Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): There has been much spoken about this bill in this House from the other side tonight that bears little relationship to the truth or what is actually in the bill. I want to start off my remarks by being very clear about the Labour Party's position. We appreciate the need for more housing in Tāmaki but we also believe that it is important to balance that demand with good urban design and public open spaces. That is a view that we have on this issue. Funnily enough that is also the view—Hon Anne Tolley: And cows. A place for the cows. MICHAEL WOOD: —thank you Mrs Tolley—of one Denise Lee the National Party - aligned councillor for Maungakiekie-Tāmaki and the National Party candidate for the seat of Maungakiekie as of 20 January. That is the view that she expressed at that time standing shoulder to shoulder with Mayor Phil Goff when she thought she could get away with making those sorts of comments. What Denise Lee was pointing out there was the fact that these matters are complex. They require engagement they require listening and they require careful examination and a proper consideration of all of the alternatives to meet the needs of all of the people who are at the table. But instead what we have got in this bill is a Nick Smith special"—a piece of legislation that has been rammed through. In my comments I want to focus on the utter failures of process that destroy the integrity of this bill regardless of its contents. Then in respect of the substance of the bill I want to talk about the fundamental importance of this piece of open space to the community in Maungakiekie-Tāmaki. I also want to speak about the alternative that was not explored and that is the unspoken—and it will be the spoken—tragedy of this whole episode.Before going on I want to acknowledge the local community who have fought and fought not just for themselves but for the other people of their community and for future generations in the interest of high-quality open space that will be there for everyone. I want to acknowledge colleagues in New Zealand First who have stood with the Labour Party in opposing this bill as well. I want to acknowledge the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board and Labour candidate Priyanca Radhakrishnan in Maungakiekie who have led the charge in supporting the community on the ground when they have felt powerless and locked out by an arrogant Government. Let us start by talking about the process for this bill and it is actually extraordinary—it is a total disgrace. It was dumped on the community just prior to Christmas last year—just prior to Christmas. So while Nick Smith and most other MPs were off enjoying their summer holidays in January that was the only chance that the local community had to gather together to actually be consulted about this before we got into the formal process. So they gathered on something like 20 January. The local board stepped up where this Government failed to engage with the community. That is what they did. They got together and they came up with their views on this and they immediately recognised that there was a failure of process and a risk to their high-quality open space. The local board had to hold meetings in the middle of the summer holiday to consult with the community. That was the starting point in terms of the egregious process of this bill and it just got worse. The chair of the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board Josephine Bartley was very clear that there was no public consultation from the Government about this bill at the beginning and she said that "If there was public consultation the Minister would have heard for himself from the people about how well used the sports fields are. We have groups like the Samoan community [who] have been playing kilikiti on those fields for the past 35 years." and the examples just go on and on from the community.Something that I think is disgraceful is that in the Cabinet paper about this bill which most of the National Government backbenchers who have spoken probably have not even sighted the department says in that Cabinet paper that this bill would be divisive and that it would create a divide between the community and Ngāti Paoa. That was the advice that Minister Nick Smith got and I would have thought that any responsible Government that received that advice would have taken a breath and would have thought about consultation and engagement and working this through instead of charging through like the red-faced bull in a china shop that we always get from that Minister in this House. I think it is a disgrace.The Auckland Council in a submission the likes of which I have never seen before in terms of its language described this bill as a dangerous precedent because it is about central government running amok running over the legitimate expectations that people have to be consulted. It cuts across multiple Acts—the Reserves Act which sets out processes for communities and local government to be consulted before we have changes to our reserves. It cuts across the Resource Management Act unbelievably after the people of Auckland spent the best part of 2 or 3 years being consulted about the future urban form of Auckland and about what kind of housing should go where. Simply by fiat in a couple of sentences in this bill we have decided that a piece of reserve land will have a kind of housing called mixed-housing urban just dropped on it—it is three storeys high and medium density—just like that cutting across entirely the kind of plan-change processes that every other citizen can expect when there is a change in their community and that is also a disgrace.Andrew Bayly spoke smoochingly in his speech about Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 321 dropped in by Nick Smith at the Committee stage to put additional sports fields on sensitive ecological land on the headland of Point England Reserve. That was put there in a desperate bid to try to save Denise Lee an extra 500 or so votes that she might have lost as a result of this barbarous legislation. That piece of legislation speaks to the problem.Let us have a look at the bill itself. One of the things that it says and we have had this put up as a defence from the National Government is that in clause 9 of the bill there are obligations for the Minister to consult with the community and local government about what might happen next. But here we have Supplementary Order Paper 321 inserting clause 10 put in by fiat by the Minister in the Committee of the whole House with no consultation—no consultation—with anyone telling Auckland Council that it has to do something that it in fact probably cannot do and that it probably cannot get a resource consent for. I have come from a council background. I can tell you that you cannot actually plan and consent and build a modern high-quality sports field in the space of 12 months which is what Nick Smith's ridiculous SOP adds into this bill.Listening to Nick Smith telling us and expecting us to believe that there will be consultation with the community after this bill is like believing Attila the Hun telling us that he will settle his disputes through a family group conference. What I say to the members on that side is that the National Party once had a proud tradition of following the rule of law of following due process of working with communities and of doing things incrementally. Where is the party of Jim McLay? Where is the party of Ralph Hanan? Where is the party of Jack Marshall? Those were once Attorneys-General of that party who would have put their foot down and said: "No. This is wrong. We're going to follow the processes that are on our statute book."What I say to the Māori Party members who have supported this bill right the way through is when has it ever been good for Māori for central government to cut across the rule of law to cut across due process to cut across public consultation and to cut across access to the courts? Let us be very clear that the way in which this bill cuts across the RMA and the Reserves Act and cuts across the rights of access to the courts that members of the community would otherwise enjoy—when has that precedent ever served Māori in this country well? Yet they are voting for that tonight.Coming to the substance of public open space when the people of Auckland went through the exercise of the unitary plan—and noting that none of the National members who have stood up and spoken tonight have been members of urban Auckland electorates—Auckland came to a difficult decision that we would advance with a quality compact city. We would accept intensification because we knew that that was what needed to happen to cater for growth and to give people decent housing. That was a difficult decision for Auckland but we got there. But we also said that when we did it it had to be done in a quality way. That was the bargain: that as we intensify as communities like Tāmaki accept 20000 more people over the next 10 years - plus—Hon Dr Nick Smith: Oh the man opposed to housing.MICHAEL WOOD: —that they will also have decent amenities—nice of you to return Minister—and quality open space. That is part of the deal that Auckland made and I am not going to accept being lectured to by a Minister who has presided over the housing crisis and National Government Ministers none of whom would accept the reserves lands in their electorates being carved up for housing like this. Hon Dr Nick Smith: What's happened in Riccarton? What happened in Riccarton?MICHAEL WOOD: Minister Nick Smith I do wonder how you would feel about Rutherford Park or Branford Park in your electorate being carved up for housing. I wonder how the member for Hunua would feel about Rosa Birch Park in his electorate being carved up for housing. Yet we have these Ministers from outside of Auckland telling Aucklanders how their city should grow and telling Aucklanders that their parks and reserves are fair game. That is a disgrace and those members and that party will pay the price for that on 23 September no less anywhere than in the Maungakiekie electorate where former members of the National Party have joined me on the protest line and joined Priyanca Radhakrishnan on the protest line to protest this abomination of a bill.On process grounds and substance grounds this bill is an absolute dog. I proudly stand with the community of Maungakiekie against it and urge all members to vote it down. Thank you."