Hughes Darren: Airport Authorities (Sale to the Crown) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Hughes Darren: Airport Authorities (Sale to the Crown) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:635;Page:6760] 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 I move  
That the Airport Authorities (Sale to the Crown) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. 
It is a great pleasure finally to be able to move this bill tonight for its first reading in the hope that it will win the support of parties in Parliament for consideration at that select committee. I am under no doubt at all that the greatest disservice that a Government has ever done to the community of Kapiti in my electorate of Otaki was the sale of Paraparaumu Airport in 1995. That decision was not short of a total disgrace and it is in that shameful action that this bill finds its origin. 
Indeed I hope that in the National Party contribution tonight before we hear any great words of eloquence we will first of all hear an apology for what happened in 1995 when a very important community asset was ripped away from the people of that community and handed over into private hands. The contentious sale of that airport was described by a former Minister of Transport as being a privatisation more botched than the sale of the railways. Given what a total disaster that fire sale of a strategic asset was I think that is really saying something. It really does sum up the entire way the issue of Paraparaumu Airport has had to be dealt with in the last 11 years. 
An airport at Paraparaumu was achieved only after land was compulsorily acquired by the Crown between 1939 and 1949. From that time until the 1990s the aerodrome continued in use until as part of the right-wing zealotry of the 1990s the National Government of the time decided that the airport had to be sold simply because it was Crown-owned. That approach put ideology ahead of what was practical and totally rode roughshod over what was valued by the community. That was the approach of the National Government of the time and it has been the approach of National ever since. 
When the decision was made to sell Paraparaumu Airport the National Cabinet directive stated that the sale had to be: “subject to the Crown meeting its obligations to Maori under the Treaty of Waitangi and to former owners under the Public Works Act”. I am firmly of the view that this never happened in any just way and that anybody who thinks that directive by the Cabinet at the time was met is vastly and hugely mistaken in terms of how Maori and former landowners have been treated. Indeed one of the great reasons that motivates me with this bill is to try to achieve some sense of justice for those whom I believe have been very badly treated by that sale. 
In fact if members read the Auditor-General’s report into the sale process they will find that although the National Government of the time identified who former landowners were they never even bothered to contact them in any meaningful way to justify the directive that their own Cabinet had set out. It was an absolute litany of failure and neglect and indeed one could go even further in that regard. 
There is no doubt that for former landowners this issue has been a very very sorry saga indeed. It has been a very controversial issue. It came before Parliament and there was public debate on the issue. The sale itself was the subject of two court challenges so concerned were people about the way that the privatisation was being conducted. The sales process was for privatisation—in terms of the Auditor-General’s report and in the way that he made clear—an example of how not to do a privatisation and that is why National members should hang their heads in shame over this decision. 
One hundred and thirty hectares of prime land—of airport land—was sold for $1.6 million. I know we are talking about 1995 here but 130 hectares was sold for $1.6 million. I will be very interested to hear tonight whether National members today would regard that as a fair price and a just price for that land. I will be very interested to hear their views on the sale and on the sale price. I will be very interested to know whether National members of Parliament here tonight who can be said to represent that former National Government will acknowledge the fact that shortly after that land was sold—the 130 hectares—a small portion a tiny portion of that land was sold for $800000 which enabled half of the purchase price of $1.6 million to be reclaimed. That is the context in which this bill has been drafted and what took place is an absolute disgrace. 
The fear of course was always that an ulterior motive lay behind the sale of the airport land in terms of turning it into residential housing and losing a key strategic asset for the people of Kapiti. I am firmly of the view that it was only the vigilant community in Kapiti and in particular the airport users who prevented that from happening. I have no doubt about that at all. 
What brought us to this point was a petition to this Parliament by Ross Sutherland and many others which started a select committee process. The petition was referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee chaired by my friend and colleague the Hon Mark Gosche which recommended two legislative changes and an Auditor-General’s inquiry. The Auditor-General picked up the inquiry and came back with a report that slammed entire aspects of the sale and confirmed what many people in my electorate thought and held to be true—that this had not been a fair and just sale. 
The member for Maungakiekie’s select committee recommended two changes: one to the Public Works Act and another to the Airport Authorities Act. I picked up the work on the Airport Authorities (Sale to the Crown) Amendment Bill. In June this year I called a public meeting in Paraparaumu to discuss the airport which nearly 500 people attended. That might not sound like a lot of people to my city colleagues but in terms of my electorate this was the biggest meeting in Kapiti for years and years and reinforced to me just how important people consider our airport to be for the community. 
Since that time and while the bill has been worked on by me the airport has been sold again. Sadly we have never been told the purchase price of the airport in its most recent guise but I suspect it is more than $1.6 million. I suspect it is actually a huge amount more than $1.6 million and that of course just reinforces the folly of the decision to sell that airport in 1995. 
I am reassured that the new owners have said publicly on many occasions that they are committed to aviation use for the site. The fact that this has happened is no justification for what National did. The fact that this has been stated by the new owners is simple luck for the people of Kapiti; luck that the people who have bought the airport have put up plans to say that they want to use it as an airport. That is why I still consider this legislation to be absolutely necessary. 
We have to make sure that we protect our strategic assets such as airports and that is why my bill contains two new sections to be inserted into the principal Act the Airport Authorities Act. The new section 3AB to be inserted by clause 5 is the bulk of the bill and sets out the main parts of what I am trying to achieve here. Subsection (1) states that if airport land has been privatised under the Act that this bill amends and comes up for sale again then the Crown has the first right to be able to purchase that land from the owner to make sure that it can be kept for aviation purposes. When the Minister of Transport is considering that matter the first priority must be whether the aerodrome will continue to remain operational as a private entity—and I regard that as being absolutely important. 
Subsection (4) states that if the Crown decides not to buy then it has to make sure that the responsibilities under the Public Works Act are absolutely fulfilled and subsection (5) states that the Minister must be consulted if an offer-back provision is made under that Act. So for the first time we have put in place provisions to ensure that justice can be done for those former landowners and of course there is that main part regarding Crown buy-back to ensure that none of this land can be taken and used for other purposes. 
In new section 3AC which is also to be inserted by clause 5 and which is the smallest part of this bill I have included a backstop provision in the event of aviation viability being actively undermined while the land is in private ownership. I propose that the select committee look to tighten up this section in two important ways: firstly to clarify that it is intended that only identified airport activities are continued on all or part of the land. Therefore that will allow for other activities providing—crucially—that they do not undermine such identified airport activities. Secondly I would like the select committee to consider including in section 3AC the same definition of “identified airport activities” as that term has under the current Airport Authorities Act. I think that will make it very clear what we are trying to do here to protect aviation use. 
In the particular case of Paraparaumu Airport I have been assured that the change plan yet to be submitted to the Kapiti Coast District Council by the new owners will make very specific provisions for an airport zone for identified airport activities which obviously meets the overwhelming concern I have that Paraparaumu Airport should continue to be used for aviation purposes. The Sutherland petition asked this Parliament “to legislate to safeguard the long-term viability of Paraparaumu Airport as a fully operational facility”. I believe that the Airport Authorities (Sale to the Crown) Amendment Bill delivers the reassurance that the petitioners asked this House for. They deserve no less. 
This asset was stolen in effect from the people of Kapiti by the previous National Government. This bill in some small way tries to make sure that this important strategic asset in my electorate will continue for many many years to come.