Bennett Paula: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — In Committee 
Bennett Paula: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5368] 
PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 I rise to speak on Part 2 of the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill and I have some questions for the Minister the Hon Mark Burton as well. 
As I read through the bill I was struck by clause 24 under “Rights and obligations of ownership” in the same way as my colleague the Hon Tau Henare was regarding the rights of the Te Arawa Lakes Trust over their own property. The legislation is a full and final settlement and there it is but then all sorts of holds are put on the trustees of the Te Arawa Lakes Trust. The bill states that they must not “(a) dispose of or alienate the freehold estate of all or part of a Te Arawa lakebed;”. I can see some fairly obvious reasons for that—it means it is still available to the public and perhaps opens up that control for everyone to use. But it does not make sense to me that the trustees do not have the same rights as everyone else does over ownership so that they can do as they so wish with their property. I would be interested to hear from the Minister on that. I may misunderstand the issue having come in and read the law as it is but then a lot of people will do that. 
I also have questions around the fact that trustees may grant “a leasehold estate in all or part of a Te Arawa lakebed for a term of not more than 35 years”. I would have thought it was up to them how they held a leasehold and what they did with their own land if this legislation is to go through. 
I also want to talk a bit more about “Limitations on rights and obligations” in clauses 25 to 27. The media have raised a lot of concern around the issue of the lakes not being handed over in the same state they were in 80 years ago. As someone who comes from the area I certainly can see the changes over the last 20 or 30 years. I have questions around that issue and what it means. If the trustees are not responsible for the control or removal of weeds for example then there are so many questions around who actually is responsible. I would be interested to hear from the Minister about this because the answer is not in the legislation itself so there is some concern as to what sort of deals have been done to have those things looked after and what sort of accountability there is to ensure those things are followed up for all the people who are using the lakes. 
I also did not understand and needed help with the issue of recreational activities in clause 32. I wonder if the Minister could explain that to me a little bit more. Is the Minister saying that everyone will still be able to do those activities at the lakes or will they now be just for the use of Te Arawa? Reading through clause 32 I did not feel that the legislation was as clear as it could have been. I suppose it is too late for the Minister to look at an amendment but I could look at one that made that clause a little clearer as to “swimming boating water-skiing and fishing to the extent that those activities are recreational;”. Even looking at clause 40 I could not work out if those activities will still be open to everyone at the same level that they currently are and under the same protections and laws or whether they will be changed because the lakes will be under trust ownership and the trust would have more say as to who could use the lakes for recreational activities. 
That raises another issue about how the trust will work in with the local bodies on the laws that govern the area and what is acceptable for public use and what is not. Obviously there will have to be changes because what the public and the council think is acceptable use of the land may not be considered acceptable usage by Te Arawa once it goes back into their ownership. They may wish to make some considerable changes to the lakes and the lake beds and how they are used how they are fished and everything else. I would be very interested in hearing how those changes will come about and what difference that could make to the public that have been using the lakes for—in many cases—generations and for quite some lifetimes. 
I would be most interested in hearing answers to those. Thank you.