Brian Rudman: Excuse me, Dr Worth, maybe you should look at this, too

While embarrassed Cabinet minister Richard Worth is busily selling his Indian-related shares and checking his family trusts for any other possible conflicts of interest, perhaps he should also consider the appropriateness of being in charge of ushering the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill through Parliament.

This is the tidying-up bill I wrote of on Friday, which, among other things, is trying to legitimise Auckland City Council's hijacking of a corner of Albert Park reserve land to provide room for the public art gallery expansions.

The bill is also trying to pass off as "uncontroversial" the Department of Conservation's attempt to alter the famous 1915 act protecting Auckland's volcanoes so that DoC. not the Governor-General, becomes the final arbiter of who does what to the cones.

Yet Dr Worth was, according to his own website, litigation partner and chairman for 13 years of law firm Simpson Grierson, which was, and still is, Auckland City Council's "lead legal adviser".

Dr Worth's publicity material says this was "prior" to his parliamentary career, which began in 1999.

He doesn't add that as late as July 2006 Simpson Grierson continued to list him as a consultant in local government and environment. Its publicity material also brags about its "strong track record on major iconic developments" and lists the controversial public art gallery upgrade among them. Simpson Grierson also represented the Auckland City Council in cases involving the cones, including the on-going battle of Orakei Basin and the Mt Wellington housing development up the side of the cone I referred to on Friday.

Indeed the firm provided Auckland City's legal firepower when the Volcanic Cones Society was first set up to fight plans for further development on the slopes of Mt St John.

With this background in the proposed Albert Park and 1915 act amendments, Dr Worth, in leading the legislative process, is surely at risk of being seen to be promoting the interests of a company, and a council, that has served him well.

Those who want to make submissions have until April 24 to get comments to the primary production committee of Parliament.

On Friday I promised to reveal the third of the "non-controversial" legislative clean-ups related to Auckland being proposed in this bill. This one is more quirky than controversial.

The most controversial element seems to be the background note which claims that "in 1995, the Waitakere City Council, without lawful authority" carved a slice of land off Waikumete Cemetery, subdivided the land and sold it off for residential development.

The note says that because "the titles of the land were created by an invalid process ... the land retains its reserve status". The proposed amendment revokes the reserve status and "validates the dealing of the private owners".

Waitakere City officials say they're not the villains at all. Their story is that in 1876, the Crown set aside the land, labelling it "reserved for a cemetery".

More than a century later, DoC popped up and said that created reserve status and has been arguing this case ever since. But in 1978, when Waikumete was owned by Auckland City, DoC classified the whole area as Local Purpose Cemetery Reserve.

On April 1, 1989, the cemetery was transferred from Auckland City to Waitemata County Council.

The transfer was gazetted by Lands and Survey which didn't consult DoC and the new title made no reference to any reservation status. After amalgamation, the new Waitakere City Council inherited the land and decided to subdivide a slice in the west of the cemetery. A scenic reserve and 54 residential sections on the eastern side of Sunhill Rd were then developed.

DoC didn't catch up with this "improvement" until near completion, and when they did, they got upset yet again.

The city officials said then they planned to put the profits back into the maintenance and running of the cemetery and DoC seemed to settle down. Now, 20 years on, DoC seems intent on tidying up the loose ends.