Copeland Gordon: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Copeland Gordon: Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:612;Page:9296] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 I was delighted to hear that the Minister in the chair was born on the West Coast because West Coasters are generally speaking a good lot and I am pretty fond of them. I even have a son who has chosen to live down there in Charleston and it is a great place. If the West Coasters have one fault it is that they tend to be more loyal to Michael Joseph Savage than they are sometimes to themselves. In other words they are in some ways a bit too Labour for their own good. Because in spite of the fact that the West Coast Accord as the Hon Ken Shirley has just told us was broken—and that was a broken promise—they still vote back into this House a Labour member of Parliament. I just want to tell the Government and the Minister in the chair as a West Coaster because he will know this very well that even the West Coasters do have their limits. I want the Minister in the chair to tell the West Coasters why the Labour Government is now blackballing the Dobson dam project. Why is it blackballing it? 
If Michael Joseph Savage knew the facts he would turn over in his grave. The West Coasters have their limits and the Government should not push those limits too far. I think the Government will find shortly that the West Coasters will decide that for once they will put their own interests ahead of their traditional allegiance to the Labour Party. 
I want to deal also with a couple of points raised by Ian Ewen-Street. He said that this Dobson dam did not matter because it was going to produce electricity only for Auckland. Well I want to tell members that some time ago—and Ian Ewen-Street was not there—Carter Holt Harvey came to this Parliament and gave a briefing to the Labour and United Future caucuses. That company is on a knife-edge right now about whether it even stays in this nation. One of its problems is the price of electricity. Any way this country can generate electricity to industries like Carter Holt Harvey means jobs. We are risking losing thousands of jobs because we are stupidly locking up renewable resources that can generate electricity in favour—and this is the thing that I cannot understand—of using fossil fuels to generate electricity. How the heck that can be consistent with a conservation ethic I am blowed if I know. It is exactly the opposite. It really does lack common sense. 
The West Coast has some things going for it at the moment. It has dairying growing very quickly. The Minister was just telling me that the unemployment rate down there is very low. The West Coast is booming. But what will bring it to a halt pretty quickly is that it has to import electricity. The dairying industry alone has a great growth in electricity. The the Pike River coal mine which I hope goes ahead needs electricity. There is Macrae’s gold mine which after years and millions of dollars actually got consent to go ahead; that needs electricity. It has to import the blinking stuff across the main divide even though it is in the highest-rainfall area in the country. That gold mine has a perfectly ecologically sound project ready to go ahead which it wants and we are busy denying it electricity. 
I want to make one other point and that is that the Minister said when he took the call that one can only use amendments to correct oversights. Well I tell the Minister that this matter was not overlooked. The very fact that there is an amendment before this Committee indicates that this matter was not overlooked—it is in the report. I was not aware of that until Ken Shirley mentioned it. The issue is that they were out-voted on the select committee in relation to this matter. So therefore it is perfectly appropriate in my view and I hope this amendment will be ruled in because it does relate to the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill. It is a perfectly legitimate place to try to address an issue of national importance and therefore I hope that the amendment will be put. If it is United Future will certainly be supporting it. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: We have an amendment. The amendment is in order. While technically it may be desirable for an amendment to be non-controversial and have the support of all parties there is no requirement that it be so—and this is not the Statutes Amendment Bill. 
The question was put that the following amendments in the name of Hon Dr Nick Smith to clause 3 and to insert new clauses 12A and 12B be agreed to: 
to insert in clause 3 the following definition: 
Card Creek land 
 means the 500 hectares of land required for the Dobson Hydro Development in the Card Creek Ecological Area as specified in Schedule 1 of this Act and amounts to 9.6% of the area of the Card Creek Ecological Area; and 
to insert the following new clauses: 
12ABackground to Card Creek land 
(1)A hydro development has been proposed for the Arnold River to expand the existing small 12 MW scheme to 62 MW to alleviate the nationwide and more particularly the Top of the South shortfall in electricity supply. 
(2)The Grey District Council proposed a land swap whereby 720 hectares of Council land known as the Mt Buckley Block will be added to the Card Creek Ecological Reserve in exchange for 500 hectares being taken out of reserve status for the purposes of the scheme. 
(3)The uplifting of the reserve status over 500 hectares of the Card Creek Ecological Area will allow the Dobson Hydro Proposal to be considered under the Resource Management Act. 
12BReserve status of Card Creek land revoked 
The reservation of the Card Creek land as a reserve under the Reserves Act is revoked.