Carter John: Walking Access Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Carter John: Walking Access Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:650;Page:19206] 
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) 
: 
 I will take a call on these clauses to record the fact of the changes that have been made by John Acland and the Land Access Ministerial Reference Group. I acknowledge his presence here tonight. I say that the Walking Access Bill is a better bill for the involvement of the committee that went around New Zealand and I think the Minister in the chair the Hon Damien O’Connor acknowledges that as does the Opposition. 
I want to record again the fact that when this bill was introduced the National Opposition opposed it because of the interference it had on property rights. Of course one of the things the National Party takes a keen interest in is property rights and I have to say that although there are still some parts of this legislation that we will need to be keeping a keen eye on and a careful watch over the issue of property rights and the way it has been developed are a credit to those who have been involved. Obviously there was keen note taken of the issues that were raised. 
It is commendable that the bill has come back in the form it has. The Local Government and Environment Committee obviously picked up on the issues raised in order to make the changes it has. In hindsight—and hindsight is always a wonderful thing; one generally gets it right 100 percent of the time—maybe the Government should not have introduced the bill in the form it was introduced but to its credit it has accepted the recommendations that have been made. That has meant that Parliament can now accept the bill in the form it is in. 
Having said that I note that there are one or two things during this part of the debate that we will have to keep a careful watch over. The bill does have the potential of creating yet another bureaucracy and another whole lot of rules and regulations. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Oh! 
JOHN CARTER 
: We certainly do not want to end up with something like the Department of Building and Housing which Clayton Cosgrove administered for such a long time because that will have to be something that in the future we dismantle. We do not want to have to go through something that gets established and then dismantled again. I say to this Parliament that we need to urge caution as we put this bill through. The intention of it is right but it certainly has the possibility of allowing extra costs to go on to the community and indeed rather than creating the opportunity for people to have rest and recreation which is what it is for it could potentially create a whole lot of frustration. I make those points particularly when we look at the codes of compliance and the impost the legislation could put on local government. There are some real risks around that part of the legislation. 
I want those comments to be recorded in  
Hansard 
 so that in time people who are involved in administering this bill can look back and see the wise words of the Opposition and realise that actually the Opposition was on top of it and that these sorts of issues need to be monitored carefully. One of the things we often do in this Parliament is pass legislation without actually thinking forward 10 or 20 years to see what its likely impact will be. We need to treat this with caution as we move forward. Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this debate.