King Colin: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
King Colin: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
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COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 It is interesting to take a call on the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill. The logic behind why this bill should not go forward should not be voted successfully on tonight has been well canvassed. Those arguments have been well documented on this side of the Chamber. 
When we talk about the interpretation of this bill and when we look through the changes that the member Mark Blumsky talked about we see that so much has been rewritten within this bill that there is much confusion. As a member who originates from the eastern side of the north part of the South Island I say that I am very concerned because this very bad legislation sets a precedent. It is something that has been touched on tonight. We have the beautiful quotation of the Maori chief in 1860 and we have the commentary that goes with it and it is borne out in the interpretation. I just make the note that there are many other parts of the fish. Dr Nick Smith in his opening comments referred to the fish mentioned in the preamble. When Maui pulled the fish up he actually had his foot on Kaikoura. When we stop and think about that aspect of it in terms of the interpretation and the notional aspects of this bill we see that it does have a national connotation. 
It is hugely concerning that this House continually passes bills into law and what drops out of them are regulations—truckloads of regulations. That is what we have received under this Labour Government. What I see here is a senior executive of the Waitakere City Council controlling the elected members and that was borne out effectively by the way that the advisers treated with contempt the importance of honesty and frankness towards the Local Government and Environment Committee. 
Part 2 is typical of what Labour is responsible for. We see there an increase of bureaucracy in order to enact these values that the bill talks about; values that are at present maintained by the very well-intended carefully minded and passionate residents of Waitakere. When we look at the comment in clause 9(c): “to adopt the following approach when considering decisions that threaten serious or irreversible damage to a heritage feature:” we see that people who are seeking permission to develop their garages or patios in that area will have to prove that they will not adversely impact on the environment there. We have already heard that this will cost them heaps. There will be a process and lawyers will make a living out of that process. Unfortunately under Labour we have had to endure enormous amounts of that. 
Those of us from other areas of New Zealand are exceptionally suspicious and worried about the precedents that this bill sets up. For instance when we look at the city of Christchurch we see that there has been a long convoluted process of engaging and combining Banks Peninsula into the Christchurch City Council. It will not be too long before somebody starts to eye this up—some future council that wants to show the level of arrogance that we have become very used to from this Labour Government. People from such a council will want to leave a monument to themselves. They will use this bill as a precedent of good law when all the way through we have all heard about the division about this ideological notion of a new level of protection. It had to be rewritten so that it did not usurp the responsibilities of the Resource Management Act. 
Clause 9(l) states: “to protect those features of the area that relate to its water catchment and supply functions:” and clause 9(m) states: “to protect in perpetuity the natural and historic resources of the Waitakere Ranges Regional Park for their intrinsic worth and for the benefit use and enjoyment …”. Is that not happening already?