Shaw James: Wellington Town Belt Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShaw James: Wellington Town Belt Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 06 April 2016. Volume:712;Page:10296. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): I would like to just make a few comments about clause 23 both about the distinctions between “shall” and “should” and in relation to Mr Robertson’s Supplementary Order Paper 169. I will start with “shall” and “should” and I just want to mention to the Committee that the distinction between the words “shall” and “should” almost brought the Paris climate change talks to a grinding halt roughly 5 minutes before the gavel was brought down because the Americans simply could not accept an agreement in which countries “shall” bring down their emissions versus “should” bring down their emissions. So I think that Mr O’Rourke does have a point in terms of the level of wiggle room that is created there and if I were a judge it would be quite a nightmare to have to work your way through a judgment in which you had to determine whether something did or did not happen in relation to something that should or should not have happened. So I think there is a point there that may need to be addressed. In relation to Mr Robertson’s Supplementary Order Paper 169 that is obvious; we will obviously support that. It is just cleaning up an error in the drafting.I would like to just talk a little bit about clause 23 in response to both some of the comments Mr Robertson has made and also comments made by previous speakers notably Paul Foster-Bell. I would like to say that as the bill came to the House originally as Mr Robertson said it did provide some exemptions for the way some parts of the Public Works Act would apply. It is quite clear that the reason why the Government required that that change take place is that it wants to build a seven-lane motorway through Ruahine Street out to the airport as part of the roads of national significance programme. Of course the idea of protecting the town belt meant that this was going to be unacceptable so when Mr Foster-Bell says that the piece of evidence saying that it would be difficult to string some emergency cables up to the hospital over the town belt if we had changed that is simply looking for evidence for something that was a foregone conclusion. It was never about that kind of thing; it was only ever about ensuring that the bill was loose enough to allow the Government to push through its roads of national significance programme.That was always the agenda from the start here and I think it is with a great deal of regret that all we are doing here is enshrining the status quo in which the Government is able to confiscate land and it is not an improvement on the status quo. I think that that is a great shame. Importantly this is one of those things where you have the Government of the day that you have got. It has got the numbers it can do what it likes and the council is frankly unable to do anything about that and so of course the council and we also have to just simply accept that we do not have the numbers to preserve the bill in its original form. So the self-congratulatory tone about how it is an improvement on the original bill is the kind of tone that is easily affected when you have got the numbers to do whatever you like. I do want to say that it is a great shame that the original clause 23 was turfed out and simply replaced with the current status.Having said all of that the bill as a whole with that exception is a great improvement on the status quo in which there is a series of very contradictory Acts—you know a bit of a legal morass that needed to be brought together—and so it is for that reason despite the clause 23 shenanigans that have gone on that the Green Party is pleased to support the bill through this stage of its passage.There is just one other thing in relation to clause 23. Part of what happened when that clause was changed was that Wellingtonians no longer became interested persons in relation to the confiscation of parts of their town belt for the conversion of that town belt into motorway. I find it extraordinary that you can actually pass legislation in which you say that Wellingtonians are not interested persons in relation to the fate of parts of their town belt as they get removed from recreational and environmental use and converted into seven-lane motorways. That is quite a contradiction. Nevertheless it is good. We are pleased to support this bill through this stage. We also support Supplementary Order Paper 169—The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 169 in the name of Grant Robertson and the following amendments in his name to Part 2 be agreed to:in clause 13(b) omit “17”; andin clause 14(2)(a) replace “section 17” with “section 16”; andin clause 15(3)(a) replace “section 17” with “section 16”; andin clause 19(2) replace “sections 16 to 18” with “sections 16 and 18”.Amendments agreed to.Preamble Parts 1 to 4 schedules 1AA to 6 and clauses 1 and 2 as amended agreed to.Bill to be reported with amendment presently.