Dean Jacqui: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
Dean Jacqui: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:645;Page:14891] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chairman for allowing me to take a late call and it will be a short call. I just want to make a couple of points. During the course of this debate—which I have been following very closely in my office while doing some reading on what I thought was an unrelated matter—it has become increasingly clear to me that the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill has been brought to the House and sponsored by a member who has no faith in the Resource Management Act. I think that is a great shame and it is a very dangerous precedent for resource management and any kind of planning activity throughout New Zealand. 
Although the member sponsoring this bill can argue that it is merely a local bill relating to the Waitakere Ranges—and I know that the matter of Queenstown has been raised in the Committee already this evening and for good reason; it is a very special area also—I can see coming to this House in the future a “Remarkables Ranges Heritage Area Bill” or a “Maniatoto Ranges Heritage Area Bill”. What then for the integrity for the Resource Management Act? I too heard the arguments in the Local Government and Environment Committee. The question was raised as to where this so-called local bill sits in relation to the Resource Management Act and whether it sits on top of or alongside the district plan. I do not believe we heard a straight answer then and I do not believe I have heard a straight answer tonight. 
To come to the main point of my short contribution tonight I was sitting in my office reading about what I thought was an unrelated topic to do with South Island high country pastoral leases and I came across some eerie and disturbing similarities. When I go to the commentary at the beginning for the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill it states: “This bill has originated from the promoters’ view that a unique situation has developed in the Auckland area in that a nationally significant area of ecological historical and cultural value sits in close proximity to an expanding international city.” Then I go to a communication from a Mr Brian Usherwood General Manager Business Support for the Minister for Land Information the Hon David Parker who wrote to a high country lessee: “The Government has announced changes to tenure review processes designed to protect significant lakeside landscape biodiversity and other values on pastoral lease properties.” 
Hang on a minute what happened to the Resource Management Act? What happened to the protections that are provided under the district planning processes of the Resource Management Act? Or is this Government so arrogant that it thinks it can just override the normal processes that have been consulted on and are part of district planning processes and long-term council community plans? Can the Government then as with the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill ride roughshod over those processes just as it is doing with the South Island pastoral leases? It is exactly the same principle. 
The point I make in this debate is that this Government has no faith in the Resource Management Act; thank goodness the National Party does.