Ardern Jacinda: Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill — In Committee 
Ardern Jacinda: Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:17082] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I appreciate the solidarity that Mr Chairperson Tisch has shown as a former resident of the Piako area—and I am a former constituent of his as it so happens. Perhaps that is the reason why I felt moved to speak on the Hamilton City Council (Parana Park) Land Vesting Bill and specifically on the bill’s title. 
I grew up in Morrinsville and I like to clarify that because often people think that that just means I grew up in Hamilton. But they are two very different things when one is from Morrinsville. However Hamilton was the nearest city so the recreation areas of Hamilton I think were still very important to us. Of course a trip to Hamilton was very special—so deprived was my upbringing. It was a significant move from the time I lived in Murupara when a trip to Rotorua for the groceries was the highlight of the calendar month. But the point I wanted to make was that upon hearing Darien Fenton’s contribution in which she delved into the history of both Parana Park and Hamilton I wanted to come to the Chamber and explore whether some options for naming existed within those questions that Darien asked. I believe that she asked whether we should be putting into the title perhaps the history of the word “Hamilton” itself and I am not sure whether that question has been answered yet. I have not been able to find the history behind “Hamilton” but of course Kirikiriroa the Maori name for Hamilton actually means “long stretch of gravel”. I decided that on that basis I would not suggest that we call the bill the “Long Stretch of Gravel Park Bill”. The name was not really synonymous with the idea of a park so I will not propose that. But I thought it was interesting that Morrinsville one of the nearest townships is a swamp so the combination of a long stretch of gravel with a swamp is almost a match made in roading heaven. 
I do not propose to rename the bill the “Long Stretch of Gravel (City Council) Parana Park Land Vesting Bill” so I explored some other options based on a Wikipedia entry. Members will be interested to know that some of Hamilton’s nicknames are included in the Wikipedia entry on Hamilton. On this occasion I have not turned to Wikipedia for policy advice as Bill English has done in the past but I thought that from a creative perspective it might help us with the naming the title of this bill. So some options include “Hamiltron” “the Tron”—I thank Sue Moroney— 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: City of the Future? 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: “City of the Future” is not named so we will not be using that as a potential title. There was “H-Town” “The Fountain City” which is obvious and “Cowtown”. That is not one I have heard before and I do not suggest to members that we adopt that lingo. Again I did not think that any of those did justice as a title so I will ignore those nicknames as well. 
I think that perhaps the best contribution for a potential title was from Nanaia Mahuta who explored the history of Parana Park and its surrounding area and I think she captured the significance of its placement and its space. When we look at the original history—because that was another area where I looked for a more fitting title for this bill—we find the idea that Parana Park was intended to be a children’s convalescent home and playground. I note that the commentary on the bill now mentions that “Parana Park is currently used for passive recreation”. I would quite like to know whether the member Mr Bennett could inform us of the criteria for passive recreation as opposed to active recreation. I would not like to explore necessarily the difference between passive and active recreation but I think it is important that we title the bill appropriately so that in future no one feels obliged to move into active recreation because that would obviously be outside Parliament’s intent for that park. If the member would clarify that I would be very grateful; that would assist with the title of this bill which is incredibly important to this Parliament.