Mackey Moana: Gisborne District Council (Alfred Cox Park) Validation Bill — Third Reading 
Mackey Moana: Gisborne District Council (Alfred Cox Park) Validation Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:632;Page:4439] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am happy to speak on the third reading of this local bill in regard to Alfred Cox Park and the Gisborne District Council’s intentions to make legal the activities that occur there. 
I have to say that I am a little bit disappointed with the speech from Sandra Goudie because up until this point the Gisborne District Council (Alfred Cox Park) Validation Bill has been a non-political bill. The bill was introduced by Janet Mackey. It was one of the first issues that was brought to her in 1993 when she was a newly elected member of Parliament for Gisborne. She worked with the council on the bill and worked very hard on it. As we know it was up to the district council to draft the bill and bring it to the House but she worked with the council very very carefully in order to get this bill ready. Unfortunately when the bill finally did come to the House the rules had changed and the Clerk’s Office had to send it back to be redrafted. But the fact is that she introduced the bill she made the first reading speech and she did all the work to bring the bill to the House. To have to sit here and hear this matter being politicised at the third reading when all members who live in Gisborne and its surrounds have been working very well together on it and to hear the National Party members now claiming that somehow it was all them is really disappointing because that is not the way we do it in Gisborne. If that is the way National wants to play it that is fine but I have to register to this House my disappointment at the manner in which Sandra Goudie gave that speech trying to imply that the former member Janet Mackey did not really do much when it came to it. In fact she did most of the work. 
I thank Anne Tolley for bringing this bill to the House and I am sorry that she was not able to come here and speak on it today as she has done on other stages of the bill but such is life. 
This is an important bill for Gisborne. Alfred Cox Park for anyone who knows Gisborne really is the hub of life in Gisborne. Anyone who knows the flea markets knows that that is where all the action happens every Saturday morning. I have been a regular attendee of flea markets over the course of my life particularly with Labour Party stalls selling toffee apples and fruit and veges—one does one’s bit. 
It is also where the intercity bus depot is. When I had to leave Gisborne to go to university seven or eight times a year I would get on and off the bus at Alfred Cox Park not realising of course that I was committing an offence by engaging in a commercial transaction whilst I was there. Also I commented in one of my speeches that I was very pleased that Ron Mark’s bill to reduce the age of criminal liability was not in place at that time because all the times as a child I had gone to play mini-putt at Alfred Cox Park I could have been considered a serious recidivist offender for continually breaking the law by engaging in a commercial transaction at the park. 
On top of that I have no regrets about it whatsoever. Most people in Gisborne would never have realised that many of the activities carried out in Alfred Cox Park were not able to be carried out under the Reserves Act 1977 and this bill clarifies that issue. 
I want to address the issue of Rongowhakaata and the fact that they felt they had not been adequately consulted. It surprised me that they felt that the council had not consulted them because I have to say that the Gisborne District Council is usually pretty good at consulting local iwi on these matters. I have met with Rongowhakaata and they have assured me that they do not oppose anything in the bill. 
I would have liked the bill to go through the House a bit more speedily than it has but it is fair enough that Rongowhakaata raised concerns and that those concerns were raised on their behalf in the Chamber. I wish they had come to me first. I wish they had come to me when the bill was going through a select committee so that their concerns could have been addressed then. I felt that doing it after the fact was perhaps not quite as useful as it could have been if it had been done earlier. 
I commend the bill to the House. It is nice to see that the bill is finally nearing completion and that many of the activities of the people of Gisborne Tourism Eastland the information centre the intercity bus depot and most important minigolf will now be able to be carried out unfettered without the people of Gisborne being in fear of breaching any laws. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Before I call Te Ururoa Flavell I advise members that the member will speak his whole speech in Maori then the interpreter will interpret the whole speech.