Benson-Pope David: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — Procedure First Reading 
Benson-Pope David: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — Procedure First Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1398] 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 In the words of Waitakere City Council mayor Bob Harvey: “The Waitakere Ranges are an indelible blue image on the western horizon—a glorious backdrop to New Zealand’s most populated thriving metropolis.” This bill proposes a way of ensuring that that magnificent area is kept for the enjoyment of future generations. 
The bill reflects the local community’s desire for a local solution. The Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill tackles the struggle local communities face on a day to day basis—the balancing of private landholder rights with public expectations—which the Waitakere City Council the Auckland Regional Council and the Rodney District Council have joined forces to resolve. The notion of a local bill to protect the Waitakere Ranges has been in the pipeline for many years now. Far from disenfranchising local communities it has brought them together. Its first reading today marks a critical step in how the bush foothills and streams of the ranges might be managed to ensure the right balance between development and protection. 
I support the bill being considered by the select committee. The committee must now balance issues that local communities present to Parliament and balance the issues that private landowners’ rights and public values will also present including those intrinsic values of the ranges themselves. That will not be an easy task. The amendment to the Resource Management Act last year is testament to that. This bill will form a catalyst for debate and form a resolution hopefully for that debate by focusing on the limits to private choice for the benefit of the common good. The common good is pretty clear. Whether or not one is an Auckland resident the Waitakere Ranges are part and parcel of our country. One-third of New Zealand lives on the ranges’ doorstep. It is an area of the country that undeniably possesses an immensely strong landscape identity. 
The rationale behind the bill is well known. Disputes over development pressure have been longstanding and Waitakere City’s innovative approach to its district plan has met with an increased desire for development. Its community is clearly of the view that the ranges are not currently protected well enough and that something extra is needed—particularly when it comes to determining when enough is enough. Mayor Bob Harvey referred to the current management regime as a death by a thousand cuts and as such it is understandable that new legislation has been seen as a way to achieve better protection. 
This approach is not new and it is not new since the introduction of the Resource Management Act. Local Acts such as the Summit Road (Canterbury) Protection Act 2001 and the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act 2000 are instruments that have historically catered for localised circumstances. I fully acknowledge the difficulties faced by some local authorities in delivering the intent of the Resource Management Act. The purpose of recent amendments to the Resource Management Act centred on this and building upon the workable system already in place at the local authority level has led to this Government looking into a complementary programme of providing greater national guidance and support for the implementation of the Resource Management Act. 
I thoroughly commend the way in which these councils and their communities have come to an agreement on this process after a lengthy debate. The job for the Local Government and Environment Committee is to ensure that the approach of the bill is the most appropriate. The committee’s job will be to check whether the bill meets its objectives and to ensure that it does so. That is a job that only the select committee with public submissions can do. The committee will need to compare the options proposed by the bill with those already available in the Resource Management Act. The select committee hearing this matter should reflect on what could be gained from other instruments such as national policy statements. It should ask whether the approach is flexible enough to cope with change and whether the process and policies are fair and workable. 
In conclusion I support the bill’s consideration by referral to the select committee. The debate and dialogue on the matter must continue. I have the utmost confidence that the ensuing progress of the bill will reflect those landscape values sought to be protected by the local community and I trust that a straightforward and clear outcome will arise for those living in enjoying and working in such a highly valued piece of New Zealand.