Sowry Roger: Wellington Regional Council (Water Board Functions) Bill — In Committee 
Sowry Roger: Wellington Regional Council (Water Board Functions) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:623;Page:18921] 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
I fear we will be here for some time on this bill. The issue I want to raise in respect of this bill is how the Government is able to treat the Wellington Regional Council quite differently from the way it treats other landowners including itself through the Department of Conservation and the land that it owns around New Zealand. The preamble explains quite clearly that the bill gives the regional council some powers to enable it to install construct operate and maintain electrical installation and works on some of its land. The land that the regional council wishes to do this on is land which it owns in a windy position—which is relatively unusual for land in Wellington—and it wishes to install large turbines and obviously generate electricity through some sort of wind farm. I have to say I think that is fine. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: That’ll be noisy. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: Well they could be noisy ones if they are from the company that the co-leader of the Greens is involved with or they could be quiet ones if they are someone else’s—like Meridian Energy. That is up to the council. 
But the issue really is that the council is being given for reasons I am pretty keen to hear from the Minister different powers than for example the Department of Conservation. We are not allowed as of right to put wind turbines on Department of Conservation land but it will be allowed on Wellington Regional Council land. Why not on Manawatu regional council land? It does blow in Palmerston North and a lot of windmills are already there. Why not on Auckland Regional Council land? 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: It doesn’t blow there. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: Well I have been there on occasions when it has been windy and the reason I ask the Minister is quite a serious one. Tonight on television we see the Government pursuing major power infrastructure lines through the Waikato. A huge amount of power will be needed to be taken up to Auckland. That could be mitigated to a degree if the Auckland Regional Council were allowed to put wind farms on its land. 
Why I ask the Minister is it being done only for Wellington and not for anyone else? Well the bill is a local bill and the Minister will say it is because Wellington has asked and no one else has. That is fine. I accept that. What I want to know from the Minister and the promoter of the bill is why the Government is not doing this for a wider group of people and whether the Government would support it being done on Department of Conservation land. 
If we are going to do this let us take it one step further. The Department of Conservation owns a substantial amount of land in the Wellington area so why could we not be allowed to put windmills on that land? Why would we choose to put them only on council-owned land? These are the sorts of issues that we want answers to. They were issues that were raised during the process and I think the Committee deserves some sort of explanation. 
I want to raise one other issue with the Minister. We can waste a huge amount of time—and we probably will tonight—on private bills. We have to ask at the end of the day whether it is the best use of Parliament’s time to be putting through for each of the regional councils a separate bill to allow them to build windmills on their land. We could have a bill for the Manawatu region soon and then one for Auckland etc. going through this process. I do not think that that is proper use of Parliament’s time. It is just like the old rates validation bills that I can remember when I first came into Parliament. We did one for some of the districts about every year or two. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Waiheke Island. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: Yes. If the Government is happy for wind generation to be constructed on regional council land why does it not allow for it nationwide?