Finlayson Christopher: Porirua City Council (Pauatahanui Burial Ground) Bill — First Reading 
Finlayson Christopher: Porirua City Council (Pauatahanui Burial Ground) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:640;Page:10283] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 I join the member for Otaki in praising those who have been involved in the preparation of this legislation and I can indicate that National will support this legislation in hopefully going through its Committee stage very quickly so that it can become law in the shortest possible time. 
I begin my brief contribution—I say brief because the member for Otaki has very comprehensively covered the history—by saying to the member for Mana how grateful I was as a National list MP working in the area that she was prepared to give me a briefing on the legislation and give me some relevant papers on the background. I thank her for her courtesy. 
This is a beautiful burial ground which is just over 150 years old. As Mr Hughes said it is situated in Pauatahanui not far from the roundabout. It has a beautiful site adjoining St Alban’s Anglican Church and churchyard. Essentially the current situation could be summarised as follows: the burial ground is now full for burials although there are a number of plots which have been acquired by persons in which no burial has yet been made. Importantly given the development of the road near the roundabout the burial ground now has no legal access and the entrance from Paekakariki Hill Road was closed for very obvious reasons of road safety several years ago. So if people want to get to the graveyard they have to go into the St Alban’s Church property and cross the St Alban’s graveyard. 
Pauatahanui residents and descendants of the people who are buried in the cemetery the descendants of the original trustees the Porirua City Council and the general Pauatahanui community would like to see the burial ground cared for and maintained in perpetuity. I too pay tribute to the dedicated team of local residents who have been looking after the cemetery property. I inspected the property and can endorse exactly what Mr Hughes said about the roses. Even in May they were truly beautiful. 
So legislation is indeed the most efficient and effective way of dealing with this issue and the explanatory note of the bill accurately summarises the reasons why legislation is necessary as a speedy and effective way to confirm the council’s ownership of the burial ground and dissolve the trusts. There are a number of other options that could have been taken but I agree with the explanatory note that those would have been more convoluted and problematical—for example applying to the High Court for the trusts to be modified or extinguished under the Charitable Trusts Act. That could have been possible but it would have had numerous difficulties associated with it. Certainly it would not have been possible to persuade the court in exercise of its inherent jurisdiction to modify the trusts and I agree with members that it is desirable to dissolve the trusts—because the burial ground is now closed—and vest management and control in the council. 
So I commend the Porirua City Council for its initiative in working on this legislation and being prepared to take over the administration of the burial ground. I have read some of the background correspondence and can see that much of the work on this issue has been undertaken by one of my former partners Duncan Laing and that perhaps explains why the bill is well drafted and should pass through its Committee stage very quickly. As an irrelevant aside I can say that when I was working as a solicitor for Duncan Laing many years ago I used to do work for the Porirua City Council and one job I had was to prosecute Sir Gerard Wall a former Speaker of this place because he would not demolish his builder’s shed. 
So there we have it. It is a good piece of legislation it should be able to pass through its stages very quickly and the National Party is happy to support it going to the Local Government and Environment Committee so that it can become law in the shortest possible time.