NANDOR TANCZOS (Green): I rise to support the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill on behalf of the Green Party. The bill should be supported because of the particular circumstances that pertain in this case, in particular the enormous pressure that is placed on the Waitakere area due to the population pressure from the Auckland urban area, and the urgency of the need for protection.
The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has described the dismemberment of the Waitakere Ranges as a "death by a thousand cuts", and I think that is an apt description.
Protection has been requested for over 30 years now, and it is high time that something was done.
At this moment I would like to mention Gary Taylor, one of the founders of the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society, and to acknowledge the work he put into this. I also acknowledge John Edgar, who is the current president of that society. I also take the opportunity to mention the many Green Party members who have been working on this campaign, along with other people in the community, in other political parties and, in particular, Kath Dewar.
However, even though the Green Party supports the bill, it is concerned to ensure that the problems the bill intends to address are dealt with in a systemic rather than piecemeal fashion.
I agree with comments by Paula Bennett that the Resource Management Act should be able to protect the hinterlands of the Waitakere Ranges. It seems straightforward; the ranges would be classified as a special zone, with a strong district plan with clear objectives in place to protect those areas, and with rules on how those objectives would be implemented. That should be sufficient.
However, we also have to recognise in the House that courts are starting to open that assurance up to question. In particular, the court decision that stated that the Thames-Coromandel District Council could not prohibit particular activities, such as mining — even just from Department of Conservation land and from the coastal marine area — demonstrates that the courts are beginning to interpret this legislation in a way that was not intended by Parliament.
So I agree with Mr Brian Donnelly that the House needs to address that issue. It does, perhaps, need to look at the Resource Management Act in order to clarify the intentions of Parliament with regard to those kinds of areas — next time we do one of our perennial Resource Management Act reviews.
But in the meantime we also have to be aware that this is an area of particular importance. It is under enormous pressure because of the population growth that is occurring in Auckland. We are seeing the dismemberment of the area, and it is quite right that the House in this instance should be supporting a bill of this nature. But we should bear in mind that we do not want to see a proliferation of local government bills that come before the House to designate this area or that area as a special area, because, of course, we then have the potentially unintended consequence that all areas not designated are then not special areas and do not deserve protection.
We have to be really clear that it would be a substantial misreading of the intention of the House if any court or any other person was to assume that a designation such as this one was intended to denigrate or take away from any other place that deserved protection under any district plan or under the Resource Management Act.
So we do support the bill, we look forward to going to the select committee to work through its details, and we commend it to the House.
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