Fenton Darien: National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Fenton Darien: National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 25 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5582. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 Efficient as always Mr Speaker—I appreciate it. It is a pleasure to take a call in the second reading of the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill. I was pleased to find myself on the select committee the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that considered this bill because I listened to the first reading with great interest. The reason I did that I suppose is for the same reason many of us in this House have found this bill particularly interesting: it is about—as our very valuable veterans’ affairs spokesperson Iain Lees-Galloway has said—honouring past contributions but also our men and women who are currently serving in overseas conflicts. 
One of the things that I got to do quite recently—in fact Gareth Hughes was with me—on a trip with the Speaker was to visit Belgium and go through Messines Ypres and Passchendaele. I have people in my family who served in those wars—and in fact there is a story; I will come to that in a minute. I had no idea that only when you stand in those fields those fields so far away from home and understand how many of our young men were there—and I mean young; the youngest I think was 15; he lied about his age to go there—and you see the white stones going for miles and miles and miles do you have any idea of the sacrifice that was made in those conflicts in the First World War. I was thinking about my grandfather who actually served at the Somme and I remembered coming across his diary. He left his diaries to my sister and me. He talked about how he walked from Messines to Ypres and then on to the Somme which is quite a long way. So I stood in his footsteps if you know what I mean. He came home safely but it was a very very powerful experience and I know many of us here have similar stories in our history and in our families. 
I felt very privileged to be on the select committee to be considering this bill albeit with all of the concerns that people have raised. It was a very fast select committee process. It was referred to the committee on 28 August 2012 and we had a very short time frame for submissions but nevertheless we did receive 18 submissions and we heard eight of them. All of them were powerful. All of them were supportive. There were some concerns raised. I think we had very good advice also from the Regulations Review Committee and the Legislative Advisory Committee as well and we had good advice from the Ministry of Culture and Heritage the Ministry of Transport and the New Zealand Transport Agency that helped our committee get through this I think very fast process. 
One of the things I was pleased about was the way that we worked together in the spirit of this memorial park to overcome some of the concerns that we had. I know that we did not satisfy the Greens on all of them but we did work together to overcome some of the concerns that people had about this fast process for empowering legislation which we prefer not to do. But of course in this situation if we want to see a memorial park on Anzac Day in 2015 that honours the sacrifice of all of the wars that are mentioned in this Chamber and all of the other wars all of the people who have been lost to us in those wars and all the people who are still serving we have to support this. We have to see this wonderful park established and sadly we have to take some short cuts. We do have to allow in this case with reservations the necessary legislation that will enable this park to be built. 
Finally I also want to say that it is a national war memorial so even though I am not from Wellington I take pride in the fact that it is a national war memorial. I look forward to its completion. I look forward to us celebrating as a nation and remembering in 2015 the wonderful event that it will be when we finally have this park together and when all of us as a nation can remember. Thank you.