Sage EugenieEUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I also acknowledge Ngāti Paoa in the gallery. The Point England Reserve is a magnificent piece of land on the Tāmaki estuary. It is unusual because it is public open space right on the coast. With the huge intensification of settlement that we are seeing in the Tāmaki area—partly through the Tāmaki Regeneration Co. and the State houses there that are being bowled and then redeveloped; partly through areas like Stonefields—there is going to be an increasing demand for people to access open space and particularly access the coast. A lot of the submitters on the bill when they talked about the Point England Reserve—which is in Part 1 Preliminary Provisions" in clause 3—talked about the value of that area for recreation and to get the replenishment of spirit that being under the sky next to the sea enjoying the birds and enjoying the open space enables.Minister Nick Smith has talked a lot about the 34 cows that graze on the Point England reserve. Some people said that they enjoyed seeing farm animals so close to the city. Others recognise the potential of the reserve in the future in response to the growing intensification to actually cater for those needs for a regional park. Indeed the Auckland Council identified the reserve as having regional significance in terms of being so close—12 kilometres—from the CBD yet being a coastal reserve that is similar to other coastal reserves like Long Bay which are so valued by Aucklanders for their open space and passive recreation values. The fact that it is used for cows grazing now protects its options for the future. But this bill the Point England Development Enabling Bill is all about overwhelming the Auckland Council and its decision making and circumventing the Auckland combined plan in terms of the rezoning that would normally happen under the Resource Management Act where land that is currently zoned as open space is rezoned as mixed urban residential for housing.The Green Party as Marama Davidson mentioned is abstaining on this bill because we strongly support the right of Ngāti Paoa to have their land go back to them. But again because this bill talks about the "Housing Act Minister" it is not giving Ngāti Paoa self-determination in terms of the way they use their land. It is the only way that they can get their land back. The letter from the Hon Chris Finlayson from 13 October made it very clear that the Crown had certain preconditions that needed to be met and if those preconditions were not met by Ngāti Paoa then the Crown would be able to offer this land to another party—not just another iwi party but potentially another developer. So this bill—and clause 3 with its reference to the "Housing Act Minister"—is all about enabling Nick Smith to sidestep and circumvent normal legal processes under the Resource Management Act and the Reserves Act in order to have housing built on the reserve.So that is why we are only abstaining on the bill because it does allow the land to go back to Ngāti Paoa. If this was a Treaty settlement bill there would not be these preconditions on how Ngāti Paoa could use the land. They would have the right of self-determination to determine whether they wanted to use it for housing or whether they wanted to use it for other purposes. So it is very much about the Minister for housing determining what should happen to the land and that is the reason we are not supporting it—because it sidesteps the usual legal processes.Denis O'Rourke: But you're abstaining. Not supporting means voting against.EUGENIE SAGE: Yes we are abstaining Mr O'Rourke because we can see the different factors at play in this bill—that it is the only way Ngāti Paoa can get their land back. But we are concerned and I have a number of Supplementary Order Papers to try to ensure that the community which has had such a strong interest in the progress in the progress of the bill actually gets the opportunity to have a say in terms of the housing development that happens on the land because the remaining reserve land and the Minister—Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m."