Prosser Richard: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeProsser Richard: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3392. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am pleased to rise to take a fairly brief call in the second reading of the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill. It is quite a long time since the first reading of this bill—6 years in fact. New Zealand First will support this bill going to the Committee of the whole House but only because it is at that stage that we intend to recommend that the bill be returned to the Primary Production Committee for reconsideration. Either that or it be thrown out because it is difficult to envisage how anything that is contained in it can be so desperately urgent as to warrant the expenditure of further time in the House when it has languished for so long on the backburners of Government priority. Irrespective of what other members have said about it being non-controversial and irrespective of the fact that some matters take 5 or 6 years to come back to the House life goes on.We do not seek a return to the select committee because I as a member of the present incarnation of the select committee have any particular desire to undertake a rather soporific delving into the technical detail of a somewhat elderly omnibus bill. Rather it is that in the 6 years that have passed between the first reading and now the second reading of this vitally important piece of legislation a number of other enactments have it would appear superseded or otherwise overwritten—overwritten overridden—parts of the bill as it stands as other members have made mention of.Looking back at the Hansard from 5 March 2009 when this bill received its first reading and was sent to the Primary Production Committee is a wee bit like looking back in time. The list of names of honourable members who have now long since departed these halls for what we can only hope are better and greener pastures for them is testament to the present irrelevancy or otherwise of the bill.I am referring to Shane Ardern the chairperson with whom I had the pleasure of serving as an observing member on the Primary Production Committee in the last term of Parliament; the Hon Jim Anderton a name known to everybody; Brendon Burns; the Hon John Carter a predecessor of yourself in the Chair Mr Assistant Speaker; Dr Ashraf Choudhary; Sandra Goudie; the Hon George Hawkins; Colin King who was previously my member of Parliament and was replaced by Stuart Smith a current member of the select committee and also my current member of Parliament because I live in the Kaikōra electorate—not for long however as I am about to cross the border of the Ashleigh River and actually become a resident of the Waimakariri electorate so Mr Matt Doocey who is my colleague will become my new member of Parliament—and Sue Bradford.All were very fine members and I have no doubt that their individual and collective contributions to this bill were of great merit. Perhaps the one surviving member of the select committee the Hon Damien O’Connor may be in a better position to comment on the relative merits of the contributions.New Zealand First has no institutional memory of this bill. Mr McKelvie remarked that the bill came about before he was in Parliament and in actual fact this bill came through in the 49th Parliament when New Zealand First was on sabbatical as it were. I have to say that it is now generally accepted of course that Parliament was the poorer for our absence and the nation now rejoices in our triumphant glorious and long overdue return. But I digress somewhat—I will come back to the bill. I apologise for that. I just pre-empted your wise judgment Mr Assistant Speaker.The bill itself deals with a number of issues 17 in total listed with some 58 clauses pertaining to them. A number of those as the Minister alluded to have been addressed by the passage of time or at least altered by other separate legislation in the interim. Some matters it would seem could not wait long enough for this bill to work its way up the priority ladder—up the popularity ladder—and come back to the front of the House on the Order Paper. Just as an example and this has been mentioned before Lookout Point in the Waitaki was dealt with in 2013 in the form of a member’s bill in the name of Jacqui Dean. A splendid bill it was; I am sure I voted for it. The Auckland volcanic cones land which is now under a completely different and separate piece of legislation has different legal ownership different status and different management under a deal that was settled with iwi in 2012. And any number of pieces of road on the West Coastto which this bill pertains which my colleague from the Greens made mention of are now probably made very largely irrelevant because of one of the more onerous clauses in the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Act which was kind of bulldozed through this House in the face of all reasonable questioning just last year and made changes to the ways in fact in which roads can be created on the West Coast under the ordinances of that bill.Mr McKelvie also made mention of road reserves and the boundaries of those road reserves and the issues that local councils have to deal with when things occurred in the past and where boundaries were perhaps not given the due regard that they would be given today. Things just happened and although there was a road reserve on paper rights of way were established across it. When problems cropped up the councils had to go back and revisit those particular issues the boundaries had to be redrawn there were land swaps and of course these types of titles that are placed in a road reserve are altered by councils from time to time anyway—under due process and in consultation with the people who elect those councils.In actual fact I have been dealing with one such issue in my local rohe I will call it. I cannot call it my electorate obviously; I am not the electorate MP. But in the area in which I am based one such issue is happening at this very time. There is a controversy between some residents of a particular area and some other residents as to the nature and status of an old-formed legal road reserve that is now subject to some altered use. It is a bit of a headache for the council but one which hopefully it will resolve to everybody’s satisfaction.Dr Richard Worth back in 2009 remarked: “This legislation deals with some very iconic areas of New Zealand. I am sure that not too many pieces of legislation can lay claim to resolving issues with three of our national parks Kahurangi Paparoa and Westland; one of the most iconic features of Dunedin city the Octagon; all of the volcanic cones dotted around Auckland city; and an offshore island marine sanctuary. The benefits of this legislation are considerable. There will be real benefits for people throughout this country from the community in Port Chalmers whose residents will see their local bowling club’s lease formalised to the Otago Aero Club which will have its future secured and to the art aficionados in Auckland who will appreciate the extension of the Auckland Art Gallery.”So the benefits of this legislation are considerable. That is what the good Dr Worth stated and indeed they might well be—or perhaps they might well have been had something been done about it at the time. But I do not know what has happened over the last 6 years with regard to the issues pertaining to this bill as far as the Dunedin Octagon is concerned. Perhaps Mr Woodhouse could inform us of that—never mind the Port Chalmers bowling club the Otago Aero Club or indeed the Auckland Art Gallery. I have no idea and I would hazard a guess that I am not alone and that many members of this House probably have not followed those issues through in detail.So that being the case in closing I reiterate that New Zealand First will support this bill reaching the Committee of the whole House where these matters might be addressed. And because we recognise that it could the way things are going be another 6 years before that Committee stage comes about I do not intend to take up any more of the time of the House in delaying that prospect any further. Thank you.