Hayes Joanne: Wellington Town Belt Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHayes Joanne: Wellington Town Belt Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 16 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6720. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JOANNE HAYES (National): I stand to support the Wellington Town Belt Bill sponsored by the member Grant Robertson. I say congratulations to you Grant for having it come through after such a long time there in the Bills Office. Timutimu pāria rākau pāria whānui te ara i a tāna—ward off post and weapon so that the expansive path of mankind is opened up. This is the whakataukī uttered by Te Wharepōuri Te Kakapi-o-Te Rangi during the arrival of the colonial ships within the Wellington Harbour and upon the foreshores of Pētone in the 1830s. The words he uttered show foresight on his part and on the part of his whānau his hapū and his iwi and signalled that the world that they were currently living in was going to change and it was going to change for ever. However I am sure that back then the process for acquiring lands for the town belt from the Crown left a lot of unanswered questions. I am sure that the iwi of Te Ātiawa Ngāti Ruanui Taranaki Ngāti Tama together with Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika and Ngāti Toa were a little bit shocked to find out that this was all happening to their lands. But as time has gone by things have changed.Yet none the less the land acquisition went ahead and the New Zealand Land Company’s initial settlement plan provided 1562 acres for public reserves for the original town belt around the Port Nicholson area or Wellington City as it stands today. On 16 October 1841 the Governor of New Zealand notified that the reserves provided for in the company’s plans were reserved by the Crown for public purposes without consulting at the time or compensating iwi.On 3 June 1861 the Crown conveyed to the superintendent of the Wellington province in trust the lands for the purposes of public utility to the town and its residents. The Wellington City Reserves Act 1871 instructed the superintendent to convey parts of the town belt to the mayor and councillors of Wellington City which he did. Then in 1873 the superintendent implemented the Town Belt Deed which conveyed three parcels of land which have been discussed in the House so far on trust to the council’s predecessor which included the town belt the Canal Reserve and the Basin Reserve.As I said at the start of my speech iwi have not been consulted let alone compensated for the actions the Crown took at the time so they carried grievances on these actions for a very long time. It was not until August of 2008 that these grievances were heard and the claims came through this House for the settlement for Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika and then in December 2012 for Ngāti Toa Rangatira.In closing there has been some uncertainty about the legal status of the Wellington town belt the extent to which the Wellington town belt is protected for future generations and council powers to protect manage and enhance the town belt but what this bill does is it gives that certainty. It now brings it all together for the council and for the people of Wellington by becoming a principal source of the council’s power for protecting managing and enhancing the Wellington town belt by providing a transparent statutory basis for the council’s trusteeship and management of the town belt and most important by providing a mechanism for land to become part of the town belt.Again I say congratulations to Grant Robertson. I look forward to this bill coming through the Local Government and Environment Committee. I commend it to the House. Kia ora.