Twyford Phil: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Twyford Phil: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6617. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 I just want to say that I am a little surprised that Maggie Barry took a call in this debate. There is a long-established principle—not really a Standing Order—known as the “Maggie Barry principle”. For example if you do not have children then you should not speak about a bill that relates to child rearing or children. It was very clear from Maggie Barry’s speech that she had never visited Forrester Heights. She showed us photographs and she told us stories about the old days when she visited the botanic gardens in Oamaru but it was very clear that she had not visited Forrester Heights and that is a clear breach of the “Maggie Barry principle”. 
Labour is supporting this Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill. As colleagues have pointed out no Oamaru stone has been left unturned as we have sought to solve the mystery that lies at the heart of this bill and that is the controversy over whether or not this land that we are talking about at Forrester Heights was indeed endowment land or whether it was land with reserve status. That confusion lies at the heart of the two debates now that we have had in the House on this and a lengthy select committee process. 
A number of members of this House visited Oamaru and in fact visited Forrester Heights. I was one of those and I want to thank Warren Crawford and Barry Monks who have really done everything they could to try to ensure that the truth comes out in this issue. Barry Monks did significant historical research working through—sifting through—what is an incomplete confusing and chaotic paper trail the historical record about this block of land. I want to commend Barry Monks for the work that he did. 
But it is clear—for members on the Labour benches at least—that to the best of our knowledge and to the best of our understanding and I think that of a majority on the Local Government and Environment Committee it was in fact a genuine mistake lost in the mists of time now that this block of land known as Forrester Heights was regarded as reserve land whereas in fact it was endowment land. 
I want to say to New Zealand First and Green colleagues in this debate that I believe that it is pretty clearly established that the question of what happens to this land—whether it is developed or not—is a matter for the Waitaki District Council to decide. It is not a matter for this House through some back-door route—for instance by denying a bill that seeks to rectify the legal status of the land. It is not a legitimate course of action for this House to interfere in the normal and legitimate workings of the democratically elected council of Waitaki District. 
I can understand that the New Zealand First members take the view that they were not convinced by the discussion at the select committee. That is a matter of interpretation and reasoning. That is entirely their call to make of course and that is the basis of New Zealand First’s position. But I do question really the logic and coherence of the Green Party’s position in this debate. To vote against this bill on the basis that it does not believe that the quality of the consultation that the Waitaki District Council made in relation to seeking a resource consent for subdivision—the quality of public consultation—was good enough is not a legitimate or logical reason to vote against this bill. So that I think needs to be said. 
Why were the people of Oamaru or at least some of the community in Oamaru so suspicious about this bill? I think there is a reason why the people of Oamaru were suspicious about what looked like on the face of it a kind of jack-up between property developers and local politicians to turn what they regarded as a piece of valuable public reserve land into a private housing subdivision and the reason is that the National Party has form in this area. There is a reason why the public is suspicious of a party that never hesitates to try to sell off public resources and public assets into private ownership. That is the reason that the people of Oamaru are suspicious that the National Party would bring a bill to this House to try to flog off public reserve land. As it turns out in this instance it is the right thing to do we believe based on the best reading of the historical record to rectify the confusion and the ambiguity about the status of this block of land. 
But there is a reason that people are suspicious of the National Party: because it has a track record of selling off assets that belong to the community that belong to the public. The National Party believes ideologically that property and assets that belong to the people can best be shifted into private ownership and private control. It has a track record of constantly undermining our democratic institutions in local government. Within the next few days we are going to debate a bill in this House the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill which does a gross disservice to communities and to local democracy in this country. So those are the reasons why people are suspicious of the National Party. 
There is another member’s bill on the Order Paper currently. It is the South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Bill which is another bill— 
Hon Chester Borrows 
: A local bill. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: It is a local bill. I beg your pardon. Thank you to the member for correcting me. It is a local bill but it is another bill that on the face of it looks like a deal that has been cooked up by local interests to shift a publicly owned water supply into private hands. People are suspicious of that and they will be. The National Party gives them every reason to be suspicious about that. The members on the other side of the House do not like hearing a few home truths but they should just listen and in fact listen to the voices of the people of New Zealand who are utterly opposed to asset sales and privatisation. 
I visited Oamaru as part of a trip around New Zealand talking to rural and provincial councils and actually listening to them about how this Government is squeezing the lifeblood out of local roads and local transport because of its misguided and mismanaged transport policies. I was in Oamaru and the local Federated Farmers and the local council were scathing about the failure of the local member to stand up for them on the question of local roads. There was not only the question of local roads and how this Government is cutting the funding for local roads and putting more and more pressure on the local ratepayer; they were terribly upset about what this Government is doing with the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill—taking the democratic rights of local communities away from them and setting communities up all around rural and provincial New Zealand for forced amalgamations. That is what this Government’s agenda is in local government. That is why people have been so suspicious about this bill. 
But as it turns out I believe that the member for Waitaki should be congratulated as many colleagues have said on bringing this bill to the House. It is a perfectly good and reasonable bill. The select committee has done its work. It has done its work it has taken the advice of officials it has investigated the historical record and I believe that the best efforts have been made to actually determine what the appropriate status for this land is and whether it should be endowment land or reserve land. Labour is supporting this bill. Thank you very much.