New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Bill

Clearly, Part 1 of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Bill is very important, because it includes both the commencement date and the purpose of the legislation. I want to make just one point about the commencement date. If one looks at the legislative history of this bill, one can see that it was introduced on 10 December 2002. Once again, one does wonder why this Labour Government would dawdle its way through such an important bill that is to do with a national icon, take 2 years about it, and then rush it through under urgency. The Government certainly conforms to a pattern of doing that. As my colleague said, the Government should learn how to manage its workload a hang of a lot better than it has managed it over the last 4 years.

Far more important than that is the purpose of this bill, which is to establish the orchestra as a body corporate under the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Act and as a Crown entity for the purposes of the Public Finance Act. It would be very useful for the Minister in the chair, the Hon Judith Tizard, to take a call to explain to the House why for years she has said that the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has attained some of the finest performances around the world, has become an icon in New Zealand’s history, and has achieved both artistic excellence and independence under the present legislation, when she has now turned round and said no, the Government is to destroy that model and bring in classic Labour Party command and control. That seems ironic. Hopefully, the Minister will explain that—or was she not really sincere in her comments about the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra over the last 10-15 years?

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra started in 1946, and it has an extraordinary record. As I have said before, the National Party absolutely supports it. We want to see it flourish in an atmosphere of independence. After all, one of the strengths of the present legislation is, indeed, that as a limited liability company the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra does not require prescription as to its purposes and functions, nor as to the Government’s expectations of it. That is a great quality. Why is this Labour Government so insistent on wanting to bring in a whole set of prescriptions?

Further down in the purpose of the legislation, I notice the question of providing for the governance of the orchestra, for the duties of the board, and for administrative matters. I have pointed this out before, but I think it is worthwhile emphasising. If, indeed, the Labour Government was to be consistent—and heaven help us, it has a legacy of being very inconsistent—

💬 Clayton Cosgrove: Tell us about Don’s tax rates!

I ask Mr Clayton Cosgrove to tell us why, with an $8 billion budget for the health system, he insists on majority-elected health boards, yet when it comes to the $10 million budget of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra he wants a pure governance model. We are not against that, but we think the Government should be consistent. We think that the Government should have appropriate experts dealing with an $8 billion budget, just as it has with a $10 million budget.

Again, I say it would be very helpful if the Minister would take a call to provide us with an explanation of why this Government is not being consistent in terms of its view on managing an $8 billion budget, compared with a $10 million budget.

I welcome the opportunity to take a call in the Committee stage of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Bill. Part 1 sets out the commencement and the purpose of the Act. I have previously described this bill as an overkill, and my colleague Paul Hutchison demonstrated that pretty concisely. I took cognisance of Clayton Cosgrove’s interjection, when Paul Hutchison was talking about taxpayers’ money. He is certainly right; this is $10 million worth of taxpayers’ money. We have a whole lot of taxpayers’ money going into the district health boards. The governance structure of the orchestra is set out in a way that just makes for a laugh at the way that the Government has structured the district health boards. There are majority-elected boards in the health sector, and here in this bill there is little provision at all for a similar sort of representation on the orchestra’s board. So I think my colleague did ask the Minister in the chair, the Hon Judith Tizard, a good question, and I am sure she will answer it when she thinks it is the appropriate time to do so.

The purpose of the bill is to establish the orchestra as a Crown entity under the Public Finance Act. This Government, in its judgment, came to the conclusion that the orchestra’s previous structure under the Companies Act was not, in the Government’s view, meeting the commercial framework, and that it appeared to have had minimal impact on the orchestra’s trading performance. However, I wonder whether this new structure will contribute to the overall purpose of the bill, which is, as I understand it, to propose a framework that will encourage artistic independence and artistic integrity. I wonder whether it was necessary to make the changes that are proposed in this bill.

