The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has reported back [PDF] on Darren Hughes' Airport Authorities (Sale to the Crown) Amendment Bill, and recommended that it not be passed. The bill would have given the government a first right of purchase on any former airport land when it came up for sale, addressing the oozing sore of Paraparaumu Airport (which was flogged off for a song by National in 1995, in gross violation of its duties under the Treaty of Waitangi and the Public Works Act, and subsequently subdivided for massive windfall profits) as well as any similar problems - but the committee didn't bother to address any of that. Instead, their "report" is simply a note that Hughes plans to withdraw the bill now that he is a Minister.
31 people submitted on that bill (no, I wasn't one of them). 16 bothered to turn up in person to discuss it. The least they deserved was some comment on the bill itself. Instead, the committee essentially told them that their views do not matter, and that public participation does not matter. And politicians wonder why they are held in such contempt...
The public deserve better than this.
