Simpson Scott: Wellington Town Belt Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSimpson Scott: Wellington Town Belt Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 16 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6710. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): I rise as chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee to speak in this first reading debate on the Wellington Town Belt Bill a local bill being sponsored by the local member for Wellington Central Grant Robertson and being promoted by the Wellington City Council.I am not a resident of Wellington but I have had the privilege over the years of visiting Wellington frequently and of course in my role as an MP I now get to fly in and out of the city on a very regular basis. One of the great joys of arriving by air into Wellington is the sight of what is clearly and obviously to all a very magnificent green strip of what looks to the naked eye to be forested area.It is a wonderful vision for visitors arriving to Wellington to see this town belt strip and the fact that the belt exists is I guess a credit to those who have gone past and created such a vision that enabled a belt such as exists today to have been created. They had great vision and great foresight to do that.So it is right and proper that this bill attempts to modernise and bring into today’s language a set of governance rules and structures that will see the town belt protected and loved as it is by Wellingtonians today well into the future for future generations.I am very much looking forward to the select committee process where we will I am sure hear from a wide range of submitters who will want to make the point about how much this town belt is loved respected and appreciated by Wellingtonians and visitors alike.I am pleased to confirm in this speech that the National Party will support this bill through to select committee and we will be watching with a very keen interest as it goes through the House and through to select committee.The history of this bill and this wonderful piece of natural heritage for Wellington and Wellingtonians has been I think quite well set out by Grant Robertson. The town belt is a very large area of land. As one who comes from a rural and provincial electorate in the Coromandel I am very used to seeing large areas of native bush and flora and fauna in their natural environments but for those people who live in urban environments such a setting is a little less familiar.It is a credit to those who have gone in the past and those who have served on Wellington councils in the past that this belt has been protected as well and as carefully as it has been over the years to enable it to still be in a state where it is a very large area of some 400 hectares.It stretches from Mount Victoria in the north-east to Berhampore at its southern end and then north-west between Wadestown and Thorndon. That is an area of land that I think many urban cities around the world would be very envious of—having that kind of facility that kind of resource so close to the urban centre.The stated aim of this bill is to both protect the town belt and modernise the governance of it and it does this by effectively removing the current status of recreational reserve under the Reserves Act 1977 and giving it a separate legal status that will become consolidated under the bill.The bill aims to restrict the disposal of town belt land and increase the ease with which land may be added and of course it is a tantalising prospect that this already large area of 400 hectares which admittedly has been diminished over the years by the taking of some parts of it for public works could in the future be actually now extended. I would think that that would be something that the committee will want to explore with keenness.The other aspect that the bill seeks to do is to close all the paper roads that cross the town belt land. In my electorate of the Coromandel I am grappling at the moment with what will I think eventually turn into a local bill that exactly seeks to solve a similar issue in the Coromandel. Roads were surveyed in some cases more than 100 years ago they were never actually developed and now they still exist in a legal way. The way to fix that is to actually bring a local bill to this House and resolve it in the way that Grant Robertson is attempting to do here with the support of the council.Grant Robertson in his opening comments made note of the fact that the bill seeks to exempt the town belt land from sections of the Public Works Act. That is I suspect something that will be of some interest and concern to some submitters. I notice that in public comments there have been some concerns already expressed by a number of organisations and individuals.For instance the New Zealand Transport Agency and Land Information New Zealand have already raised concerns regarding the application of the Public Works Act 1981. The Transport Agency has in fact indicated that the bill is likely to impact planned developments in particular the proposed second tunnel through Mount Victoria.So I suspect that as we hear submissions on this bill at select committee we will be wanting to hear from submitters who seek to somehow straddle the demands and needs of a modern urban environment with the practicalities of maintaining a green town belt of the sort that we currently have. That is a delicate balance in any kind of discussion and debate on these sorts of matters. It is a discussion that occurs in other parts of the country. I am confident however that as a committee and as a House we will be able to grapple with those issues and that we will find what I hope will be a worthwhile and meaningful middle ground and a pathway through some of those things.For over 170 years the town belt has been a reserve for the public of Wellington to enjoy. One of the things that I enjoy when I do visit Wellington is I quite enjoy the prospect when it is possible of getting out into the Wellington area and going for a walk. I have got to say that as a visitor I am incredibly impressed by the facility that the green town belt provides for people who want to enjoy a natural environment that is close to a city. For 170 years Wellingtonians and visitors to the city have been able to do just that. Parks and reserves and vegetated slopes visible from the central city dominate the town belt. The continuous and interesting shape of the belt of undeveloped hills around the city and suburbs has been a feature that has marked this city out as special for all of those 170 years. The belt also provides for a wide range of sporting and recreational activities to take place and those are also worthy attributes of the belt and the facilities that it provides.The council is proposing by virtue of this bill to strengthen the protection of the town belt and to do this it has actually I think gone to a significant amount of trouble to draft this local bill. I want to acknowledge at the outset the work that the council has done in terms of bringing what looks to me at first glance anyway to be a very well-prepared thoroughly researched and good document for us to get our teeth into—so a pat on the back for the council for getting it to this stage. The council has already gone through—it is my understanding—a fairly significant and full public comment and submission process and that is also to its credit in terms of bringing a bill of this nature to the House.What is not going to change is this: the bill is not going to change much of the history and the heritage that the belt has created. This is a bill that I think covers exactly the sorts of things that should be covered in a local bill and I think that—on this side of the House anyway—we will be very keen to do it justice. We are looking forward to getting involved in it and we are looking forward to working towards the creation of a new piece of legislation that hopefully will stand the Wellington town belt in good stead as it has been for the last 170 years—with a piece of legislation that will be enduring and durable for the next 170 years and there beyond. So I commend this bill to the House for its first reading.