Tirikatene Rino: Wellington Town Belt Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTirikatene Rino: Wellington Town Belt Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 16 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9842. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I am pleased to speak at the second reading of the Wellington Town Belt Bill and I am also very proud to include the whole of the Wellington town belt within my electorate.Hon Member: That’s true. That’s the one member who can say that.RINO TIRIKATENE: I can. I can say that and all of it is wonderful. It is all wonderful. In fact I do have memories at Wellington College running up Mount Alfred. We had this track which we called the “gutbuster”. We had to run up that track so I definitely know all the tracks and the routes and the trails through certain parts of the town belt very well.I do support this bill. I acknowledge my colleague Grant Robertson the outstanding local member who has been working with the Wellington City Council to promote this bill.Carmel Sepuloni: The other outstanding local member.RINO TIRIKATENE: The other one—absolutely. I will give him No. 1. I will give him No. 1. But I do acknowledge the work that has gone into this bill up to this point.I do regret that clause 23 was amended. It is a shame that the Local Government and Environment Committee was not able to be unanimous in its consideration and deliberations on the bill because that was what was originally drafted and put into the bill through a lot of work and consultation that the council had undertaken. So that is regrettable but—be that as it may—we do support the bill.I just want to add some remarks. Today in the House we have had Treaty settlements with Te Atiawa in Taranaki and also Taranaki Iwi and it is good to see that there is recognition of the mana whenua in this Wellington town belt legislation because from 1839 to the 1860s the town belt was Māori land. We have heard different stories about one Edward Gibbon Wakefield. There are different views of that gentleman and the New Zealand Company depending on whom you talk to.We have heard that he was a great visionary and that he had foresight in terms of the creation of the town belt but we also know that he hatched a cunning plan he set up a company and basically he said: “Invest in me guys and I can go to the farthest end of the world and sell you somebody else’s land.” So there are two sides to the history of our country and all I would say is that it is great that that is recognised in the preamble albeit in just a very short paragraph.To go into it a bit further I would encourage people to read Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara report of the Waitangi Tribunal and also the Port Nicholson Block claims settlement and the Taranaki Whānui legislation of 2009 where you can get a more full picture of the history of the dealings of the New Zealand Company and of the Whānau Wakapiri or the Wakefield whānau.Be that as it may as Wellingtonians as citizens of this city and as representative members for this city we are very proud of the town belt. It is part and parcel of Wellington you know and it is great that we are able to strengthen and grow the town belt under the provisions of this bill. We are updating a trust deed that is like over 140 years old. So it is very sensible that we bring it up to date we modernise it and we give it some standing by putting it in legislation and giving it the weight of a statute in Parliament. I commend this bill at its second reading. Kia ora tātou.