Robertson GrantGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I want to make two main points with regard to Part 3. The first of those you may or may not like Mr Chair and that is that in looking at the changes being made to the Public Works Act as a member who was not on the Local Government and Environment Committee I have to say that—and I am sure many members in the Committee will be in the position that I am in where from time to time we find ourselves dealing with matters in our electorates that are about the acquisition of land under the Public Works Act. It is never without controversy and it always has confusion I believe built into it because of the understanding of what exactly a public work is and then the roles of different public entities in that.This is the bit you might not like Mr Chair so I want to divert on to an example just briefly which is one that I am dealing with right now in Wellington City. This actually involves something that the member in the Chair Trevor Mallard is quite familiar with which is the teachers college in Karori which is currently subject to a Public Works Act disposal process. The question has been raised about the entity that is disposing of it Victoria University of Wellington and other public entities including the Ministry of Education and the Wellington City Council and what their roles are. My problem with reading the changes in the bill here and I suspect the answer is relatively simple is that these look like the kinds of tinkering changes that are being made because there have been some interest issues around the way in which compensation is paid but they do not get to the heart of the issues in the Public Works Act itself.I do note that submitters including the Auckland District Law Society's resource management law committee and Vector all argued that these changes should only really be occurring as part of an overall review of the Public Works Act. My strong view is that that is what is needed and I do not have confidence in the changes contained in Part 3 because that review has not taken place. We are now going through yet another example of this up at Victoria University of Wellington. There is considerable confusion as to what the role of public good is and how we decide whether or not another public entity has an interest in land or has an interest in buildings and for me I think it is disappointing to see the legislation come through in what I would regard as a relatively piecemeal way. So I just make that point; Minister Smith may choose to respond on that or not. I do note from the departmental report that there is no intention to review the Public Works Act in total and as I say I think the changes that are in the bill here now sit on their own. Perhaps they are useful perhaps they are not but they certainly do not address those wider issues of the operation of the Public Works Act.Perhaps to endear myself somewhat more to the Chair than I did in that intervention I do want to raise the question of clause 172 and the changes to the way in which compensation will be determined and the process and the use of Orders in Council to do that. This did attract the attention of the Regulations Review Committee because as is its right it looks at other pieces of legislation that are coming before the House—Chris Bishop: That's right.GRANT ROBERTSON: —and asks itself—a very good committee is it not Mr Bishop? It is well chaired at the moment by our David Parker. I do not know about some of the other members—they are really just time servers many of them—but it is certainly well chaired by David Parker and indeed by David Cunliffe before him.What that committee was concerned about was whether or not there was adequate justification for this particular regulation-making power. This is around the consideration of how we determine whether or not there should be a change in the level of compensation and clearly that is an important consideration. The problem that—and I would like perhaps the Minister to explain to us—is the process that will now be gone through which is contained in an amended section at the end of clause 172 which would be new section 72E I think in the Public Works Act itself.Firstly I am concerned about the drafting which is phrased in the negative which makes it quite hard to understand. So it is phrased as The Minister must not recommend the making of an Order in Council under this section unless the Minister is of the opinion that it is necessary or desirable to do so having regard to the following:"—so that is just a drafting point but more specifically are the criteria that are then used there and whether or not they are going to create a fair and equitable process for deciding upon what levels of compensation there are—Mr Chair? "Ding"—Mr Chair?The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Oh! Grant Robertson. I am sorry. I was captivated.GRANT ROBERTSON: Ha ha! This happened to me last night as well. There is obviously something about my style of speaking that is leading—ha ha—people into a kind of existential trance around the subject of the Public Works Act. I could just go on for days here and no one would notice.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Only once.GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes thank you. Exactly Mr Chair. The concern I have got is whether or not this will actually lead to a fair and equitable way of deciding upon compensation. Compensation in these matters is very rarely ever easily comparable in that the level of damage or the level of need for compensation can be extremely variable even in very similar circumstances.Recently in Wellington we had people having their land acquired for a road that is now never going to be built—using the Basin Reserve flyover as an example. And within that there were quite different experiences for the people who were getting compensation. You had some people who had lived in properties for a very very long period of time who had a great deal more—and this is specifically about the costs of moving this clause. They had particular and deeper roots and bigger levels of change. On the other hand you had people who had only been there a short period of time—perhaps owned a smaller parcel of land.The point I am making and the question that I am asking the Minister is whether or not this has been thought through properly. I do not think it is a particularly bad provision; I am just concerned that in the context of my earlier comments the Public Works Act itself is actually ripe for a big review and this could well be an example where we are tinkering around with a piece of that Act as a result of another piece of legislation which actually may or may not make the situation better.Then there is the issue of doing it through Order in Council and I would invite the Minister in the chair Nick Smith to be able to stand up and tell us whether or not this is the correct way to go about it. I certainly understand the point—and I think most submitters did—that at the moment section 72 has a figure of $2000. That has not changed since 1975. I think we all understand that there probably needs to be change there. The question is: do the criteria that are now contained in new section 72E(2) actually give us the right process for doing that and take into account a broad set of circumstances?So I am not going to prolong my intervention other than to say that I would seek some guidance from the Minister as to both the broader point of other changes to the Public Works Act that might be being considered and also specifically the basis on which this process has been chosen and whether it will actually allow for the diverse circumstances of people affected by it."