Auchinvole Chris: Public Works (Offer Back of and Compensation for Acquired Land) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Auchinvole Chris: Public Works (Offer Back of and Compensation for Acquired Land) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 21 July 2010. Volume:665;Page:12558. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National—West Coast - Tasman) 
: 
 I stand to speak on the Public Works (Offer Back of and Compensation for Acquired Land) Amendment Bill. I begin by thanking the honourable member Mr Te Ururoa Flavell for his hard work on the issue for the seriousness with which he has approached the issue and for the excellent level of discussion that has taken place in regard to this bill at the Local Government and Environment Committee. 
In reflecting on Te Ururoa Flavell’s final comment which was that he hoped that the consequence of this bill would be a review of the Public Works Act I can perhaps turn that round slightly without causing offence and say that in the event of the Public Works Act being reviewed this issue could be part of that review. I think that a review will probably be wider than just this issue and I think we basically had good agreement on that in the committee. 
National rightly supported this bill’s referral to the select committee as we felt it was important that the issues were debated. The Public Works Act was reviewed in 2001 but despite the noise it generated at the time no changes were made. This is one of the reasons why almost a decade on it has been worth revisiting this debate. Mr Flavell’s bill has obliged people to consider the Public Works Act and although the broad intentions of it are good there are significant concerns associated with the bill as used and as drafted particularly as to the past and the potential impact of its provisions. These concerns were pointed out in some of the 71 very sincere submissions we received and were again highlighted in the advice we received from Land Information New Zealand the Government department that administers this Act. 
This bill seeks to ensure that former owners of Maori or general land taken or acquired by the Crown for the purposes of a public work are given the first right of refusal to purchase that land where the Crown no longer requires it for the public work for which it was originally taken or acquired. Mr Deputy Speaker if you have easily understood that sentence I suggest that you could do the cryptic crossword in the  
Guardian 
 and find it a dolly. 
Let me give an example that was brought before the select committee by one of the submitters. Let us suppose that land was essentially bought for a purpose such as a runway but then the runway was moved into a different direction and therefore the land was eventually used say to house cool-stores at the airport. That was not the purpose for which the land was taken and that basically is part of the argument that affects this whole issue. The bill as drafted would do this through amendments to section 40 of the Public Works Act 1981. 
The bill would also provide for solatium payments to be made for loss of land or opportunities associated with its use where land was acquired or alienated for a public works purpose for which it was not actually used. Where the former owners of the land are deceased the bill would pass these rights to be exercised by their descendants. 
As we noted in the select committee report it would appear that the bill’s offer-back and solatium provisions are intended to apply retrospectively and then we start into the major financial practical and legal implications should this bill be enacted. The committee was advised that the number of previous Public Works Acts in New Zealand’s history have all permitted land to be acquired for one use and then used for another if changes in use were in the public interest and that this allowed for the effective and efficient management of land for public works purposes. 
I dare say that members of the House can begin to see the complications that creep into this well-intentioned provision. Provisions proposed in the bill could undermine and invalidate these historical changes of use. In effect all land where the current use is different from the original public work would become surplus on enactment of this bill requiring the investigation of this land and its offer back to former owners or successors and they would have to be defined irrespective of whether the land was acquired compulsorily or by voluntary agreement. This would be a most unfortunate unintended consequence. 
And not only that—there is no central and easily searchable register of land acquisitions transfers and disposals under the Act since it was first enacted in the 1870s. There are likely to be thousands possibly thousands upon thousands of properties held by the Crown or local authorities that are not currently used for their originally intended public work but are still being used for a public works purpose. 
As such if this bill were passed it is likely that every Crown agency local authority State-owned enterprise and Crown research institute would have to make an initial assessment of all land under its control in order to establish whether the bill’s requirements affected that land. We were provided with copious illustrations by local authorities as to the detail involved in that. If any part of that land was not being used for the original work a full offer-back investigation under section 40 of the Act would be instigated. As one can imagine the resulting workload would be unduly burdensome and costly especially as implementing the offer-back provisions of the current regime can take up to 12 months for a single property. There would also be impacts on the future use of land. 
Let us consider for example the situation in which the Crown currently has land or land has been acquired by local authorities for public works and it is transferred or set apart for another public work. It is often considered more efficient and cost-effective to use land already in Crown or local authority ownership for a new public work rather than to acquire more private land. However if this bill were to be implemented there would be the likelihood that all land in this situation would first have to be offered back to the former owners or their successors and then we come to the problem again of defining exactly what a former owner or successor is. 
The process of offering back and then reacquiring land sounds like a logistical nightmare and indeed it would be. For a Government that is about cutting red tape and simplifying and streamlining our resources I would suggest that this bill is the opposite of what we would wish to achieve. Also to create this degree of bureaucratic procedure was not in my mind the intention of the author of the bill. Aspects of the Public Works Act are being reviewed in phase two of the Resource Management Act reforms anyway which I look forward as a member of the select committee to being involved in. 
This bill has been carefully considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee and I take note of the very kind comments that Mr Flavell made towards the seriousness that was given to this bill by the committee collectively and by individual members. I can certainly say on behalf of the committee that it was a very interesting bill and it certainly exercised our minds. I stand by the select committee report which highlighted many of these difficulties and problems which I repeat were not anticipated by the author when the bill was introduced. National is opposing this bill. Thank you.