Nash Stuart: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 July 2015. Volume:706;Page:5010. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): There was something that the Minister Louise Upston said when she was answering a couple of queries that I am not too sure about. What the Minister actually mentioned is that in this bill there are three clauses that deal with the issue of the Auckland Council Albert Park and the Auckland Art Gallery. What the Minister said was that this bill does not retrospectively grant the Auckland Art Gallery or the Auckland Council any rights that they did not have. I am a little unsure about this and it is a shame that the Minister is gone. I may be a little bit confused. I am only a simple boy from the regions—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): You can’t refer to the absence of a member.STUART NASH: Oh sorry. I was just referring to it—I apologise.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No no.STUART NASH: OK. The Auckland Council wishes to extend the Auckland Art Gallery which is sited on freehold land and it wants to extend it into Albert Park. What it says here in clause 7(2) is: “The land over which that extension is sought is— (a) part of the reserve known as Albert Park;” and I am not too sure how the Minister could say that this is not retrospective because this legislation does actually empower the Auckland Council to erect the Auckland Art Gallery on part of Albert Park. So to me that is a little retrospective. The reason I say that is that in clause 7(3) it says: “The Auckland Improvement Trust Act 1971 prohibits the alienation of the whole or any part of Albert Park.”; hence the reason why we are doing this.I would just like to mention some of the things that a couple of other speakers mentioned before. Mr Prosser mentioned that New Zealand First cannot support this bill because it has to go back to the select committee. This bill has been around for 8 years and it needs to be updated. I see merit in that argument. The argument for that is something I mentioned earlier. This has been around for a long time. We are about due for another piece of reserves and other lands disposal legislation—as mentioned every 7 years. The argument against thatis of course: just let us get this thing passed. Let us get it out there and then let us start the process of another bill which will go before the Primary Production Committee before too long. The reason why it will go before the committee before too long is as mentioned that these things come up about once every 7 years although of course the National speaker Stuart Smith almost contradicted himself when he stood up and said: “Let’s just get this through. There’s something that’s been on the books for I think 150 years or there since 1903 and we’re just correcting a mistake that was made 112 years ago.” What I would say to that is: “Well if they’ve been waiting for 112 years what’s another 12 months?”. Obviously it is not vitally important because if it were then successive generations of mayors would have forced this through a lot sooner than 2015. I suspect that in 1903 they did not expect that it would still be on the statutein 2015 let alone still being debated in Parliament. I do not know who the MP for that area was back then.There are a couple of things I would just like to dig into a little bit deeper to see whether I can gain a little bit of clarity on this. Clause 10 deals with the Auckland volcanic cones land. The background to this is that if anyone wanted to undertake any sort of earthworks in land that abutted one of the volcanic cones or that affected the nature of one of the volcanic cones then what they had to do was actually seek the permission of the Governor-General. They had to seek “express authorisation from the Governor in Council”—now the Governor-General by Order in Council. What this clause says is that this has to go to the Minister of Conservationnow and this is on the recommendation of the Department of Conservation. What it says is that it is no longer appropriate for the Governor-General to make this sort of almost micro-decision. I get that; that sort of makes sense. But my question I suppose is: why would it go to the Minister of Conservation? Why would they not just say that instead of the Governor-General having to make this decision let us put it in the hands of the Auckland Council because the Auckland Council for all intents and purposes in my understanding is responsible for the management of the Resource Management Act which as we all know covers any sort of activity that alters the shape of land. It used to be the regional council; now it is the Auckland Council.So again this just creates another anomaly in the governance of Auckland and in any area associated with any sort of earthworks in Auckland. Ordinarily if you abut a volcanic cone and you want to put a garage up or a tennis court or whatever you would assume that you have to go to the Auckland Council to get a resource consent. And you might have to—I am not sure. But what this says is that you actually have to then approach the Minister of Conservation.