Henderson EmilyDr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. It's an absolute delight to get up to speak to this bill of my colleague and friend Mr Utikere on members' night. For those watching you will appreciate that tonight is the night that we gather to debate the bills that come not from the Government but from individual members of Parliament and they throw up some gems and this is one.Here we are debating tonight just under 4 acres—1.6 hectares of land—that has been sitting vacant for about 15 years but unfortunately the council that owns it and would like to repurpose it perhaps as much-needed housing is unable to do so because a quirk in a quite elderly piece of legislation. We're here to rectify that. We are riding to the defence of Palmerston North. But what I'm really reading in this as I characterise Mr Utikere as a sort of parliamentary Lone Ranger upon his horse dashing forth—and I'm definitely picturing Ms Boyack in a similarly heroic role—what I'm really loving about this as someone who comes from another small town is the love story we are seeing to Palmerston North. No longer is it the poor relation and often sadly mistaken rival to New Plymouth and I stand here with the MP for New Plymouth to my right. But of course I always go to the left and Mr Utikere is Palmerston North and he sits to my left tonight. When I think about these small towns—New Plymouth Palmerston North—the joke is: Who remembers which one is which other than their respective residents?" When I think about Whangārei where I'm from and I think about what I would refer to and Ngāpuhi as Whanganui which of course is W'anganui—we often get mistaken as well—it is a point of sadness and soreness for us provincial peoples that the wonder and uniqueness of our little towns is not remembered.I do actually have to say however that the fine residents of Palmerston North—I do have some trauma of my own relating to Palmerston North that has luckily been salved by the discussion and the warmth and the love we have heard for Palmerston North and the development that will be enabled by this bill. When I was a little girl there were two weddings in our family to my twin uncles Richard and Simon and Uncle Richard married Auntie Jenny in wait for it New Plymouth. It was a lovely wedding I have to say—a very lovely wedding—and as little girl I was very taken with the entire thing. But then Uncle Simon married Auntie Jenny in Palmerston North. And in Palmerston North a terrible thing happened. It was a wonderful wedding it was most delightful—again very taken with the wedding dresses—but in Palmerston North my little sister Georgie who was playing on the jungle gym in Palmerston North—Rachel Boyack: At the Esplanade?Dr EMILY HENDERSON: It may well have been. It was a hoop arrangement and Georgie aged six fell. She fell badly; she fell on to concrete. She broke her arm in two places. It was the first time any of us had actually known someone with a broken arm within our own family so it was quite a traumatic moment. And I do note that Georgie does now live in New Plymouth. So the wonder and joy of small towns—DEPUTY SPEAKER: As interesting as that all is the member should relate those stories to the bill.Dr EMILY HENDERSON: —resides in their local councils and their people's ability to develop them in the way they want to and to bring our New Plymouth brethren to Palmerston North and give them the option perhaps of moving to Palmerston North on the wonderful Huia reserve which if this goes through we will enable the council to take back into its control take it out of its current weedy "wastey" state and perhaps repurpose it as housing which even despite her trauma my sister Georgie might consent to visit someday. I commend this bill to the House."