Davis Kelvin: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — First Reading 
Davis Kelvin: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1735] 
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) 
: 
 I rise in support of this riveting legislation the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill. It is a technical non-controversial bill and I do not think it needs to occupy a lot of the time of the House. However given the current global situation I wonder why this bill gets priority over other more important things such as the creation of jobs. We are well aware of the much-vaunted Job Summit last week. We are also aware that there was another summit early in January when two Cabinet Ministers got together to talk about something else. It makes me wonder why this bill is so important when we could be talking about such things as protecting New Zealanders; we could be debating the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Bill which is a bill that really gets tough on gangs; or we could be debating superannuation portability and so on and so forth. But we are here debating this bill which as I said is riveting. We are talking about some small pieces of land that no one really knew much about until something happened and suddenly things had to be fixed with a bit of legislation. 
The previous speaker Colin King talked about the Waikumete Cemetery. He said the cemetery was quite significant and I guess that is not least because a few thousand dead people are buried there. They are of course our tupuna our family and friends and that is significant to us. But what concerns me about that parcel of land is that a bit of it was sold off in a shonky land deal. The Waitakere City Council without lawful authority disposed of the land. It subdivided the land and sold it off privately to people a few houses were stuck on it then the council said the land still legally had reserve status and remained subject to the Reserves Act. Clause 49 revokes that reserve status but it concerns me that pieces of land can be sold off have houses stuck on them then we say “Sorry there was a bit of a mistake there. But it is too late now so we will just have to change the legislation.” That concerns me because I know that from a Maori point of view a number of bits of land have disappeared or had houses thrown up on them. That concerns me. 
These are innocuous pieces of land except for the fact that again from the Maori world point of view there is not much land—well there is no land—in New Zealand that is really innocuous. My family sort of mocked my father when we were going around for drives as kids and it seemed that every stone every tree and every hill and bump had a story to it. But none of this land is insignificant. There is also a saying in Maori that goes “Ma te wahine ma te whenua ngaro ai te tangata” which basically means that by the pursuit of women and of land men perish. I dare not get myself into trouble with my wife by trying to justify or explain the first part of that whakatauaki—I will not go there—but the second part of the whakatauaki is basically a warning that we need to be careful about the way we treat our land and the way land is dealt with so that we do not create problems for ourselves down the line. 
Basically as I say I do not think that this bill should take up a lot of our time in the House; more important things could be consuming our energies in here. But I stand to support this bill at its first reading.