O'Rourke Denis: Wellington Town Belt Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Wellington Town Belt Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 06 April 2016. Volume:712;Page:10290. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First will be happy to continue to support this bill. I have to say before I ask some of the questions that I am going to ask in a moment that I have been given this bill to speak to only in the last hour so I have not really had the time that I would like to have spent on it before asking these questions. It may be that some of the questions that I am going to ask have already been answered at other stages of the bill which I have not had the opportunity to hear. If that is the case then I apologise for that but I think that I should raise them anyway and if some of those members opposite would just like to breathe through their noses for a while I will take that opportunity now.The first thing that I want to raise is the principles in clause 4 which I have heard the member in the chair Grant Robertson say are very important to the bill as a whole and I agree—they are obviously a primary part of the bill. It is stated in clause 4(1) that the council must first of all: “(a) recognise and provide for the protection and enhancement of the Wellington Town Belt for future generations;”. Then it goes on in clause 4(1)(b) to say it must have particular regard to a number of principles. But each and every one of those principles is framed with the word “should”—“should be managed” “should support” “should be accessible” “should be available” “should be encouraged” “should be recognised” and so on.I just wonder whether that is appropriate language in a clause that is supposed to be empirical. I wonder whether those words “should be” and so on could be interpreted as introducing an element of discretion or not. So I would like the member in the chair just to think about that and whether we should be taking this opportunity to make an amendment to that Part should he feel that that is a problem.Just further on that issue of those principles I am looking at other parts of the bill and clause 8 is obviously a very important operative part of it. However there is no reference anywhere there to those principles and I would have thought that it would be advisable to do that. If the principles are going to be really central to the way in which the council exercise its functions then it might have been a good idea to add them to at least either subclause (2) or (3) of clause 8. I would say the same thing about clause 10 and I heard the member say how important he thought that was. I would have thought for example that in clause 10(2) there might be a requirement for the council to exercise its functions having regard to those principles in clause 4. I just make those comments constructively in case the member thinks it would be helpful to make some changes there. If not then we are not going to die in a ditch for them and that is fine.I would like to go on and just raise some questions also about Supplementary Order Paper 169. First of all in the amendment to clause 16(2) a reference is made to “no more than 8 hectares in total”. I do not understand what is magic about the 8 hectares and I have not been able to find any reference to it anywhere so perhaps we could know why that figure has been settled upon.More seriously though I would like to raise especially with the member some of the wording in subclauses (3) and (4) of clause 16 as proposed in Supplementary Order Paper 169. I read in paragraph 16(3)(b) the words “not be granted for a term including any renewals exceeding 20 years;” and in paragraph 16(4)(b) the same words—“not be granted for a term”—are there and then the words “including any renewals”. Does the member think that the inclusion of those words will actually prohibit the council from granting a lease to the same lessee after 20 years and renewals should that actually be required by the council and desired by the community? It is the same in new clause 16(4). Would it operate as a prohibition and if that could be the case is that what is intended? This is the time to deal with those sorts of issues.I have not got much more to say. If I turn over the page of Supplementary Order Paper 169 I see new clause 16(5) and I am looking at the words: “The Council must—(a) spend all money received under a lease …”. Would there be a problem if for example there were rates payable under a lease or insurance or other payments made under a lease that are obviously intended for specific purposes that might be caught in an unintended way by those words? I just raise that again constructively in case the member thinks that there might be a problem there to fix. I hope those comments might be helpful. Otherwise as I have said New Zealand First is very happy indeed to support the bill; we just want to make it as good as it can be.