Dean Jacqui: Walking Access Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dean Jacqui: Walking Access Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18590. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) 
: 
 National supports the Walking Access Bill. It is a good bill and the reason National supports it is that it is National Party policy and it has taken the Government only 5 years to come around to its position on access over private land. The key to why National supports this bill is that it does not impinge on private property rights. That is a position National has long held.  
When Labour first introduced the walking access issue—and it shows just how out of touch Labour is with the primary sector—it called for the creation of compulsory walking strips across private land. Compulsory walking strips bring to mind the proposals the Government made in relation to the new dog control laws. Do members remember that Labour wanted to have private fenced-off walking strips between the front gate and the home? When the Government was exploring that particular daft idea I had visions of people who like me live on State Highway 1. There is a long area from our front gate to our home. I could just imagine a fenced private walking strip to provide safe access to our front door and protect people from our lovely old Labrador who would have licked them to death. But I go back to the Walking Access Bill. The particularly daft idea of the Labour Government some 5 years ago has been dropped and we now have the Walking Access Bill in its current form which National does support.  
The Local Government and Environment Committee received a number of submissions—30 or 40 I think—on the Walking Access Bill. A number of people were very concerned that designating a public walkway across a paper road would then cut off vehicular access to the paper road. That was a huge concern of submitters and rightly so. But that was dropped from the bill—yet again at select committee—by National members advocating for people to have access. We have the most beautiful country in the world. The South Island is arguably the most beautiful part of the most beautiful country in the world and a number of people in the South Island are very keen on access to our beautiful lakes our beautiful rivers our beautiful fishing spots and our beautiful high country tracks. One could go on forever about access opportunities. This bill will negotiate access via the New Zealand Walking Access Commission. But the key for National is that nothing in this bill impinges on private property rights. That is sensible. That is a position that National can endorse and agree with. So from that point of view National supports this bill.  
The provisions of this bill establish the New Zealand Walking Access Commission and I will go into the commission’s role in more detail. Its members will be appointed by the Minister. I would be very disappointed to see any appointments made after this enactment of this bill because there is such a short time to go before the election. I would be interested in comments from the Minister on that. I would be extremely disappointed if long-held conventions of this House were disregarded as they were last weekend when the Minister of Conservation made up to 50 appointments to conservation boards. That is not in the good spirit of this Parliament and I hope it does not happen. I ask the Minister to take a call on that and give us some indication as to whether upon the enactment of this bill the Minister intends to make appointments to the Walking Access Commission. I invite the Minister to answer that query.  
Last week I attended a function for members of the Walking Access Consultation Panel. A number of people from around New Zealand sat on that panel and did an awful lot of good work. I must say that I think the work of John Aspinall of Wanaka was particularly useful because as a high country farmer himself he understands very well what it is like to own a beautiful part of New Zealand where people want to visit. It is a very very strongly held belief of his that access is by negotiation and not by compulsion—and compulsion is just typical of Labour. That is what Labour members want is it not? That is what they wanted when this bill was first introduced.  
I want to finish this thought because I think it is important. The Labour Government wanted to have compulsory walkways over private land. Not only is that impractical and expensive but it impinges on every private property right held very dear by people in New Zealand. High country farmers in the South Island and other private landowners have no problem with providing access to the most beautiful features of their properties. In fact it is a convention in New Zealand that if a fisherman a four-wheel driver a tramper or someone horse-trekking wants to go across private land he or she rings the landowner and asks for permission. That permission is given and away one goes. That permission might be withheld if lambing is going on or if the property is a deer farm and one wants to visit at a certain time of year. But in general there was no problem with access and nothing actually needed fixing.  
The good thing about this bill is that the Labour Government has come right round to the right position. It has taken it 5 years but the Government has come right round to National’s position of providing access by negotiation not compulsion.