Goff Phil: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 16 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6769. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this particular bill. It is a bill that Labour supports. It is an omnibus bill; it deals with authorisations transfers and the validation of matters relating to reserve lands Crown land and other lands that are being held for public or private purposes.The critical question that has to be asked even at this late stage of the debate is why this bill has taken 7 years—the entire length of this Government’s tenure in office—to pass through the House. The Minister who introduced this bill is the gentleman sitting to my right the Hon David Parker. He was 7 years younger—although he has aged particularly well—and he pointed out that there are children in my electorate who have been at school for several years who were not born at the time that this bill was introduced. So at the very least the next National speaker instead of mumbling some inanities like David Bennett did should at least explain to the House—or the Minister should have explained to the House—why there has been the delay in this bill.This bill is for the most part non-controversial. There were two clauses in relation to volcanic cones that have been dropped which I applaud. Largely the bill was non-controversial but it was important to certain communities. David Parker talks about the area known as Forrester Heights in the Ōāmaru region. This bill was necessary so that the Waitaki District Council could go ahead with the sale of land that it had entered into contracts with buyers for not knowing that an incompetent Government would take 7 years to pass this legislation. The result of that was twofold. Firstly the contracts were voided and I understand from my colleague that that cost to the Waitaki District Council was some millions of dollars. So this Government is responsible for loading the cost of its incompetence on to a small local authority. Then the measures were finally passed by the local member bringing in a local bill. The time and the money that it cost to pass that local bill could have been invested in getting this bill through but this Government which has no money to meet some of the pressing social needs of this country was prepared to squander it on its own incompetence in failing to get legislation through in a timely manner.There are a number of things here where the bill passes legislative changes that are of benefit to local communities. Given that is the case again you have to ask why the Government did not organise its legislative programme so that these non-controversial measures could have been passed through into law. Why for example has the Government made the Dunedin City Council wait 7 years to regularise a long-term lease for the use of reserve land by the Port Chalmers Bowling Club? It has prolonged by that period of time the uncertainty that that club faces by not having the ability to have that land passed to it. Why has it delayed allowing the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board to make more effective use of five blocks of land for which it held the title at the expense of being able to provide health and disability services utilising that land? It is another cost to another small community caused by one thing: the incompetence of successive Ministers and this National Government in getting the legislation through in a timely way.Why did it delay passing to the trustees of a Māori reservation adjoining reserve land in the Māhinepua Bay in Northland—why was that Māori trust forced to wait for 7 years to have the land passed to it when everybody in the community supported that land being passed to it? Generally Reserves and Other Lands Disposal bills deal with only non-controversial matters but there were some issues that excited a degree of controversy. One of them was in relation to land in Albert Park. As a former student at Auckland University I have a particular affection for Albert Park.Hon David Parker: Oh too much information.Hon PHIL GOFF: Yes—I am not going to go into details of that. It is a beautiful—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!Hon PHIL GOFF: Ha ha! The member in the Chair knows well from his own experience. But I have got to say it is a truly beautiful piece of land. It is in the heart of Auckland City. It is extensively utilised by Auckland University and also now by the Auckland University of Technology and generally I would be absolutely opposed to passing across the title of part of such an important park for another purpose. Most of the submissions to the Primary Production Committee—and we are now talking about I think July 2009 when the committee heard these submissions; some of the submitters will no longer be on this earth—were against that but I have got to say that there are exceptional circumstances here.I do not think that the process followed by the then council was as good as it needed to be but the fact is that the land that was passed across was a very small piece of land on the fringe of the reserve and it was passed across to the Auckland Art Gallery. One of the most beautiful buildings in Auckland—and indeed in New Zealand—is the Auckland Art Gallery dating back to the 19th century. I have got to give credit to those who designed an extension to that art gallery. It is a new modern wing to the art gallery but it is as aesthetically pleasing in a very modern form as the heritage building was in the form that it was created based on a French chateau.Hon David Parker: International awards.Hon PHIL GOFF: It has won international awards as my colleague says. It is something that we as Aucklanders are incredibly proud of. It has not detracted from the effective utilisation of Albert Park. In fact the nature of the building sited on the edge of the park is probably something that enhances the value of the park and certainly the public amenity. So I support the recommendations of the committee. In fact the building is in place—it has been in place for many years—so it is simply acknowledging a fait accompli. I sympathise with those submitters who perhaps as a matter of principle said that we ought to be extraordinarily cautious about utilising our parkland—particularly a park like Albert Park—for other purposes but in this case I think that the use is warranted.Finally I want to touch upon the volcanic cones. The bill as it was introduced in the House and went to the select committee proposed amending the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Act so that decision-making powers in relation to excavations on private land adjoining or abutting public reserves containing Auckland’s volcanic cones would be dealt with by the Minister of Conservation rather than by Order in Council through the Governor-General. The rationale for this was that it was inefficient for the Governor-General to be required to make minor amendments but the select committee quite rightly I think rejected clauses 10 and 11 of this bill and said that the status quo should remain. It said that the present system was preferable to giving sole power to the department or to the Minister and that the status quo should be maintained until a review seeking means of protecting the cones in perpetuity could be carried out.I have got to say I have a particular affection for the maunga—the volcanic cones—in the Auckland area. They are historically important they are important to the tangata whenua they are important aesthetically and they are important as areas of recreation. I was brought up in the Three Kings area and I have my electorate office there. Two of those “kings” have been decapitated—absolutely decapitated. We would not do that again. They were used for quarrying purposes. More recently the New Zealand Transport Authority in its wisdom was going to carve out the side of Puketāpapa—Mount Roskill—to put State Highway 20 through. Fortunately the Auckland Volcanic Cones Society the local board and the local people stopped that happening but this emphasises the wisdom of the select committee’s decision. We should delete those clauses—and we have deleted those clauses—but we need to focus on the need to provide protection for an incredibly important part of Auckland’s heritage.