The purpose clause also sets out the principal objectives of the orchestra, its functions, and its powers. We will come to that in a minute. But the National Opposition has already signalled that those matters are overly prescriptive. In my view, if one states a prescription, one should do something if the prescription is not delivered on. When debating the functions and the objectives of the orchestra, members will see that in essence, although it may be easy to be prescriptive, it is not as easy to figure out what one may do if the board cannot deliver on that prescription. We will come to that issue in due course.

New clause 3(d), inserted by the Government Administration Committee, states that one of the purposes of the legislation is to: “provide for the governance of the Orchestra, the duties of the board, and for administrative matters”. We have said already, and we will be saying this again when we come to part 2, that all that those purposes demonstrate is that this certainly is legislation from a Labour Government. It is about State control and State prescription, and there is room for ministerial direction. Clause 3 states that ministerial direction is only to be in relation to governance. But when one is prescriptive about the objectives, then clearly it is envisaged that if there is a view that the objectives are not being delivered on, then there will be ministerial intervention. I have no doubt about that, particularly under a Labour Government, because that is the way that this Government has behaved in all the years it has been in Government.

It is clear that the New Zealand public is getting sick of that. The public is getting sick of the nanny State—of State control, and of the State prescribing everything. Now we are prescribing how we expect the Symphony Orchestra to perform, and that just will not do.

We now have moved on to the Committee stage, and we are talking about Part 1—clauses 2 to 5. This part deals with the purpose of the bill. I would say that the purpose of this bill was to totally stuff up the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and, as Georgina te Heuheu said, turn it into a State-controlled orchestra. In the Minister’s haste to turn it into a State-controlled orchestra she is totally ignoring the importance of the duties of the board of the orchestra, and she is ignoring the interests of the players in the orchestra—people who have spent a lifetime getting themselves to the stage where they can be chosen and have the honour to play in a symphony orchestra. I cannot help wondering that if this orchestra were the New Zealand hip-hop orchestra made up of hip-hop performers, the Minister would give those performers a lot more regard and respect than she is giving the first violinists, leading flautists, and soloists with the Symphony Orchestra. We spent $26,000 on sending a—[Interruption] I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I ask that member to tone down her interjections.

I do not mind interjections, but I thought running commentaries were out of order.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Yes, they are.

I call on that member to take a call if she has got something constructive to say; she says she will—good. I ask the Minister to stand up, in these times of cultural relativity, and tell us why hip-hop performers are deemed to be more important than players in a symphony orchestra. The Minister laughs; well, that is the respect she holds for players in the Symphony Orchestra. She has laughed them off the board. They are not allowed any representation on the board. It is the arrogant, “We know best.” attitude that an artist or creative person cannot think and cannot be involved in the governance of the Symphony Orchestra. It is a shame. It is a disgrace that we are not going to allow creative people to be members of the board.

I question the National Party’s wisdom. Its members have indicated they will vote with the Labour Government not to allow a member of the players’ committee to be represented on the board. I think the National Party should take another call and explain its reasons for not allowing that. ACT members do not support this bill—it will go through, anyway—but we do support the amendments of two of my colleagues from United Future and the Greens that state that the Minister must appoint a players’ representative on to the board; otherwise, we will end up with a Symphony Orchestra board made up of people who are great at running a company, or very well versed in kaitiakitanga, the tangata whenua, or the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi—if they did know what the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi were, they would probably be the only people in New Zealand who did—but have no knowledge about the creative direction and creative purposes of a symphony orchestra.

I do worry about that, because elsewhere in this bill the orchestra is required to play to an international standard, required to promote New Zealand music, and required to promote New Zealand musicians. There will be no one on the board who knows about all those things, who knows about international standards, who knows about New Zealand music, who knows whether New Zealand music is good or rubbish. It is no use playing music just because it is New Zealand music; if it is not good music, the audiences will simply stay away. The purpose of this bill is to turn the orchestra into a Crown-owned entity as opposed to a limited-liability company, so it cannot go broke, even though it does still have to be financially accountable. But if the audiences stay away, what will the Minister do when she has no one on the board who knows about the actual musical creativity of the orchestra? The Minister still has not given us a reason why she is so averse to players being on the board, and I ask her to do that.

