Tolley Anne: Gisborne District Council (Alfred Cox Park) Validation Bill — Third Reading 
Tolley Anne: Gisborne District Council (Alfred Cox Park) Validation Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:632;Page:4448] 
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
: 
 It is an honour to speak to the third reading of the Gisborne District Council (Alfred Cox Park) Validation Bill. I start tonight by thanking a number of people. I thank the Gisborne District Council and its staff in particular Douglas Birt the council’s corporate affairs manager who produced this bill and grappled with it for a number of years. In fact I think it dates back to 2001-02. A great deal of work has been put into the bill particularly by Gisborne District Council staff and I thank and pay tribute to them tonight. 
I also pay tribute to my former colleague Janet Mackey who was the electorate MP for the East Coast electorate. She worked very closely with the council over the last 3 years in order to get this bill to Parliament in an acceptable form. I remind people that the bill came to Parliament then Parliament changed the rules and it had to go back and be reformatted. 
I thank the Local Government and Environment Committee for its very common-sense approach in consideration of this bill. It took a very pragmatic approach in its desire to help the council through its legal difficulties. I also thank parliamentary counsel for the attention they paid to it. 
Finally I thank all the parties in the House that have supported this bill. It would have been nice to get it through earlier but perhaps having had the opportunity to talk through some of the issues in the background we are all the better off for its slower progress to this point. 
I think it is befitting at the third reading of the bill to pay tribute to Alfred Cox the man. I have in front of me the notice that was published in the  
Gisborne Herald 
 on 19 April 1971 recognising the passing of Alfred Cox. It is headed “Death of a city pioneer”. Reading about the accomplishments of this man Mr Arthur Cox and about what he did for the city of Gisborne makes one feel almost humble on behalf of the people of Gisborne. Mr Cox was obviously a very successful businessman. He bought a large amount of land that he then gifted to the city of Gisborne. To ensure that the beach would be vested for all time for the people of Gisborne he bought a 5-mile marine drive along the Waikanae Beach foreshore and made many trips to Wellington to secure the cooperation of Ministers and departmental officials to preserve it for the public. He also bought many acres of land adjacent to the Waipaoa River and gifted them to the Cook County to facilitate the construction at some unknown time in the future of a traffic bridge to provide an entrance to the city by way of a scenic seafront drive. 
His other benefactions to the city included the purchase in 1922 of 3500 trees from the State Forest Service for a soldiers’ memorial park on Kaiti Hill. He purchased 8 acres in Endcliffe at the top end of Kaiti Beach Road to enable the construction of a road along the top of Kaiti Hill. And of course he purchased the 6 acres that are now Alfred Cox Park and donated them to the city to be preserved as a park to be used by the public. He was indeed a great man and a man who left a huge legacy in Gisborne. 
I have a copy of a letter written by his granddaughter Anne Lodge to the Gisborne District Council when it was putting this bill together explaining that the uses at the centre of this bill were uses “that my grandfather would endorse if it is necessary to establish whether or not he gave consent.” Anne Lodge said that she and the family believed that it was her grandfather’s desire to promote Gisborne a place that he much loved in any way he could. Indeed his actions proved that he was a great benefactor to the city of Gisborne. 
This bill as we have heard is about a park where a flea market and a visitor information centre are sited which is not in accordance with the Reserves Act and the activities carried out in those areas are not in accordance with the Reserves Act. So this bill seeks to make that right. The flea market is a colourful part of the Gisborne environment. One has to get up awfully early on a Saturday morning to go down and take part. The market opens just before 6 and mostly by half-past 8 it is all over and everyone is going home. It is used by people to sell all sorts of things. On one occasion I was next to a lady who was moving house and selling off the extraneous bits and pieces from her house. So it is truly a community centre for the Gisborne people. 
The visitors centre on the site is visited by thousands of people seeking information about the city—not just visitors to the city but also locals who go there to get information and buy tickets to various events in Gisborne. It too is a great community centre. 
I want to say in conclusion that the purpose of this bill is to right a legal wrong. No council in this country wants to operate illegally and most of the citizens of any community do not want their leaders knowingly to act illegally. This bill will ease the conscience of both the city council and the community by legitimising the use of Alfred Cox Park. In passing this bill tonight the reality is that most of the users of the park have no idea that they have been using the park for illegal purposes over the past 40 years.