Walker Holly: National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Walker Holly: National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4821. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HOLLY WALKER (Green) 
: 
 I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Green Party on this National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill. I want to start by reiterating the Green Party’s and indeed I am sure all members’ profound sorrow at the loss of five of our soldiers in Afghanistan in recent weeks. This tragic loss I think really throws the issue of how best to commemorate and how best to memorialise war and our soldiers lost in armed conflict into a sharp and very tragic relief at this particular time. 
In that context I first want to emphasise that the Green Party is fully in support of having a National War Memorial Park. I think that other members have commented on the renewed interest in recent years in the commemoration of our military history and in particular the increased interest from young people in Anzac Day celebrations. We support the creation of this park to allow greater space for that reflection and that commemoration to take place particularly to reflect on that tragic loss of life both historically and more recently; to consider and question the role of war and armed conflict; and to think about how best to promote peace. National war memorials like the park proposed in this bill can help us to do that and to do that thinking as a nation and that is very important. 
It is important to do this in time to mark the centenary of Gallipoli in 2015 which is clearly a very significant anniversary. It also has the benefit of creating some vital public space in our capital city and for our national enjoyment. However we cannot and do not support the extraordinary powers sought by the Government in this bill—the power to grant rights and consents by Order in Council without recourse to Parliament and the power to override the Resource Management Act the Historic Places Act and the Public Works Work—and the truncated select committee process that has been proposed for this bill. There is an absurdly short period of 3 weeks for the committee to report back to the House. 
I heard an earlier speaker—David Bennett I believe it was—refer to the sacrifice that has been made by our soldiers over history for the rights and freedoms that we enjoy here in this House today. I say to the House that one of those rights and freedoms is democracy and responsible Government. We do not honour those rights and freedoms that our soldiers fought for by brushing the law aside in order to build a war memorial which could have been done in a timely fashion had it not been prevaricated on and cancelled by the current Government. It could have been built on time with due process and probably less cost if the Government had not cancelled funding for the project in 2009. The reason we are here today looking at this extraordinary legislation in an extraordinarily short time frame is that prevarication. There would have been no need for this legislation as the previous speaker has pointed out and the bill could have proceeded with the cross-party support that it deserves. 
What this bill does is continue a pattern of behaviour from this Government in giving itself extraordinary powers to override the law when it is inconvenient. We have seen it with the dismissal of the Environment Canterbury councillors we have seen it with the creation of Orders in Council in relation to the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority in Christchurch and we have seen it with the Auckland super-city. This bill is just another example of this Government pushing the law to one side when it is deemed politically convenient to do so. 
I want to address some of the comments made by Phil Twyford an earlier speaker because I was actually quite surprised to hear from him some pretty dismissive comments about due process. He said that the Resource Management Act is just a piece of paper. He said that it is not our constitution; it is just a piece of paper. He said that it is not like we are ramming through some outstanding landscape. That is what Phil Twyford said. I wonder whether Charles Chauvel heard that speech because I agree with Charles Chauvel in his previous contribution just now that elements of this bill are very objectionable from a process perspective. If the Labour Party really does think that we can put them to one side in such an easy manner then I find that quite concerning. 
The Green Party will look to engage constructively and to improve this bill in the select committee. I am pleased to hear from Labour members some of the likely concessions that they have negotiated. Those are the kinds of things that may make it more palatable. Our support at this stage is open. We are voting against this bill at its first reading at the moment only because we have such profound concerns with the process. Thank you.