A petition against the proposed redevelopment of the Pegasus golf course will be presented to Parliament next week.

Labour list MP Dan Rosewarne told Chris Lynch Media the petition, organised with the Pegasus Residents Group, had closed with well over 15,000 signatures, and he, Waimakariri MP Matt Doocey and Waimakariri Mayor Dan Gordon would receive it on the steps of Parliament on the 22 July.

“The biggest concern that they have is that they didn’t get that say. They didn’t get that opportunity,” Rosewarne said.

“If it can happen in Pegasus, it can happen anywhere.”

Doocey said the special zoning for the golf course had lapsed, and any developer still faced hurdles in the fast track process, including assessment against legislated criteria, a substantive application, and an independent panel.

He said the community’s frustration was understandable.

“We’ve got a town here master planned round a golf course, and people brought into thinking that that was going to be protected. So quite rightly, they’re quite upset about that.”

Doocey said the Waimakariri district was fast-growing and residents generally accepted development in the right place, pointing to fast track housing projects already underway, including one at Gressons Road above Pegasus.

During the interview, Rosewarne noted publicly declared donations to the National Party recorded on the electoral website.

Asked directly whether he was suggesting any link to the fast track process, he said, “Absolutely not.”

Doocey said transparency around donations was a good thing and every party received them under New Zealand law.

The MPs traded blows over the Green Party’s policy to make union membership the default for new employees, with the ability to opt out.

Doocey said the policy would cost workers up to $1,000 a year.

“This is classic Greens ideology. They care about the planet, but don’t live on it. And all of a sudden, everyone’s got to be dictated to by a union master.”

He described the emerging opposition platform as “quite a far left communist agenda.”

Rosewarne said collective bargaining was a cornerstone of a fair and productive economy, and union membership decline since the 1980s had slowed real wage growth and increased income inequality.

He said Labour was not necessarily against the Green policy but would announce its own in due course.

On Chris Lynch Media’s reporting that more than 10,000 people are on the colonoscopy waiting list at Christchurch Hospital, with surveillance patients waiting an average of five months beyond their clinically due date, both MPs said the situation was unacceptable.

Doocey said the Government was outsourcing some of the waitlist to private providers, resourcing the front line, and rolling out home testing he said could reduce the number needing a colonoscopy by up to 30 percent.

“Not one of these things will be a silver bullet, but put together in a package.”

Rosewarne drew on his own experience with leukaemia about 12 years ago.

“I found that waiting for tests and results was the most mentally demanding and draining aspect of my cancer journey.”

“It is distressing to be months overdue, and in a country like New Zealand, this is unacceptable.”

He said outsourcing might help in the short term, but long term solutions required more staffing and capacity, and the Government had broken its promise to expand bowel cancer screening to people over 50.