Brian Rudman: Dr Smith should err on the side of consistency

The trickiest part of the [conservation] department's work is the clash between community conservation values and private property rights, said National MP Nick Smith in January 1997, soon after becoming Minister of Conservation.

Addressing Nelson Rotarians, he added, "There is a very fine balance point. People are protective of their land and particularly dislike being told what to do."

Today Dr Smith flies into Auckland to cynically exploit these particular fears at a public rally organised by developers opposed to proposed legislation to protect the Waitakere Ranges foothills from further suburban creep.

He showed his hand in comments in yesterday's Herald with his claim that the bill plans to take private land by stealth to create reserves.

He told my colleague Bernard Orsman, "I will not stand by silently if councils are going to abuse their powers over land owners and turn people's private land into parks. If Bob [Harvey, Mayor of Waitakere] wants these private people's land as parks, he should pay for it."

Anyone who has actually read the bill would know that Dr Smith's inflammatory claims are pure nonsense. Nowhere is there talk of land being seized, by stealth or otherwise.

Clause 34, outlining the preservation of existing rights, emphasises existing ownership rights, stating "Nothing in this act limits or affects any title or right to ownership of the land or natural resources within the Waitakere Ranges National Heritage Area ... "

The bill doesn't even prevent or freeze further sub-division in the foothills. What it does is give the community more powers than are presently available to decide the future use of the proposed heritage area as a whole. It's a planned fine-tuning of the Resource Management Act to enable it to deliver the integrated management and development of an area that the act promised but until now has failed to deliver.

Under the RMA, planning rules tend to concentrate on the here and now. The proposed legislation enables the community as a whole to take a step back in order to better view the future. Instead of just considering the immediate impact of a new building on the beach at Piha or a new shop in Titirangi Village, it proposes that citizens be able to draw up a vision of how they want Piha, or wherever, to be in the future, and use that to judge the effects of any new developments against that goal.

What the proposed legislation also does is to protect these new goals from the vagaries of the 10-year reviews of the district plan.

None of this takes away anyone's ownership rights, or existing development rights. What it tries to do is to guide the style and character of future development in the lungs of Auckland. And why not?

Despite all Dr Smith's scaremongering, communities have always controlled and regulated the way private landowners use their land. He only has to visit the brothel owners of Auckland to discover them singing from the same protest song sheet as his property developer buddies in Swanson. It'll be interesting to see whether Dr Smith finds it politic to take up their cause. After all, it's the same crusade - property owners demanding the unbridled right to do what they like on their own slice of dirt.

Before stirring up the audiences tonight, can I remind Dr Smith of a crusading speech he made as a new minister in May 1997 to a conference of divers. "Two or three decades ago, you were considered a bit weird if you were into saving trees and birds. Today it is not only the norm, but uncivilised to do anything else."

Declaring it his mission to take the conservation message off land and out to sea, he went where no minister had been before, and announced an end to the age-old right of recreational fishers to plunder the sea within the Poor Knights Islands Marine Reserve.

"I tend to favour the precautionary approach. If we are uncertain about the outcome we should err on the side of nature, not on the side of man."

Wouldn't it be great if it was that Nick Smith who stood up to address tonight's meeting.