it is a bill that tidies up the law—it deals with land that does not justify a particular bill in its own right but tidies up the status of reserves where there have been roads widened through Westland National Park Westland Tai Poutini National Park Paparoa National Park Kahurangi National Park and the land that was part of the national park but now becomes part of the road reserve. So they are small changes like that. But the bill is also significant for the way that it has been changed in its progress through this House.The Green Party has been particularly interested in the Walls Bay Esplanade Reserve in Northland.We congratulate the former Minister for Land Information Maurice Williamson and the current Minister for the Supplementary Order Paper that removed clauses 34A 34B and 34C from the bill because those clauses were inserted by the Primary Production Committee in response to submissions.Effectively they overrode the provisions of the Reserves Act and sought to grant a particular benefit to an individual in contravention with normal practice.There has been quite a lot of concern in Northland because this Walls Bay Esplanade Reserve is as I understand it the only esplanade reserve in the Ōpua area. It is part of the Bay of Islands walkway. It is an important area for mana whenua. It is the subject of a Treaty claim and it is very close to the pouwhenua that were planted at Ōpua by the Ngāpuhi leader Sir James Hēnare.On this particular bit of esplanade reserve Doug Schmuck has a boat yard and although the Department of Conservation has been prepared to grant him the right to take boats out of the sea and take them to his boat yard he was also seeking the right to use the reserve for cleaning boats for scraping them down and that compromised the use of the reserve by the public for picnicking and other uses and just completely changed the amenity value.The changes that the Primary Production Committee made to effectively privatise the reserve and which the Supplementary Order Paper that we dealt with in the Committee stages has now taken out—those amendments—preserves the integrity of the Walls Bay Esplanade Reserve. So we congratulate the Minister for doing that because otherwise we would have a situation where bills are going out for comment some members of the public make submissions others are not aware of the issue and Parliament could potentially have changed the law without affected parties being able to comment.The changes were controversial too because it was the Northland MP at the time John Carter who had assisted in the advocacy around them. I guess the concern now when Parliament was dealing with this through a Supplementary Order Paper in the Committee stage—I now understand that locals are concerned by the Far North District Council’s attempts to do the same thing through changes to the Walls Bay management plan. But because those provisions around Ōpua and the esplanade reserve were removed the Green Party is supporting this bill because all of the other changes are uncontroversial.I endorse the comments made by the Hon David Parker having been on the Local Government and Environment Committee when we dealt with Jacqui Deans’ Act in terms of the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Act because that was seeking to catch up and overtake this bill which it duly did in resolving the status of Lookout Point Reserve and Cape Wanbrow. So I commend the bill and thank you.