It is difficult to understand why player representation is not wanted on the board. It might be argued that player representatives could put the interests of the players ahead of the broader interests of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, but that is unlikely to happen. When the interests of the players are greater than the interest of the public at large, their representatives would have to declare that interest.

It could be argued that such representation is not a common thing to do, but that does not stand up, either. If we look at the boards of tertiary institutions, we see they have both student and staff representatives, and that works very well. I might add that most of our tertiary institutions have much broader interests, much more diverse interests, and much larger budgets to administer than the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

It is in the interests of all board members to work collaboratively. Each is a minority, and his or her views will be adopted only if he or she can convince the other board members of their merit. Regional orchestras have player representation. Australian orchestras have player representation. Who else is likely to bring the same combination of passion and knowledge about the core business of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra? Who else is able to bring the same level of experience, or memory, of the practical implications of decisions?

Board membership is not a position for just any member of the orchestra, but with 90 educated, intelligent, experienced, and passionate players for the Minister to choose from, I have no doubt that it will be possible to come up with a musician with a mix of experience in the areas of administration, governance, the community, and the arts that complements the contribution of the other board members. Members of the orchestra are parents. They are members of the community. They will have been on school boards of trustees. They will have held other administrative positions. I know a number of those people. They are extraordinarily intelligent and educated individuals with a broader knowledge than just simply the knowledge of playing in an orchestra. They are the kinds of people that I would have thought were wanted on a board. They would bring a level of expertise that nobody else could bring. They would bring a level of experience that nobody else could bring. I would have thought that that experience and expertise would be vital to good decision-making.

I have been on decision-making committees and I have noticed that when decisions are made for people who are not represented, those people are resentful. I suspect that a measure of resentment would grow around a decision to exclude the players. When I think of the flare with which the players presented their submission to the Government Administration Committee, I think it is the kind of flare that the orchestra could do with. They came and played; they gave their submission with a bit of flare and with a bit of buzz. If we fail to pass an amendment, that will undermine the effectiveness of the board. If we pass it, it will bring about a new measure of trust between the board members and the players. The legislation is good, and on everything else in it I would say “Go to it!”. It will enhance the position of the orchestra.

That the orchestra is to enhance and promote New Zealand music is a plus. There is an idea, from the way that others have spoken, that somehow New Zealand music is not worthy of being listened to and will not be popular. In fact, any good orchestra will put together a concert mix that brings the kinds of people it wants to have in its audience—namely, all New Zealanders, including people who want to listen to New Zealand music.

The Greens will be supporting the bill, but we make a strong plea for the addition of player representatives on the board. The National Party’s amendment states that both may be appointed. “May” is not good enough. If we are not willing to put player representatives in there, is it likely to happen? I suspect not. It is simply about making the board more democratic. “May” is not good enough. The amendment I have put up reads to omit subclause (2) of clause 12 and substitute the following clause: “The board must consist of not”—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member’s amendments are to Part 2.

OK. Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member has more time, but I just make that point.

Part 1 is the part to which the amendments from Marc Alexander on Supplementary Order paper 199 apply. The first inserts the definition of a “players’ committee”, which means “a committee of players in the Orchestra, established for the purpose of player representation”, and the follow-on amendment to schedule 1 requires that “the Minister must ensure that the membership of the board includes at least 1 person nominated by the players’ committee.” New Zealand First supports that concept. I am rather surprised that the Government, which usually tries to have a union representative involved in various boards and suchlike, has opposed that view. I look forward to hearing the Minister indicate whether she supports or opposes the concept. In particular, if she does oppose it, would she give us a reason for doing so?

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 199 in the name of Marc Alexander to clause 4 be agreed to.