Twyford Phil: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Twyford Phil: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 June 2012. Volume:680;Page:2941. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 Labour supports the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill to go to the Local Government and Environment Committee as we do with almost all local bills that come to this House. I want to acknowledge the member for Waitaki. She is doing her job as a local MP bringing this bill to the House on behalf of her constituents.  
It is appropriate that local bills deal with matters like this and we note that the Waitaki District Council has requested that the House help it by regularising the status of three pieces of land which the member for Waitaki has been outlining for us. The council tells us that mistakes were made—“clerical errors” in the words of the member for Waitaki. The council now wants Parliament to sort the problem out for it.  
I do note that another bill is still before this House the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill which I think contains provisions that would do the job required for two of these blocks of land. But for some reason since this Government was elected in 2008 that bill has languished at the bottom of the Order Paper and progress has not been made. The poor member for Waitaki has been forced to bring this local bill to the House. Nevertheless Labour supports this bill going to select committee but I want to sound a note of concern about one of the three blocks of land that this bill deals with. In respect of the reserve land that is being vested in private interests and is the subject of significant controversy and argument in Oamaru I think that deserves proper scrutiny and debate at select committee and I will devote some of my remaining time to dealing with that issue.  
The Palmerston Showgrounds I think was a pretty straightforward case. The reserve status was discovered when the council found that the block of land did not appear on its electronic database. The council wants to sell it to the current lessees and in fact it thought it had sold it and then found that it had not; it had only purported to sell it but the land is still legally a reserve. The second block of land dealt with by this bill is at the northern end of Oamaru and the council tells us that a technical error occurred when the status of the land was changed from recreational to commercial. As Jacqui Dean told us both Ngai Tahu and the Department of Conservation have expressed support for the changes in this bill. The land at the northern end of Oamaru was in fact sold or purported to be sold by the council in 2004 and has since been onsold to another proprietor. This second block as well would have its reserve status revoked by this bill. Its title would be vested in the current proprietors.  
It is altogether more interesting for us to talk about Lookout Point also known as Forrester Heights. It is controversial. It has been dogged by disputes all the way along and continues to be the subject of much argument locally. The council believes that a mistake was made in 1937. It discovered that apparent mistake in 2006. It says that the mistake was made after the land was originally set aside in 1885 by the Government as endowment land and as the member explained the status in fact conferred on that land was reserve land. The council wants that reserve status to be revoked so that the land can be sold and subdivided. That idea has been contested vigorously by individuals and groups including Waitaki Ratepayers and Concerned Citizens and the Friendly Bay Society. They oppose changing the designation and they maintain the land was always intended to be a reserve and should not be subdivided. The chairman of Waitaki Ratepayers and Concerned Citizens Mr Warren Crawford told the  
Otago Daily Times 
 earlier this year that the group continued to oppose the subdivision. It believed the land should be retained as a reserve and planted in native trees.  
This is a classic case of land that some people at least in the local community believe is publicly owned land and that it should be preserved for the public good and maintained as a community asset. On the other hand we have the Waitaki District Council and presumably others in the community who believe it was always intended to be developed for private use and private gain. The land is going to be subdivided. It is a 5.8 hectare subdivision overlooking Oamaru Harbour the town and the coast. A profit of $3 million from the subdivision has been earmarked by the council to pay for a $10 million refurbishment of the Oamaru Opera House. As I said it has been dogged by dispute. It is a matter of considerable controversy in the town and we on this side of the House believe it is important that— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: The Oamaru Opera House? I remember that story. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: Maybe the select committee should go to the Oamaru Opera House.  
The reason why we think this deserves scrutiny is that when National comes to this House with a bill that proposes to alienate public land and transfer it into private ownership the alarm bells ring on this side of the House. The National Government has form on this issue. This is the Government that has made an art form of transferring public resources into private hands. We see it in many many bills that come to this House. We have seen it in the way that it has made asset sales its primary— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! The time has come for the dinner adjournment. I shall resume the Chair at 7.30 p.m. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: We are discussing this evening the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill. As I was saying before the break Labour is supporting this bill going to the Local Government and Environment Committee but we do so with the intention that elements of this seemingly uncontroversial bill should get proper scrutiny at the select committee.  
I was focusing my comments before the dinner break on one of the three blocks of land which is known as Forrester Heights or Lookout Point. Like the other two blocks of land dealt with by this bill the Waitaki District Council believes that administrative errors were conferred on the block’s reserve status when in fact it should have been treated as an endowment. Now the council wants to dispose of the land and Lookout Point has been earmarked for a subdivision a 5.8 hectare subdivision 27 sections on Cape Wanbrow which is above Oamaru Harbour.  
The reason that we think this deserves scrutiny at select committee is that it involves the disposal of publicly owned assets for private gain. Taken at face value that may be perfectly fine but as I was saying before the party on that side of the House has form in this area. It believes that selling assets is our national economic development strategy and it is quite happy to dispose of assets in the public good for private gain. There is another bill that we recently sent off to select committee a local bill the South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill which involves transferring a council-owned water supply scheme into private hands. There are all sorts of allegations surrounding that bill of improper pressure brought to bear on the local council and a good deal of local controversy.  
So I think there is reason to tread carefully. It is all too easy for lawyers councillors politicians and real estate agents to use their informal relationships and networks to extract private gain from public resources. I think it is a fundamental principle of our democracy that our public resources should be managed in the public good and in the public interest and that is something that we should fiercely protect. So that is the principle at stake. We support this local bill brought to the House by Jacqui Dean we support it going to the Local Government and Environment Committee and we look forward to properly scrutinising the provisions of this bill.