Smith Nick: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
Smith Nick: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:645;Page:14887] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I firstly thank Hone Harawira for his contribution to the debate in which he reflected on the historic Maori words spoken in 1860 that included the reference to “this land is a fish.” I want to make it plain to the member that I am quite respectful of those comments and their appropriateness. What I challenge the member on is whether the phrase is good law. There are many many proverbs. For instance I come from the Christian faith and often these words are recited in church and indeed they go right back to Jesus Christ: “This bread is my body.” Would I support a bill going through this Parliament that stated: “This bread is my body.”? No I would not. Is that being disrespectful of the Christian faith? No it is not. It is about having the good sense to know what is good law and what is bad law. The National Party is arguing tonight that such a reference in a history book about what was said at the time and references at public occasions to those historic words are all quite appropriate but to put them in resource management law from which people have to make decisions about whether to grant a consent is a nonsense. It does not add value to the protection. 
I challenge the Maori Party on this point. If the bill set up some clear specifics around what Maori want protected in the Waitakere Ranges then it might make some sense and the National Party might be able to support it. If the bill had a reference to a particular part of coastline or a burial ground or urupa that people want protected then yes that would make some sense. We would then understand what the law means. The problem is that the sorts of vague phrases that are in the bill make the law of this country a nonsense. They do not provide for clear decision-making and what is worse they actually lead to poor race relations in the sense that both Maori and Pakeha New Zealanders do not know the meaning of the law. There are fights in court with nobody knowing what is meant. 
I also want to reflect on the comments from David Cunliffe. He spent his entire speech thanking everybody but he said one other set of words. He said that the reason we need this bill is that the Resource Management Act does not do a good job of dealing with cumulative effects. My question for Mr Cunliffe is this: if the Resource Management Act does not do a good job of dealing with cumulative effects—an extra section here an extra section there an extra house there and an extra building there in the Waitakere Ranges—then why would the Resource Management Act work with cumulative effects in Canterbury Banks Peninsula the beautiful Marlborough Sounds the beautiful Bay of Islands an area like Hawke’s Bay or an area like Golden Bay? I ask whether the member in the chair Lynne Pillay can explain it to me. If it is indeed the flaws in the Resource Management Act that do not allow the cumulative effects in the Waitakere Ranges to be managed properly then why are we choosing only an area of less than 1 percent of New Zealand in which to fix the problem? If there is a problem with the cumulative effects and the way they are treated under the Resource Management Act then surely we should fix it for all of New Zealand. 
I ask the member in the chair whether she agrees with Mr Cunliffe that the reason for this bill is that the Resource Management Act does not deal well with cumulative effects. The member is absolutely silent. She has no idea. Well either she agrees with him or she does not. Oh she does not agree with him. She nods her head and she does not agree that that is the reason. Well now we have the members of the Labour Government from the Waitakeres all over the paddock. Here at the end of the Committee stage of the bill they cannot even agree on why we need the bill. 
I have to say that that is absolutely consistent with the position taken through the Committee stage and in the Local Government and Environment Committee. There is total confusion within the Government as to why we need this bill. Those members do not know why. It is solely an exercise in politics. They want to be able to run around during the election campaign and say that they saved the Waitakere Ranges when those people who have any knowledge of this area of law know that it is a load of codswallop. This bill is solely about politics; it is not about providing good law. I think that the real problem for Labour is this: its environmental record is a dog. In the key areas it has not performed—