Tirikatene Rino: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Tirikatene Rino: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8039. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Tena koutou nga mema huri noa i te Whare. I am very pleased to speak at this third reading of the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill. Although I was not a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee that considered this bill I am very pleased to be coming in at this third reading because the Waitaki District is obviously a very important district within Te Tai Tonga my electorate—the whole of the South Island. It is a very special place Waitaki. The Waitaha the very early settlers of Te Wai Pounamu the moa hunters my ancestors Te Maiharoa the chief and all of the successive tribal groups roamed those lands and were sustained by those lands and the rivers so I am very pleased to be able to speak to this bill. 
Obviously we are dealing with the history of a particular piece of land. The one in question I would like to speak to relates to the past 150-odd years of the land for which there was a question mark which this bill has finally corrected in terms of the status of the land at Lookout Point. I also understand it is called Forrester Heights. Someone must have been a fan of  
The Bold and the Beautiful 
 to call it Forrester Heights. Lookout Point is a very beautiful piece of land. I have travelled to Oamaru obviously many times and had a chat with some of the locals and it is an absolutely beautiful piece of land with panoramic views of Oamaru right out to sea and of the beautiful bay. It is a very pristine and very highly valuable I would say piece of land. In regard to the issue around the status of the land and whether it was reserved or endowed I understand that through the extensive research and inquiries that were undertaken by the select committee and by officials and through the assistance of submitters also it did indeed lean toward the land being endowed or there were mistakes that were made but it was endowed. 
I would like to take a trip back through time and just think of what the children of Oamaru were thinking in 1892 or around the early 1890s when the children of the district went on to Lookout Point and they planted that whole hillside with beautiful trees. Those trees obviously grew and they were a stunning feature of that community. What were those children thinking 120-odd years ago when they planted those trees? Were they thinking that the land where they were planting those trees was going to be sold to developers for development? Or was it a reserve? Well I think the actions of those children and the great community gesture that it was for them to plant that whole area in beautiful trees show that although a legal technicality or whatever revealed that no no the land was not reserved but endowed in the heart of the community of Oamaru that land is definitely reserve in terms of the feeling within that community. 
As I mentioned it is a very very beautiful site with beautiful views. This bill does clarify the status of that particular piece of land and I commend the local member Jacqui Dean for sponsoring this bill and following it through this process whereby all the investigations were made and the status has been determined. We support this bill but I want to just add some remarks around the use of the land. Obviously that is beyond the scope of this bill and it really is up to the local Waitaki District Council as to what it intends to do with the land. Obviously the intention has been seen through its recent activities: to chop down all the trees change the district plan without consulting the community and change the status and even put up “For Sale” signs in terms of properties for sale and sections for sale. So the intention of the Waitaki District Council in recent times has been to market and sell off those prime pieces of real estate. 
But in regard to the use of the land I just want to remark that at the bottom of Lookout Point I have looked very carefully in terms of the actual stability of that land in question. It is clay soil and there are huge what they call under-runners—they also call them Maori drains. In terms of the stability of the land it could be unsafe to actually develop on because these are huge under-runners that are there right from the bottom roadside. You do not want to go walking near them because they could collapse any time. The soil is very porous. Roots that may have been there when the trees were there rotted away and so more water is coming through and making it more unstable. So I would caution in terms of whatever future use may be applied to that land that there be very thorough technical reports conducted because those large caves at the bottom of that hillside could be very very dangerous and unsuitable for development. So should the Waitaki District Council want to go ahead and develop the land or sell the land I think it would want to really investigate its position very very carefully and fully. It does not want to be subjecting its ratepayers to any potential liability around selling off unsafe pieces of land or if it wanted to developing that area with amenities and infrastructure or roading and the like only to find that actually the land is unsuitable for development. That would be my only comment which is beyond the scope of this bill but I think is very relevant in terms of now that the land has been classified as endowed as able to be sold the Waitaki District Council should look very carefully into that particular issue. 
Just in terms of some concluding remarks I too would like to acknowledge some of the submitters—in particular Barry Monks who devoted a lot of time and conducted extensive research into the history. Obviously he is passionate about Waitaki. He is a real heartland man old Barry Monks is. He actually was our candidate and a very capable candidate too in Waitaki. I am very proud of Barry and the work that he did in terms of researching this bill and really representing and advocating for the retention of that land as a reserve. Unfortunately his efforts were not able to be captured in the bill in its final form but I do acknowledge Barry for the work that he did undertake. 
Likewise I do want to acknowledge Mr Warren Crawford whom I met in Oamaru and who showed me around Lookout Point. He again was very passionate about the area. He farmed Lookout Point so he had stock grazing on that particular land in question over many years and again he was very passionate about retaining the reserve status of that land and making sure that it was held as an asset in their community that would not be sold. 
Just to conclude Lookout Point as I have mentioned is a spectacular piece of land. I would hope that some more trees will be planted there. Obviously they have all been hacked down and it has created a bit of unsafe terrain that probably is not conducive to further development. We shall see. But it would be nice to see that the council will listen and consult with its community before it actually does anything further now that the land has endowed status. Thank you.