King Annette: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
King Annette: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6603. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 The Labour Party supported the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill to the Local Government and Environment Committee because we were interested in hearing the submissions and looking at the evidence that was to be provided in terms of three pieces of land that were being covered by this bill. The reason we wanted to look at it closely was that for the first two pieces of land that Jacqui Dean has mentioned—the Palmerston Showgrounds and another lot in Oamaru—there is little or no controversy at all but the third piece of land called Lookout Point in Oamaru has been controversial. So we wanted to go to the select committee to hear the evidence and to see whether this particular piece of land was land held in reserve or land that had been endowed to Oamaru Borough Council and therefore could be used in the way that it wanted. We went along with an open mind wanting to hear what would be said. 
There were not a lot of submissions on this bill but there were two significant submissions that I want to mention—one from Mr Warren Crawford and one from Mr Barry Monks. They had done a lot of work around this land at Lookout Point because they were firmly of the view that this land had been made reserve land back in the 19th century. They believed that this land was not the council’s to be able to dispose of in any way at all and that it needed to be kept in reserve for the people of Oamaru. So in many ways this bill has been quite a difficult one. In fairness to the select committee and the members on it we were seeking the confirmation that this land could be sold could be subdivided and could have done to it whatever Waitaki District Council wanted to do with it. I have to say that we made a genuine attempt to get all the information that we could. The bottom line is that I believe that what we were provided with after long deliberation and a very extensive search by legal people is that the council does have this land as endowment land; the land does not have a reserve over it. 
I can see why it was confusing. Evidently there was a bill that had been presented to this House that was to in effect make it reserve land but it was never passed. On that basis many of those who have been worried about this land were basing their evidence on a bill that was never passed in this Parliament. I do want to commend those two submitters who set out to get as much information for the select committee as they could particularly Mr Barry Monks. It was Barry Monks’ submission in my view where he presented a lot of evidence and lot of old documents that he had found himself that made us go and ask the officials to go back and search the records again. It was Barry Monks’ submission that really made us have that rethink. I commend him for that because he was able to provide documents we had not seen before. 
 In fact if you look at the whole issue around the gathering of documents I think it was rather unfortunate because there were documents that were missing. There were documents that they had found that they had got from libraries and so on and when they went back to get further documents they found that they had been removed—in fact even cut out of old records which makes people very suspicious. What is going on when you cannot find documents and when documents that were there have since been removed from the database? And so we went through I think very thoroughly looking to see the status of this land. I think it would have been better for all the people of Oamaru if the council had consulted better and we did raise this issue with it around its consultation. It was not good and it has left people very suspicious of its motives. 
It has also I think meant that people believed that the council was interested only in hocking off this bit of land so that it could have money to restore its opera house. And there was concern that because the local member Jacqui Dean had been very supportive of the opera house somehow she was in league with the council and there was some sort of conspiracy around this. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: No surely not. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I am not saying Mr Auchinvole that that is what we believe but because of the poor consultation because of the process and because of missing documents and a lack of clarity people were rightly left with that impression. That is why it was important that we did thorough work on establishing the legality of this land. Is it a reserve? Was it endowment land? I have to say on behalf of the Labour Party that we are satisfied that this is endowment land that the council can dispose of. 
We then get to the point of what it wants to dispose of it for. Some of the submissions raised the point that this particular piece of land is pretty unstable. In fact there have been slips up there. They gave us photographs showing that this land was not stable and asked how this could be used for a subdivision. That is something that the council has to work out and it is not our job to decide whether land is stable or not but that was an issue that was raised. I am pleased that a number of my colleagues took the time out to actually go to Lookout Point. I have got two of my colleagues who are sitting here very interested. In fact Mr Twyford is going to speak on this bill. He made a special trip to go and look at the land itself and to meet with those who were concerned and so did Damien O’Connor. As good Opposition members of Parliament—sorry I forgot a third person. David Clark from Dunedin also showed great interest. So we had three Labour members of Parliament which is probably more than the National Party. Jacqui Dean has no doubt been there but I am not sure whether the rest of the National members even know about it. But I do know we were prepared to uncover every stone in search of what the appropriate designation is for this land. In my view we have reached the point where we are satisfied. 
There is one irony I do want to point out though. If this land is subdivided and sold for the restoration of the opera house by the council the irony is we have a bill before this Parliament a local government amendment bill amending the Local Government Act 2002 which says that the councils should be involved in only things that councils can be involved in. You would have to say: is the use of the money from this land appropriate for the restoration of an opera house under the Government’s definition of the purpose of local government? We would say yes. We believe that it is. If the community wants it if it has consulted with the community if it is a community decision then that would be appropriate. However under National’s Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill it would not be because surely an opera house could be provided by the private sector. So there is this sort of—is it a schizophrenic approach? Maybe it is the hypocrisy approach to local government wanting the money from this land to put into an opera house for a council that is being told that that is not really the sort of thing that it ought to be involved in. 
We do support this bill in the second reading and will support it throughout its stages because I believe the hard work was done on this particular piece of land Lookout Point. It was the controversial part of the bill and I think the select committee ably chaired by the member from Christchurch Central resolved the issues satisfactorily.