O'Connor Damien: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Damien: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3386. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): I acknowledge the previous speaker Ian McKelvie. I think he did a very good job given the fact that he was not on the Primary Production Committee at the time and he has been around for some time. The best way to summarise this bill is that it is the best non - non-controversial legislation that I have seen in this House. The Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill is traditionally supposed to be non-controversial. Well there was not much about this bill that was non-controversial I would have to say.I can run through some of the things to be fair that there was not huge debate around. One of them is the Winton Racecourse Reserve Management Ordinance of 1873. Trustees were to be on there for a lifetime. We have in fact provided for them to be there for 3 years. There are some sensible amendments through the bill—some land to go into roading in Paparoa National Park and Taieri Airport land to be changed. But there were as was raised in earlier speeches a few controversial issues that I do recall. I have read through a few things and in fact I was reminded of them when I met with a group in Ōpua about 3 weeks ago. I had hoped that the issue would have been resolved but alas it has not been. It is the issue of the esplanade reserve at Ōpua in the Bay of Islands. I do not want to—in fact I do not have the time—to go into the whole history of this but this bill was an attempt to resolve an issue that has been around since 1966 when this boatyard was built and reserve land was utilised. When the new owner came into this and purchased it in 1994 he needed to utilise some reserve land to run his boat operation. There has been a lot of to-ing and a lot of fro-ing and a lot of arguments over the years to try to get some certainty for the boatyard owner. We had some sympathy for that. The select committee in an attempt to offer some security and certainty did insert some clauses that now the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper is going to remove. The question of why has to be asked.There is quite a lot of litigation. The fact is that there is an informal agreement to allow the boatyard owner to utilise reserve land and he was uncertain about his future and he wanted to get it tidied up. We thought that it was a reasonably non-controversial issue so we inserted it. It is controversial and I would say that it did push the boundaries of the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill’s intention. However since the bill was introduced and since being processed in fact there have been legal rulings on this the most recent one being from Judge Heath on 10 March 2015. The judge decided to quash a 2013 decision and ruled that “the decision whether to consent to such easements be remitted back to the Minister for reconsideration”.The issue here is whether the district council or the Minister of Conservation has the rightful authority to offer the gentleman some certainty. Unfortunately I suspect that the Government’s removing these clauses from the bill would have given parliamentary certainty but that easement right would have ended with the sale from this gentleman to someone else as was the intent of the select committee. The attempt to hand the right back to the district council means that potentially the district council just writes out a right or issues a right I guess it thinks in perpetuity over what is rightfully Crown land under the jurisdiction of the Department of Conservation and thereby the Minister. So in fact all the debate and all the consideration of the select committee amount to nothing—to nought. I feel a little sad about that because I think the select committee genuinely tried to reach a solution that was a fair one—that is issuing easements for current use but not perpetuating the property rights and handing them over to the person because it is quite a complex issue.In the meantime the letter that I have received—it is a copy of a letter sent to the Minister of Conservation the Hon Maggie Barry—points out that actually because of the controversy there was potentially going to be a gift of significant waterfront land to the community of Paihia but that gift has been withdrawn. So this issue has not gone away in spite of the attempts of the select committee to deal with it in the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill. The Supplementary Order Paper introduced by the Minister actually hands back to the council and to the Minister a dilemma that they will have to work through and that ultimately I believe will come back to the select committee.I will just deal with a few other issues in the bill. As was pointed out by a couple of speakers Auckland Council had an interest in this. It was in fact the development to set up the Auckland Art Gallery at Albert Park. There would be many around the country who would probably say “Who cares?” but indeed it was an emotional issue for many people in and around Auckland who were tied up with heritage and with the art gallery. I think the issue was to do with the process by Auckland Council—I think the mayor at the time might have been Mr Banks so it is little wonder perhaps. Anyway that issue is hopefully resolved here.There were some submissions about the Auckland volcanic cones. People were concerned about handing back to the Minister of Conservation the right to take control of it. The Primary Production Committee was comfortable with that having heard those submissions. Then of course we had the Sugar Loaf Islands Marine Protected Area—again an area that the select committee decided there had not been enough consultation on so it deleted the intentions and the provisions in the bill for that.The insertionsto deal with the Ōpua situation—which as I say was an unusual step for a select committee—have now been taken out. The Minister could possibly claim that they should be taken out because nothing in this bill should be controversial. Controversy around the other issues is relatively minor and it is still relatively major over Ōpua. I just ask of the Government in taking these provisions out that it considers very fairly the situation up there because there is a lot of feeling on the matter. There is a view and a suspicion that the district council might just override conservation land intentions and hand the rights to the gentleman. I think the gentleman might have to beaware—and I am not going to use his name—that if the council does that it will offer no certainty into the futurebecause there is likely to be litigation. In fact a group is taking a challenge to the courts on that ruling. In the end hours and hours of select committee work have not resolved something that does need to be resolved.I will just go back and make reference to a couple of other things; I am not going to drag this out other than to say that I acknowledge my colleague the Hon David Parker. He was introducing a bill to try to resolve and tidy up a whole lot of these issues. I think that the select committee way back then—I am the only remaining member—did its very best. I think there probably will be a few other issues brought to the table in the passage of this bill through the House in the weeks going forward—the Ōpua one being among them I guess.The other issue I must mention very briefly is that of the Waitaki District Council and Lookout Point land. There was a view within the community that the transfer of land to what it deemed as reserve land into the hands of effectively developers and the council in fact to develop—Jacqui Dean: Nonsense! It went to the council.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Oh there is the member Jacqui Dean down there. I would say she should be very careful about advocacy in this area. It was a very tricky issue with a number of people involved in it. The money is supposed to be used in Ōāmaru for the purposes of heritage and I acknowledge that. But there was a lot of emotion and a lot of feeling. The select committee did what it hoped was the best thing with this and that land is indeed going to be transferred and will be developed with some risks.This was an attempt by Parliament to deal with non-controversial legislation. In my view it is non - non-controversial. I guess we will have a few debates on it over the next couple of weeks.