Shaw James: Wellington Town Belt Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShaw James: Wellington Town Belt Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 04 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10787. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): It is a great pleasure for me to rise as a Wellingtonian and as a member of Parliament based in Wellington to speak on behalf of the Wellington Town Belt Bill as it goes through its final reading and enters into law. As many of the other speakers have done I would like to start by congratulating a number of people starting with the Local Government and Environment Committee—in particular the chair Scott Simpson—on shepherding this bill through and doing so I thought in a very even-handed manner with a very fine hand on parliamentary process.I also congratulate the officers who supported this bill both the officers of Parliament and also and in particular the Wellington City Council officers who delivered to Parliament before the first reading a near-perfect bill pretty much ready to sail through. They had done a colossal amount of work in getting the bill ready for entry into Parliament—a bill that was messed with in only a few but very important ways which I will refer to in a minute. I think that they did a terrific job of getting it to the starting line of parliamentary process.I also want to pay tribute to the member for Wellington Central Grant Robertson whom I have had the pleasure and privilege of standing alongside at a number of elections—Phil Twyford: “Standing against” I think you meant.JAMES SHAW: —alongside alongside—in recent years. Although the bill has been in development since 2010 officially Grant informs me that his first consultation with a key stakeholder on this bill goes back as far as 2001 when there was another MP in place at the time and when the idea that he might become the MP for Wellington Central was merely a glint in Mr Robertson’s eye.Most of all however I want to congratulate the people of Wellington. Whether you were heavily involved with this as a city councillor or as an officer or as someone who was involved with a local community organisation that made a submission on the bill or whether you are a Wellingtonian who had nothing to do with the bill at all—you may occasionally use the town belt perhaps quite infrequently but gazing out upon it often—congratulations on the passage of this bill which does secure the future of the town belt and its expansion and its health and its good management into the future. I think it is terrific that we are passing this bill and I am delighted that the Green Party is able to support it.Given that this is a debate I do want to debate a few points from an earlier speech given by another Wellington-based MP Mr Paul Foster-Bell who I think painted an interesting picture of why it was that clause 23 was swapped out from the original bill and replaced so that it would be subject to the Public Works Act. I think that Wellingtonians will be delighted to learn from Mr Paul Foster-Bell that the Government’s changes to clause 23 were entirely because of the probability that at some point in the future in an emergency we will need to string some electricity lines over to the Wellington Regional Hospital and they had nothing to do at all with the Government’s intention to put a seven-lane motorway along the Ruahine Street side of the town belt. I am sure that Wellingtonians will also be delighted to learn that the Government’s changes to clause 23 were entirely because of the submission from the Wellington Chamber of Commerce and had nothing to do at all with the Government’s intention to put a seven-lane motorway through the Ruahine Street side of the Wellington town belt. It was a disingenuous point and as my colleague Gareth Hughes said earlier one weakly made.The town belt is a huge asset in the natural capital of Wellington and I think we can look at it as if it was just a patch of land cloaked in green surrounding the city but it is so much more than that. It is a huge part of the natural capital that makes Wellington what it is. It adds to our social capital. It makes Wellington what Sir Paul Callaghan called “a place where talent wants to live”. It is an absolute delight to be able to stand in support of the bill as it makes its final way through the House. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.