Parker David: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Parker David: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6607. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 Back when I was considerably younger— 
Dr David Clark 
: Before that speech started. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Before the last speech started—actually it was a lot longer than that. Over 5 years ago I was the Minister for Land Information. I was also the former member for Otago; Jacqui Dean knocked me off my perch. The local council came to see me and said it had a problem. It had a piece of land called Forrester Heights and it was only a very small part of Lookout Point which is an issue that vexes some locals in terms of the terminology we are using around this. But anyway the council came to see me and said: “We want to put it beyond doubt that this land is endowment land rather than reserve land.” If it was reserve land and it was properly set aside as a reserve then it could not just be taken by the council and sold with the money to be put into some other purpose. If it was an endowment if it was endowment property then it is treated as an asset that the council can do what it wants with including selling it and using the money for some other purpose. 
I was aware that there was controversy around this because some of the members of my own labour organisation at the time and the Labour Party had a contrary view. As the Minister for Land Information it was my duty to find out whether the council was correct or whether the opponents to sale were correct. Despite the fact that it might have been politically advantageous for me to take a political line I never did. I actually just sought the facts. 
How do you do that? Well if you are the Minister for Land Information the traditional view is that the ministry writes to the Department of Conservation and seeks its advice as to the proper status of the land. The Department of Conservation has got planners and it also has a duty to make sure that conservation interests including those in respect of reserves are properly dealt with. If as a basis of that inquiry it becomes clear that the status of the land is incorrectly recorded on the title to the land and it needs to be fixed then the route through to doing that is generally through a Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill. There is a good tradition in this Parliament that the only things that go into a Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill are things where it is clear that there is a mistake on the title and it is not contentious. 
I looked into it and I had initial advice from the Department of Conservation which advised Land Information which advised me that this land was properly described as endowment land. Because of the criticisms and the correspondence and the personal representations I had had from the other side I actually got the department through my office to go back and check. It did and it found again that it was endowment land not reserve land. So way back then when I was considerably younger than I am now we put it in a bill. 
The sad thing about this is that the delay here has had quite serious financial consequences for the council. Since this bill has been sitting on the Order Paper and has been mucked around with for 4 years property prices have gone back in Oamaru. The amount the council is going to get for these sections has decreased. A number of the contracts the council had to sell sections will have fallen over because they will have passed the date by which— 
Jacqui Dean 
: It’s all gone. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: It is all gone. All of them have fallen over because they are beyond the point where they had to get their Resource Management Act consents and provide new titles to the lots being sold. I have to say to the National Party that I do not think that reflects very well on this House because this has— 
Jacqui Dean 
: No—it sat for 3 years on the Order Paper under Labour. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Jacqui Dean says it had 3 years on the Order Paper under Labour. That is not correct because I was not the Minister for Land Information for 3 years and it was actually me that put it in the original Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill. What is correct is that at the end of the last Parliament it was in a Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill. Ever since then it has been able to be passed within a week—within a week. 
Hon Member 
: It wasn’t a priority. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: But it was not a priority for the Government. The Government then decided it would start this process again despite the fact that all these things were looked into by a prior Primary Production Committee looking at the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill. It thought it would do it again through a local bill the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill—sorry not the Government the local member. I think the local member was right to do that and Jacqui Dean is to be congratulated on doing that because there was no other way forward. The Government refused to bring this matter forward on the Order Paper. 
There are a couple of things. The paper record of this is tortured. It is so tortured that the select committee that last looked at it was persuaded by a submission from Barry Monks who had turned up an archive that no one else had turned up. Barry Monks is to be congratulated on finding a paper trail in this that none of the departments as far as I am aware had found. That paper trail appeared to say that this was a reserve rather than a piece of endowment land. But there were bits of information that went both ways and so the select committee said that the only way to sort this out was for the select committee to get some legal advice on the basis of all of this paper that had now been found and the full history that was then available in order to clarify whether at law it was endowment land or reserve land. Sadly for Barry Monks and the other people in Oamaru who feel very strongly that this is properly classified as a reserve the proper advice is that on the balance of the evidence it is endowment land. So a decision has to be taken. The Local Government and Environment Committee members from both sides of the House reached the conclusion that it was properly endowment land and therefore it ought to be sold which of course was the effect of the provision in the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill as a consequence of the process we went through when I was considerably younger. 
There is one further point. We hear this land described as Lookout Point. I know that one of the issues that vexes some of the local opponents to this is that they think this misdescribes this land. The land is locally known as Forrester Heights which is part of Lookout Point. Lookout Point includes some very important reserves and there is no doubt that a lot of the land on Lookout Point is a reserve. There are walking tracks on it. It is not part of the land adjacent to the road which is the Forrester Heights subdivision. Lookout Point goes further than that. So I want to put on record for the satisfaction of those people who are interested in that issue that I agree with them—it is properly described as Forrester Heights rather than Lookout Point—but the legal description of the land which is what matters in this bill is correct. 
It is a shame that the finances of the council are worse because there has been so much delay in passing the original piece of legislation which still languishes on the Order Paper. You know this Parliament could have passed the original bill and not just fixed this problem but fixed the about dozen other issues that are also fixed in the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill—which was going to fix similar problems in other parts of the country—in the same time that it has taken us to pass this bill. In fact there would have been a lot less waste of select committee time doing again what has already been done. But no it has been chosen to proceed by way of a local bill because the member for Waitaki Jacqui Dean became frustrated that her Government would not pass the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill which was of identical effect in respect of the Forrester Heights land. She found that to advance that the member had to advance a local bill. It is a pity that this could not have been advanced as part of the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill. 
I am sad for the people who think that they were right in terms of their criticisms of the council. Could I also say that the confusion that reigned in this was not the fault of either the council or the people who thought from the paper record that this was properly reserve land. It was a truly confusing set of affairs. I am not criticising anyone on either side of the debate. Sadly in the end where there is a dispute as to what the correct state of affairs is someone eventually has to make a decision. Otherwise these things would just go on until I am retired—even older. But the reality is that in the end where there is a dispute someone has to take a decision eventually. In this case both sides of Parliament have looked at it responsibly and in a principled manner have applied the law which it is our duty to do and have found that this is endowment land. Accordingly the Labour Party will be voting for this bill.