King Annette: National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
King Annette: National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5698. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 I would like to pick up where my colleague Grant Robertson has left off and say that there is widespread support for this bill the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill. When Grant Robertson was talking about how important it is to his electorate because it actually is in his electorate I need to reinforce the fact that I think it is important across the whole of Wellington. But even greater than that because it is a National War Memorial Park it is of significance to all New Zealanders and I think it was made so by the return of the Unknown Warrior and the burial of the Unknown Warrior in that spot signifying for all New Zealanders a place where we honour and we commemorate the loss of many lives during many wars. 
There was widespread support during the hearing of this bill including from the community but also from the Wellington City Council and I think that was significant. My understanding is that Celia Wade-Brown the Green Mayor of Wellington supported this bill. In fact there were only two councillors who opposed it. I think that probably shows the depth of feeling here in Wellington for this park and for the completion of this park. 
I think it was unfortunate that during the select committee stage although concerns were raised about the process the Greens did take the position that they would oppose the bill. They want the park but they oppose the bill. It seemed to me that that was a bit like having a bob each way—you could say you wanted the park but you were not prepared to vote for it. I think it would have been really tremendous if this House could have had unanimous support for this bill. I understand the concerns about the process but when I look at the work that was done in the select committee and the changes that were made to make the bill in terms of the Orders in Council as robust as possible and as transparent as possible the Order in Council would be considered only as a last resort and all other reasonably practicable ways must be considered before an Order in Council. I think that the work that was done in terms of the review panel and extending the consideration up to 12 sitting days helped to strengthen the bill. I do not think there are many members in the House who want to see us not use proper process but every now and then in my experience an occasion does arise where you can have a process that is not ideal but will be for the greater good. This was one of those cases when there was a need I think for the Parliament to say that this is a very good thing to do. This is good for Wellington but it is also good for New Zealand. 
Something that did concern me was that we could not get support across the House. It is no good saying you support it but then saying let it be built sometime in the future. There is a date required for the building of this and we could argue and we did argue in the select committee stage that it ought to have been started sooner that it ought to be finished in time for 2015 without the need for this legislation. The reality is it will not. We do want it for the 100th celebration commemoration of Gallipoli and to do that it may require that there has to be some action taken to speed up the construction of this park. 
It is also of interest to me that in the original proposals and discussions with the former Mayor of Wellington there was an idea that in fact the council would like to enhance Taranaki Street which comes off Buckle Street perhaps with a tree-lined avenue so that there would be a wide avenue that leads into the park. I would hope that at some time in the future that could be considered by the council. In fact although you would still be driving up that avenue it would kind of blend into the whole idea of the National War Memorial. I am not sure where the council sits on that now but it was something that Kerry Prendergast was pretty keen on. 
I think the work as I said done at the select committee has strengthened this bill. We strongly support it. We would like to see it passed as soon as possible.