Williams Andrew: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williams Andrew: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8043. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill. Our party will certainly be opposing this bill for some of the reasons given by the speaker from the Greens Eugenie Sage but also for a number of other reasons. 
We have no issue with the two pieces of land the Palmerston Showgrounds and the other section in terms of formalising those longstanding relationships with the occupants and transferring the title so that it cleans up what has been an anomaly on those two properties for a very long time but we do have issue with the land at Forrester Heights and Lookout Point. Just because there is some doubt about the true status of this land whether it was reserve land or reserved for endowment land does not mean that this land should actually be taken away from public ownership and turned into a subdivision. It does not mean that this generation has the right to take land that has been there since 1884 and then— 
Hon Tariana Turia 
: It was there a long time before that. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: —and before that but in terms of having any status whatsoever since 1884 in the borough of Oamaru and having gone through all those generations of people as a lovely hillside behind the town looking out over the historic Oamaru central area—to suddenly cash it up subdivide it up and turn it into housing. It would be a great shame if this was the case throughout New Zealand. Most local authorities in New Zealand are charged with protecting the land protecting our reserves and protecting what we own for future generations not trying to carve it up and sell it off as fast as they can for housing. 
In this particular instance we were not convinced by all the information. There was a lot of conflicting information. The officials as we heard did a good job but there was still an awful lot of doubt and questionable interpretation of what happened in 1937 and it refers to the fact that there were perhaps some errors in perception then when the land was gazetted. But the mere fact that at the time it was gazetted those terms showed that there was an intent in some way or other for the land to be given a public status the fact that since 1937—and we are now in 2013; we are 80-odd years on—nothing has happened to that land apart from it being accessible by the public to walk across and for people to go up to the lookout and look out across Oamaru and the fact that quite a number of generations over seven or eight decades have deemed fit to leave it as public land and leave it in the rightful occupancy of the public mean that we should honour that commitment from not just this current Waitaki District Council but the former Oamaru Borough Council which saw fit to have that land with that particular status. 
We ourselves have also spoken with many of the locals in Oamaru and one of our MPs—he was a former Christchurch city councillor—Denis O’Rourke visited Oamaru and spoke extensively with some of the locals there. There is certainly a divide in the community of Oamaru as to this land being removed from public ownership and potentially being sold for a subdivision. There is sufficient concern in the Oamaru area and from a significant number of people in that area that this should certainly go to wider consultation. Perhaps the correct process would have been that if there was a certain element of doubt about the reserve status of this land or the endowment status of this land the Waitaki District Council should have moved actually to revoke it and have it under consultation to be taken out of public land ownership. If that was the case and the council put the cart before the horse instead of the horse before the cart and gave the public of Oamaru an opportunity to have perhaps a referendum on it and have some input into the status of this land before it actually made any decision either way to have the status on it revoked perhaps if it had done that and had had buy-in from the whole of the community and had full support of the whole community we would be a bit clearer in this House as to whether the right thing is being done here. But because there is doubt and because there are many in the community—and we heard the likes of Barry Monks and we heard the likes of Warren Crawford but there were many many other Barry Monks and Warren Crawfords and Mr and Mrs Monks and Mrs Crawfords and others in Oamaru—who similarly have a view that the wrong thing is being done here the wrong thing is being done here and we are basically allowing what is a somewhat uncertain process to be sanctioned by this House. 
New Zealand First does not approve of the sale of assets. We do not approve of the sale of land owned by the public unless there is an incredibly good reason for that to occur. In this case we do not believe there is a good reason for this to occur. We do not believe there is a good reason to change the status of this land and have it made into a housing division to blight the background to the Oamaru township to change the whole perspective of the Oamaru historical heritage township there and for the backdrop—instead of being open land and pristine untouched land—to be housing in the future. We do not believe that that is the right process and therefore New Zealand First will be voting against this bill.