Garrett David: Public Works (Offer Back of and Compensation for Acquired Land) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Garrett David: Public Works (Offer Back of and Compensation for Acquired Land) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 17 June 2009. Volume:655;Page:4426. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to support the Public Works (Offer Back of and Compensation for Acquired Land) Amendment Bill in its first reading. 
Sadly I am in the position we often find ourselves in of having to question whether the Green Party members have actually read the bill that is being debated. We have just heard a passionate speech about land being stolen then sold back at market rates. Well unless I am much mistaken clause 5(2)(d) requires that any land that has been taken for which compensation was not paid must be offered back to the owners or their successors at “no cost where the Crown originally acquired or alienated the land for no compensation;”. I find myself on the same side as the Green Party but once again it would be really good if those members were to read the bills that they speak to. 
The reason I have got up without having planned to do so is that I thought the member in charge of the bill referred to the Raglan golf course issue— 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Read the bill—you’re talking about 4(a). It’s not that hard! 
DAVID GARRETT 
: Well I just did. The member should have a look. Clause 5(2)(d) inserts a new section 40(2)(ba) into the Public Works Act. 
I come from the generation for whom the Raglan golf course land confiscation and the consequences that flowed from it were a huge issue. For the benefit of those younger members who are not entirely familiar with the issue the land that became the Raglan golf course was taken from the Maori owners during the Second World War for use as an airfield which was never built. I understand that the late Eva Rickard from the end of the war until her death agitated furiously and stoically— 
Hone Harawira 
: Successfully. 
DAVID GARRETT 
: —and successfully for the return of the land. At the time I often found myself in a minority of one. A lot of the Pakeha whom I knew said things like: “Well why should we give it back to them? It will just grow lupins when the Maoris own it.” I used to say that that was their choice—it was their land. I said that if they wanted to grow lupins on it or kumara on it or whatever—or just look at it—it was their business. But people used to say that it was great land. That whole injustice went on for years. It caused huge dissension between Maori and Pakeha and it caused incredible resentment—and rightly so. Why on earth should it have been any kind of issue whether the land would be returned? It was an absolute no-brainer. It should have been a no-brainer but Muldoon maintained for years the argument that it would be used only to grow lupins. 
I see this bill as a no-brainer. It requires that land that was bought or taken from people be offered back to them first at market rates if it had been bought at market rates. I cannot quite see how the Greens could object to that. If land was stolen with no compensation then it is to be offered back; that is how I read the bill but if I am wrong we will find out at the select committee. 
ACT has great pleasure in supporting this bill being referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee.