Macindoe Tim: Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill — In Committee 
Macindoe Tim: Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:17078] 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 In the absence of my colleague the member for Hamilton East I had the great privilege of moving on his behalf the second reading of the Hamilton—[ 
Interruption 
] I beg the member’s pardon? The member can sit down. I am delighted to take this double act with Mr Shearer. I say to the member: “You hum it and I’ll play it.” 
David Shearer 
: For a moment there I thought you were going to sell it. 
TIM MACINDOE 
: Absolutely not. I think I might actually get on. I was saying that I had the great privilege of moving on behalf of the member for Hamilton East the second reading of this most important Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill when he was absent on Government business. Some members opposite on that day indicated their support for the measure. In fact they were very fulsome in their praise of my speech. They even suggested that some of my insights suggested it might be the pinnacle of my career. Nevertheless I say that sadly for them that is not the case and I look forward to impressing them over and over again for many years to come during a long and industrious career as the MP for Hamilton West. 
Today I will take just a short call during this Committee stage to once again commend this measure to the Committee and commend the work of my Hamilton colleague David Bennett and our local council which has already been acknowledged in promoting it. 
Following my second reading speech one of my predecessors who represented Hamilton West nearly three decades ago the Hon Trevor Mallard asked me to explain how Parana Park—as it has long been known informally and will now be known officially—got its name. Having already spoken in the debate that day I had no right of reply but I am happy to do so now especially as Ms Fenton has just posed the same question although other Labour members who spoke before her have so far spent a fair amount of time unnecessarily prolonging this measure without saying anything remotely relevant about it. 
I am pleased to say that although the matter cannot be resolved with absolute certainty the best guide we have comes from a submitter to the Local Government and Environment Committee on this bill called Laura Kellaway who is a Waikato-based architect and heritage consultant. In her submission which was available to all members of the committee and therefore to Labour members had they—[ 
Interruption 
] Absolutely I say to Mr Auchinvole. Had they chosen to go along they would have known that she pointed out that the most likely derivation of the name “Parana” comes from combining as Ms Fenton has just correctly guessed the surname of George Parr who donated the land in his will in 1929 and the first name of Annie MacPherson a young child who had died a year earlier. 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: So it’s not from Brazil? 
TIM MACINDOE 
: It is not from Brazil I say to Mr Lees-Galloway. The member may be but I am pleased to say that the name is not. 
George Parr was an important contributor to 19th and early 20th century Hamilton. Indeed his entire family although little is remembered of them now were certainly very prominent in their day. George and his brother Robert were by 1901 the General Shopkeepers of Hamilton who had acquired a New Zealand co-operative farmers association that had been established in 1882. They acquired it in 1884. Both brothers and their father who became a mayor of Hamilton were heavily involved in the early development of Hamilton and its community. 
The point is that although this matter is not absolutely able to be resolved it does seem likely as Ms Kellaway has pointed out that Parana Park was named by truncating the “Par” from George’s surname and the “Ann” from Annie MacPherson to form “Parana” Park. Annie MacPherson was the daughter of an early settler who had gifted the memorial bridge that crosses Gibbons Creek to the park. As I said earlier she died in 1928 and her plaque faces George Parr’s plaque on the bridge. The fact that the two face each other almost certainly explains the origin of the name. 
I am happy to enlighten the Committee and also to have been the first member this afternoon to say anything remotely relevant about the bill.