Sage Eugenie: Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sage Eugenie: Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 June 2012. Volume:680;Page:2967. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Like others in the House I am pleased to take a short call on the Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill which amends the Riccarton Bush Act 1914 and the Riccarton Bush Amendment Act 1947. The Green Party will be supporting this bill going to the Local Government and Environment Committee. 
I acknowledge the member for Ilam the Hon Gerry Brownlee and his recounting of a little of the history of the bill and the work of the board. The last major overhaul of the board’s functions and powers was in 1947. This bill will both modernise and update the governance arrangements for the board that manages Riccarton Bush Riccarton House Deans Cottage and the very attractive grounds that surround those buildings. 
Riccarton Bush is just along the road from the Green Party offices. It is an area that I used to bike through on the way to the university and it has very high heritage and amenity value for Christchurch and for Canterbury. That as other members have said is because it is the last remnant of flood plain kahikatea forest on the plains. Deans Cottage is the oldest building on the plains and both it and the Victorian homestead of Riccarton House are category I listed historic buildings. 
The board’s careful stewardship of these assets has been recognised in several awards including one from the city of Christchurch the environmental award in 1999 and another one in 2000 and Environment Canterbury’s resource management award in 2004. Certainly like the Minister I acknowledge the work of botanist Brian Molloy in terms of his expertise in guiding the management of Riccarton Bush. The bill by better defining the board’s functions and improving its financial reporting and administration will update these areas. It makes sense to have a financial plan. It makes sense to have a management plan for the bush because of the nature and importance of the assets that the board is charged with managing. 
Certainly Riccarton Bush has benefited from much greater attention to the ecology of the bush. There was a very generous grant by Grant and Marilyn Nelson’s Gama Foundation which funded the erection of the predator fence. That has meant that Canterbury gecko have been reintroduced and tree weta and that the bush has been part of the Department of Conservation’s Operation Nest Egg where kiwi eggs are taken from the wild and hatched at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve and then the kiwis are reared to a stage where they can confront predators like stoats before being released back into the wild. 
But there is a problem with Riccarton Bush in relation to the earthquake which the MP for Ilam may not be aware of. Because of the collapse of the cliffs at Sumner where a lot of feral pigeons used to roost a lot of pigeons are now roosting in the kahikatea trees of the bush. Their droppings are fouling the forest floor. These are feral pigeons; they are not the native kereru. They are quite a management problem for Riccarton Bush. The board with its very modest budget of about $400000 annually and the grants it gets from the Christchurch City Council does not have the funds to control the feral pigeons. They are an ecological pest. The predator fence obviously does not keep them out. So the problem may be within the member’s responsibility for earthquake recovery. This avian problem in the bush is something that perhaps the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority could do something about. 
I understand that the board did not want to repeal the original 1914 or 1947 legislation because of the extensive history that they provide but to me it makes more sense if the legislation is consolidated in one statute. I would be interested to see if there were submissions on that. Like the member for Wigram I am pleased that the bill safeguards public access to Riccarton Bush and the grounds though it does allow the board to charge for services such as the ranger-guided tours and it does also allow for a licence for the café which we hope will reopen when Riccarton House is reopened once the damage there has been repaired. The Green Party supports the bill and looks forward to public submissions on it. Thank you.