McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I always enjoy listening to the last speaker. She always makes a—I was going to say a boring subject very interesting" but I can't say this is a boring subject! I'll get into a lot of trouble with the member for Palmerston North! And just in reply to Scott Simpson I'm very pleased that the last speaker Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki did point out to him that Palmerston North is a beautiful place. It beats the Coromandel any day! But a lot of what's been said about this bill—Nicola Willis: You're not allowed to lie in Parliament Ian!IAN McKELVIE: —shh!—I don't need to repeat but there's some very interesting stuff in respect of this bill. Of course this bill was brought to Parliament as Tangi Utikere said some years ago. At that time of course the Palmerston North City was in nowhere near as good hands as it is now—having been the Deputy Mayor previous to coming to Parliament having been a very important part of that council's structure. He did point out the very good submissions that he made on behalf of this bill when they introduced it and I think they did too. And I think when you get a person or an organisation wanting to promote a member's bill or a local bill or whatever it is and it's done very well it makes it much easier for the select committee to find its way and navigate its way through that. I am sorry that they had to go to Palmerston North by Zoom because I go there two or three times a week.In response to Tangi Utikere's clinics that he runs or whatever he calls them I run one at Ongley Park pretty near every Saturday because by the time you get to Ongley Park and watch your grandchildren playing various forms of sport you do your 10000 steps no problem before you get out of there and you talk to thousands of people. So it is a great location but the point I'm making is that Ongley Park the Esplanade and a number of other parks are absolutely adjacent to the site. And one of the reasons that this is certainly not required as a recreational site in Palmerston North is because there's such an opportunity within that very vicinity actually for recreational use. There's the river of course which has probably at least 20 kilometres of tracks and trails that you can walk or bike even ride a horse on. So Palmerston North is blessed with a whole lot of opportunity for recreation that many cities don't have. Many cities don't have the same advantage actually and so they're very fortunate in that respect. So I think when bringing this bill to the Parliament both the promoter of it and the city council would be very confident that whatever they were doing with this land in the future will not impact in any way on the recreational opportunities that Palmerston North has.I think if I remember rightly the Huia reserve probably was—it was a bowling club. The Manawatū Bowling Club occupied it and a tennis club as well but when it was first I think taken out of the bowling club's hands and put into the council's full time—because they leased it originally—it was actually taken partly to be used as an expanded intersection and so it increased the size of the intersection on the corner that it occupies. That was a very necessary development for Palmerston North. I think an earlier speaker mentioned the fact that this goes right back to an 1876 Act of Parliament that controlled this park. And of course Palmerston North by comparative standards is a relatively newly settled city in New Zealand because I think it really was prior to 1870 pretty much bush. So when you look at the history of the Manawatū-Whanganui area and you think that Whanganui was really almost the capital of New Zealand at one stage—it was certainly the dominant city in my part of New Zealand. The Rangitīkei of course almost borders Whanganui and surrounds Palmerston North. All the business was done in Whanganui in those early days and it took a long time for Palmerston North to get the upper hand. And of course it caused quite a lot of envy a little bit like Napier and Hastings you could say. It caused a lot of envy between the two cities as progress was slowly made by Palmerston North.It wasn't until Massey University was located at Palmerston North that it finally tipped the balance actually in favour of Palmerston North. Whanganui took a long time to recover from that and I don't think the member for Whanganui is in here—or the members from Whanganui; neither of them are here today.Barbara Kuriger: She is speaking later.IAN McKELVIE: Oh she's coming in later. They might both come in. I know I'm not allowed to speak about whether they're here or not but it's very important that they don't criticise me for criticising Whanganui because I'm not. But I do think it's a bit important to understand the history of these things.The other thing that's absolutely relevant about this because the Huia reserve is what we're talking about—and there's what I think is a very attractive Paul Dibble sculpture in Palmerston North and it's a huia right in the centre of the Square in Palmerston North a pretty amazing piece.Rachel Boyack: Oh there is!IAN McKELVIE: Exactly Rachel! It's an amazing piece of sculpture and there's some beautiful sculptures in Palmerston North as well as that.But anyway I think that the issue with Palmerston North—and as I said earlier the reason that this decision was probably comparatively easy for the select committee to make and I certainly was only part of that select committee for one or two of their discussions on it but it would have been interesting to have been there for the whole time. But the reason it would be easy to make is that Palmerston North is an extraordinarily well laid out city—or in the earlier days it was. Some of its planning in the 1970s mightn't have been so good but it's come right again now. And of course right at its centre it's got a 7 hectare square which is a huge asset to the city. And as I said a minute or two ago that's where the Paul Dibble huia is. There is also a number of other statues around that square and I think it's a very attractive part of the city.The other question that came up in my time on the select committee the short time I spent on it was the relationship between Rangitāne and Raukawa and the question as to whether Raukawa should have been the dominant force in Palmerston North. Certainly that would not go down well with Rangitāne and that was resolved to the select committee's satisfaction in the end because certainly Rangitāne are a very integral part of everything that happens in Palmerston North and contribute a whole lot to what goes on there. And of course Pipi Te Awe Awe is also one of those statues that's in the Square in Palmerston North and his relations are still very much active in both local government and the community in Palmerston North even today. Some of them are quite characters.So I think that these things are frustrating for councils because legislation throughout our history has been put in place to deal with things that probably now you would never put legislation in place to deal with and you'd let the local communities get on with their own governance. But we often find this and we certainly find it in the racing industry as well where racecourses—Awapuni is not one of them actually but Foxton is. Some racecourses are really tied up in legislative stuff that is extremely expensive to get out of and difficult for local communities to then manage their assets because they're controlled by Acts of Parliament. This reserve is one of those. In fact I think it was controlled by three Acts of Parliament in varying forms at varying stages of its career. So it is necessary to put these bills through Parliament but they're also difficult to get through Parliament. I remember some years ago as a Mayor of Manawatū trying to shepherd the Manfeild Park bill through Parliament because it involved a racecourse which needed to be taken out of whatever the Act was in 1907 and the showgrounds which the A&P Act is also about an 1892 Act or something like that which controls a whole lot of agricultural and pastoral showgrounds around New Zealand.So there's a whole lot of things that would be much better if we'd never done them but at the time they were absolutely appropriate that we did them. So now we've got to go through I guess the task of unwinding them and this bill is a classic example of where we have gone through the pathway of unwinding a whole lot of intricate pieces of legislation actually. So I think for Palmerston North this is a good result. I think for the people of Palmerston North it will in the long term prove to be a very good result and I think those people who submitted in opposition to it will eventually be satisfied that the Parliament has made the right decision assuming this bill gets through and I'm sure it will. But they'll be satisfied the Parliament has made the right decision. I think this is a good piece of work by Tangi Utikere and the Palmerston North City Council and I think it deserves to go through the full course and make its way through Parliament and probably from Palmerston North's situation the sooner the better. Thank you Madam Speaker."