Hughes Darren: Airport Authorities (Sale to the Crown) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Hughes Darren: Airport Authorities (Sale to the Crown) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:635;Page:6771] 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 I thank members for their contributions particularly Gordon Copeland Hone Harawira Barbara Stewart and Sue Kedgley. Their contributions show that the House is well informed on the issues surrounding Paraparaumu Airport and I thank them for their support. I am also grateful for the comments made by my friends and colleagues Mr Gosche and Mr Duynhoven who gave a whole lot of history about what went on in respect of this airport. That history was probably news to a lot of National Party members who do not seem to pay a lot of attention to what their Government was responsible for but then get all pious about what we are trying to do to fix the issues. So I am very pleased that my colleagues were able to provide some context. 
We had a lot of huffing and puffing from Mr Finlayson who said in his maiden speech that he was not going to be into personal attacks. Nevertheless he managed to tell members they were stupid yobbos and all sorts of things. But I guess a year is a long time ago and that was when he talked in his maiden speech about his high principles—and I forgive the member for that. The member asked what on earth aviation activity was. The learned person he puts himself about this Chamber as being obviously was not listening when I specifically said I wanted the select committee to amend my bill to include the term “identified airport activity”. So it is very clear from the Airport Authorities Act what I am talking about. I hope that explanation assists the member. 
I hope the explanation assists the formerly well-paid lawyer who also spent a lot of time talking about Auckland International Airport tonight. That airport was established under its own Act of Parliament as was Wellington International Airport. Those two airports fall outside the scope of this bill because they have their own Acts of Parliament. I can only assume that the member knew that fact and was temporarily misguided in his contribution tonight. He can go out to the lobbies and check the law. So that was Mr Finlayson’s great legal contribution. 
I come to Nathan Guy. What a fantastic speech he made! From my own perspective I am very grateful to him for the comments he made. I have never heard anybody celebrating the loss of an electorate as much as that member. In a year when National won nearly every other rural seat in the country the great farmer—the great rural man—could not even win a rural seat in the Horowhenua and Kapiti region. Most of his speech was about his almost winning the seat. Well I have bad news for him: he lost. He is a list member. But that is all right; he still has a contribution to make and I am glad he made a contribution because his comments tonight were his first public comments—certainly that I am aware of—on the Paraparaumu Airport. Nathan Guy sits and waits for the wind to blow meets all the public relations companies gets all the arguments and weighs everything up. I heard a lot of lines from him tonight that I have heard in other places around the traps from other companies. So it was very interesting to hear what that member had to say. 
Of course Nathan Guy did not address two of the things I asked the National Party to address. As the lead National Party speaker on the bill I thought he would do that. He never told us whether he thought a fair price was paid in 1995 for Paraparaumu Airport. There was silence on that so I assume he thinks it was a fair price. Secondly he failed to tell us whether former landowners had been treated justly and fairly. There was silence on that as well. My bill aims to give former landowners a sense of justice. It also seeks to ensure that such airports can be kept for aviation purposes. 
My luck has improved even further. Maurice Williamson the Minister at the time who was responsible for privatising Paraparaumu Airport has just walked into the Chamber. So we have had an apologist speech from Nathan Guy tonight. It ran all the lines about the airport but did not say what he would try to do to assist aviation and give justice to former landowners. We have had a speech from Chris Finlayson who brings two legislative books to the House for every speech he gives. But it is clear from the mistakes he made that he consulted neither of those books. Then the architect of the privatisation who flogged off the airport for a song—$1.6 million—came into the House. 
 I say finally that one of the reasons I have introduced this bill is that as members of Parliament we have a responsibility to be watchdogs for the public interest. I am not prepared to simply accept assurances based on the fact there was a stand at a shopping mall somewhere that seemed to have wowed Mr Guy so much that there needs to be no mechanism for former landowners. I cannot do that. I have to make sure there is a proper process there in terms of the legislation that builds on the work of the select committee on the observations of the Auditor-General and on the wants needs and desires of the people of Kapiti to see that airport protected. That is what this bill sets out to do. 
I think that airport users and the people around Kapiti will tell me what they have been telling me all along—that this bill is needed because they know something went down that was not right. If National members want to keep apologising for their 11-year mistake they can bring it on. I will be very happy for them; I could not be happier. I promise National that I will distribute far and wide the speeches its members have given in the Chamber tonight because those members were absolute apologists. They tried to back up what National had done in the 1990s. They did not address the key questions. They clearly have not read the bill that I have read and indeed written so I tell Mr Finlayson that I know what I am talking about in that regard. 
I look forward to the bill going to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. National members will then see how strongly people support this whole approach of keeping strategic assets and making sure that our community can use them enjoy them and keep them there for future use. I thank members for their comments. I am glad the bill will receive strong support in this House tonight. 
This debate just sums up National’s approach to me—ripping off the taxpayer having no concern for Maori or former landowners and having no concern for the community’s sense of future. National can keep that approach for as long as it possibly can—I am delighted by its approach here tonight.