Smith Nick: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
Smith Nick: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:645;Page:14869] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 John Key gave a keynote speech today outlining the mushy nonsense that is driving Government. We are seeing an extra 10000 policy advisers and bureaucrats and over 250 mushy strategies with which bureaucrats run round and round in circles achieving very little. The problem with this Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill and with Part 3 is that it is more of this mushy bureaucratic Labour nonsense. People cannot explain what the bill means. Repeatedly through the select committee and the Committee stage of this bill we have sought to hear from the sponsor and its supporters an answer to the question of what this bill means. 
When the member opposite Chris Carter said in his speech that the bill would stop inappropriate subdivision I peered through the clauses. I went all the way through Part 1. Did it say that there? I went all the way through Part 2. Did Part 2 tell me that the bill would stop inappropriate subdivision? I have been all the way through Part 3 and I cannot find a clause that says the bill will remove inappropriate subdivision. You see the member— 
Hon Shane Jones 
: Wait for the jurisprudence. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well that is it. Mr Jones just sums it up. Mr Shane Jones says we should wait for the jurisprudence. So we will do exactly what that Government has done with the Resource Management Act: pass fuzzy amendments with no idea what they will do; pass the ball from this Parliament to the courts; then wait years after millions have been spent on lawyers to establish what the heck Parliament meant. Members on this side of the Chamber say that is not good enough. 
The previous speaker Chris Carter said that the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society had polled Auckland and that the majority of people wanted the Waitakere Ranges protected. Of course they do. Who would answer that question by saying: “Well I don’t want it protected.”? That is not the argument. The argument is between Lynne Pillay’s mushy bill which will achieve very little and the very sensible proposition that has been put forward by National’s Paula Bennett saying that the public lands of the Waitakere Ranges should be a national park. It would be the first national park in Auckland and it would be an excellent choice. 
I also want to focus specifically on this part. The parallel legislation of this Parliament is the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act. I challenge this Parliament 7 years after that legislation was passed to tell me one thing that Act has done to improve the protection of the Hauraki Gulf—just one. Has it protected an extra jetty or a species—anything? 
John Carter 
: One fish. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Not a fish; not a bird. It was just more bureaucratic mush. 
I read in clause 28A of the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill that we will have to have a monitor report. I refer members opposite to the monitoring report that is required under the Hauraki Gulf legislation. Yes it is a big heavy document. Again has it saved a bush? Has it saved a beetle? Has it saved a fish? Has it created an extra blade of parkland anywhere? The answer is no. 
I want Lynne Pillay to explain something to the Committee. The transitional provisions in clause 30 of this bill parallel those of the Hauraki Gulf legislation which got us into an awful mess in Whitianga. I know that my colleague Sandra Goudie from the Coromandel electorate—[ 
Interruption 
] No I refer to the mess that this legislation caused for her community. We have in the transitional provisions of this bill exactly the same problems. I will ask the member a simple question. 
Lynne Pillay 
: Is this confiscation by stealth? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: What I said— 
Lynne Pillay 
: That is what you said. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I want the member to answer some questions for us. We will have local area plans we will have district plans we will have regional plans and we will have national policy statements. Of those four sets of wordy strategies which overrides which? I ask the member in the chair because lawyers and landowners want to know. There are four strategies. I would love to know from the member in the chair what the priority of that mesh of documents is.