Boyack RachelRACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): It's a pleasure to take a call on the Hawke's Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill. Can I first of all acknowledge my colleagues who hail from the region; the sponsor of the bill the Hon Meka Whaitiri; and also my colleagues Anna Lorck and Stuart Nash who I know will have a lot of interest in this bill. As previous members have talked about the bill is a private bill taken on behalf of the Hawkes Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society (A & P society) and it specifically allows the society to use the proceeds of the sale of land for purposes that are in line with the objects of the society and its charitable status. There has been a lot of history around this particular piece of land. Having spoken briefly to my colleague Anna Lorck about this there was a proposal at one point for the land to be sold for housing but there was some pushback from the community about that because it is land that has the ability to be very productive. That is an issue that has actually cropped up around the country including in my own electorate where housing has been built on productive land—Dr Duncan Webb: What's your electorate?RACHEL BOYACK: My electorate of Nelson. So in the suburb of Richmond there has been a lot of housing built on productive land and it's challenging at times when it's difficult to acquire the amount of land that we do need for housing. One of the things this Government has done is put legislation in place to ensure that that is done in a much more careful way to ensure we protect the land.One of the things I really like about this bill on reading about it is that the council has agreed a sale and purchase agreement with the society and the land can continue to be used by the A & P Society for the purpose of events and running its show. We all know the importance of—well certainly those of us who are in provincial and rural and regional parts of New Zealand understand the importance of A & P shows for bringing people together. We've finally been able to hold ours in Nelson recently. Unfortunately we had a bit of rain on the second day but it was very wonderful to be able to have everyone back together. The shows do a significant amount in promoting the work of our rural communities in allowing people who live in the towns and cities nearby who interact with those communities to be able to work together and learn about each other. I always really enjoy going to our local show. So I was very pleased to see that the council will as part of this agreement—and it will I'm sure be referenced in this bill—allow the possibility for the A & P society to continue to run their shows because it obviously wouldn't be good for that to not continue in the mighty Hawke's Bay region.One of the reasons why this bill is needed is as previous speakers have mentioned that the current arrangements would require the A & P society to have to purchase land and that actually doesn't help the society to achieve the objectives of selling the land in the first place. I think this is a very practical solution to bring this bill to the Parliament so that the A & P society can actually move forward can receive the funds from the sale and can actually then invest it in ensuring that it can continue to achieve its objectives for the community. And I think that that is a very wise and practical suggestion. And actually just a shout-out to Mark Cameron from the ACT Party who came to the Nelson A & P show—just to give you a shout-out it was good to see you there.But what I'm really pleased about as well is that this bill will come to the select committee I sit on: the Governance and Administration Committee. And I know there has been I think a few members from around the House who are disappointed I didn't send my bill to the mighty Governance and Administration Committee but this bill will be going to our committee. It does look like the council and the society have done a significant amount of work leading up to the bill. And I think that whenever we do see private and local bills coming forward it is always really helpful when that work has gone on ahead; it makes the work of the select committee far more straightforward in terms of hearing submitters. So I do encourage people to submit to us. We'll be very interested to hear submissions from people. This is an excellent piece of work. I do commend my colleague Meka Whaitiri for bringing this bill to the House and I look forward to seeing it progress. I commend this bill to the House.