Moroney Sue: Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill — In Committee 
Moroney Sue: Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:17091] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 Clause 3 is the interpretation clause and there are just two phrases that it seeks to clarify. One of those is the meaning of the word “council” as it is used in this bill. Clause 3 states: “Council means the Hamilton City Council”. I reflect on a comment made earlier by my colleague Phil Twyford who made a very good point about whether we are giving enough flexibility in naming the Hamilton City Council. Sorry I should wind back and let members of the public know that the clause states that the word “council” when it is used in this bill means the Hamilton City Council. 
Mr Twyford raised the question of why we would bind ourselves to that definition when the current Government seems to have a penchant for forcing amalgamations amongst various councils thereby changing their names and making bills like this irrelevant. Under this bill even if there was a forced amalgamation or an agreed amalgamation between Hamilton City Council and another authority— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Or a unitary authority. 
SUE MORONEY 
: —or a unitary authority—we would have a bill that no longer made sense. It would state that every time we read the word “council” in this bill which will become an Act it would mean Hamilton City Council. 
I for one am not in favour of forced amalgamations in my region at all and I have been really clear on that. In fact the Labour Party has made a public pronouncement that it is not in favour of forced amalgamations in the Waikato region—or anywhere. I specifically recall making that statement on behalf of Labour for the Waikato area. I am certainly not proposing that Labour would want to see that changed. 
Shane Ardern 
: The member should study Labour’s history. What happened in 1989? 
SUE MORONEY 
: No forced amalgamations. The point I am raising is that we may be about to sign off a bill— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Take a call Mr Ardern. 
SUE MORONEY 
: Maybe Mr Ardern would like to take a call because he has rather a lot to say. We are binding ourselves to an interpretation where the word “council” always means Hamilton City Council. In years to come that may not be the name of the council. It might change because a Government might force amalgamations on other councils with the Hamilton City Council or it might change because Hamilton City Council chooses to amalgamate with other local bodies. It might change because as I think somebody else said in the debate on clause 1 the Hamilton City Council might decide to call itself the Kirikiriroa City Council in days to come. Who knows? But here we are saying that every time we read the word “council” under the interpretation clause it will mean Hamilton City Council. I certainly do not want to be responsible for coming back at a later date and wasting parliamentary time to amend this bill to reflect a new name for that council. I wonder about the wisdom of using that interpretation whereby every time we use the word “council” in the context of this bill it means Hamilton City Council. 
The other thing the interpretation clause clarifies is that when the phrase “the land” is used it means “the land commonly known as Parana Park”. We have already had some discussion about the fact that it might only be a section of the community who commonly know it as Parana Park and there is another section of the community who know that piece of land by a Maori name. Never mind this interpretation clause states: “the land means the land commonly known as Parana Park”. Then it goes on to describe that the park comprises an area “more or less 1.2141 hectares; and (b) described in computer freehold register SA128/41.” 
I notice that before the Local Government and Environment Committee made its amendments there was a much more thorough description of that piece of land in the interpretation clause and I wonder why it has been shortened to become I would imagine a good legal description but significantly less than what the original bill contained in terms of describing where the land is. I would hate to see any dispute on this issue in the future.