Hughes Gareth: National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hughes Gareth: National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4811. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Speaker. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to take a call on the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill. The Green Party supports the National War Memorial Park but we will not be supporting the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill at its first reading. We support the memorial. We support a park. As a Wellingtonian I am excited by the idea that we will get a bit of green space a bit of quiet space in an otherwise pretty busy and hectic part of the town in Mount Cook. We think it is important that we do commemorate the people who have fallen and are immortalised around this Chamber. I was recently in London where I got to see the new New Zealand war memorial in downtown London. It is a great example I feel of how we can have modern war commemorations that do not use the traditional mould. I note that Australia has still got the traditional one in the park next to ours. They can be powerful emotional reflections of our national character and I think that it is a good example of that. 
The Green Party will not be supporting the bill because it is drafted in such a manner that overrides the Resource Management Act the Historic Places Act and the Public Works Act and takes from the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act the provisions whereby further rules can be amended by Orders in Council. I think it is important to reflect on why the Green Party is opposed to this bill. We are opposed to this because it is a damaging precedent in our democracy. I have gone through the history. I am aware of a number of bills and Acts that have been enacted by this Parliament over the years to enact transport projects like the Tauranga expressway and there are a few more like the Auckland Harbour Bridge but none of them used the powers—the immense and considerable powers—outlined in this bill to override legislation. In fact the only examples that the Parliamentary Library could find this afternoon were the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act and the Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Act which were passed in this current Government’s time on the Government benches. This is the only Government that is drafting laws that allow itself to override any laws—or in this case a constrained number of laws—that it wants to override. This is the only Government that is drafting laws that allow it to amend future laws through Orders in Council. We think it is a damaging dangerous precedent. Although we do not think it is likely to be abused under this law we do not think it is the path this Parliament or this country should be going down. We support the democratic rights of law the due process that our soldiers went overseas to serve and to protect. 
I have not heard from the Government or from the Labour Party benches the reason why we have to have legislation to override these three laws and to give themselves other powers through Order in Council. What is the reason? I think we all know but it is embarrassing because we do not want to mention it and that is that the Government has not given itself enough time to enact it to get the time to go through the normal processes because the Government scrapped it. The history is that in 2004 Helen Clark first announced the formation of this park which the Green Party supported. In 2007 Labour put $10 million towards it. In 2009 it was the Government in its line by line review that removed the funding. The only reason why we have to do this I think amazing and dangerous precedent step of passing laws to build a road and a park is that the Government has not given itself enough time to do it because the Government scrapped the money. The Government has raided the transport pantry and there is not enough money left for projects like this because the Government would rather spend it on seven uneconomical roads of national significance. This is the real issue we should be addressing. Although I would like to stress that the Green Party supports the war memorial and we support the park we do not support the process that is going through. We are seeing the same pattern emerge when it comes to the select committee consideration—a constrained time for New Zealanders for Wellingtonians to have a say. 
What we are concerned about of course is we are going to get a less than ideal process. The point of having an open and appropriate length of time for public consultation and processes through the Resource Management Act or the Historic Places Act is so we make the right decisions. What we are concerned about is we are not going to see the right decisions being made. We are not going to see maybe common-sense decisions to mitigate an unfortunate side effect or impact of this project because the Government wants to race it through because it has run out of time because the Government is a poor manager. That is the real reason why we have to go through this unprecedented step. 
The Green Party wants to see it done right. We want to see proper processes and that is why we will not be supporting this bill. We will go into the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee with a constructive manner. We would like to improve this bill but it has to be pointed out that look this road is only 5 years old and this Government at a time of austerity at a time of debt crisis has all this money to dig up a road that is only 5 years old and it has to do it through legislation because of its bad decision-making. It is a shocking state of affairs and that is why I am proud to be a member of the party that is voting against it today.