Historic Places Amendment Bill

As the National minority report on the Historic Places Amendment Bill states, National opposes this bill. We have two primary concerns with it. The first relates to the board membership, which results in a predominance of ministerial appointments—increased from three out of 11 to six out of nine. I submit that is completely contrary to the scheme of all the legislation that has dealt with historic places in this country from the time of the establishment of the Historic Places Trust in 1954.

Perhaps a little bit of legislative history is required to show just exactly what I am talking about. On 20 July 1954 the then Acting Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr Holyoake, moved the second reading of the Historic Places Bill. In Hansard, Volume 303, at page 554 he discussed the membership of what was then to be called the National Historic Places Trust. It was to be a very carefully constructed membership of 11 members. The two departments directly concerned were to be represented by the Secretary for Internal Affairs and the Director-General of Lands, then a number of other persons were to represent the various interest groups around the country.

Mr Duncan Rae, the then member for Parnell—a good National member who was responsible for that legislation—in his second reading speech, at page 557, emphasised the importance of a good mix when it came to the membership of the trust. He said that the chairman of the trust should be elected by the trust and not be a Government officer or an officer of a department. Further on, he stated: “We strongly feel that the Trust should be seen to be not just another branch of a busy Department, for in such a situation there will not be the financial nor material support coming forward that we hope the Trust will have.” That is the reason why there were 11 members on the board, which was made up of representatives of various interest groups and, above all, was not dominated by ministerial appointments.

The same theme emerged in 1992 when the Historic Places Bill was the subject of debate. I refer to what the Hon Denis Marshall said in Hansard, Volume 524, at page 7859. He said that the trust board was to be reduced from 15 to 10 members and that the positions representing Government departments were to be abolished, as were to be a number of other nominated provisions. He emphasised the voluntary nature of the Historic Places Trust and the huge contribution made to the preservation of historic sites and historic buildings by enormous numbers of people throughout the country. He said: “the trust is not merely a statutory quango. It has more than 23,000 fee-paying members and an effective body of voluntary workers who form a network of district committees.” That is why section 42 of the Historic Places Act 1993 sets out the board membership that it does: a person who is to be appointed chairperson, two persons who are Māori and have skills or knowledge appropriate to the functions of the trust, three persons who are to be elected by the trust’s members, and five persons who have various other skills.

But what we have in the proposed amendment to section 42 is the creation of a statutory quango—one that is dominated by the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage. National says that is thoroughly undesirable. Six members should not be appointed by the Minister, with three elected by members of the trust. If anything, it should be the other way round. The volunteerism and the contribution made by huge numbers of volunteers throughout the country need to be recognised. What we are saying traces back to the very foundations of the then National Historic Places Trust in the mid-1950s. That is one of the primary reasons why National is totally opposed to this part of the bill. It undermines the principle of volunteerism. It more or less discards the huge contribution of volunteers to the preservation of our historic sites and historic buildings over the last 50 years, and simply puts in its place a statutory quango. That is totally unsatisfactory.

I follow on from my learned colleague in opposition to this part, on a number of grounds. The first one, which is totally fundamental to our opposition, relates to the principle of democracy. Democracy has but one weakness: it requires participation. The only reason people become involved in a Crown advisory organisation such as the Historic Places Trust, which I guess could be described loosely as a non-governmental organisation, is that they feel as though they will be carrying out a meaningful occupation or use of their time. When the State intervenes in the way proposed in this bill, which will reduce the number of elected board members—those people in the public sector who are seen to be learned enough to be involved in such an organisation—from 11 to nine, and imposes on an organisation those whom it deems to be suitable persons, rather than acting in partnership, which this Government talks about at great length, then we have a total undermining of the very essence of why people get involved in organisations such as this one.

This Government needs to step back from its socialist roots for 5 minutes, ask why New Zealand has been so successful under successive democratically elected Governments, and compare this country with nations around the world where the total dominance of the State has had a major role. It should adopt that principle right here in this legislation and move away from its “we know best” attitude. The Government thinks its members in Wellington, the learned left of the Labour caucus, know best when it comes to what a historic place is. It thinks they know how to dominate the scene, as it were, in terms of what is significant to protect.

The Government thinks its members in Wellington, who aspire absolutely to the principles of Moscow or of foreign nations other than those that New Zealanders love, should tell the people of the Historic Places Trust how they should manage their business. What is worse is that the Government will find a Minister who, of course, has no knowledge at all of these issues, or will certainly not be from mainstream New Zealand, and it will appoint that person to be the sole guardian of what happens with regard to those activities. [Interruption]

I say to the Minister in the chair, Judith Tizard, who is trying to interject, to take a call, explain the Government’s point of view, and win the debate; do not just ram it through with numbers in an undemocratic way. She should stand up and tell us why she thinks this is the best way forward for the Historic Places Trust. Up to this point in time nobody on this side of the Chamber has been able to receive or understand a reasonable explanation as to how this bill will bring about a panacea to determining the issue of what the average New Zealander would see as a historic place—that is, something that should be preserved.

I give the Minister the example I gave in the first reading of this bill. In Taranaki there are multiple dairy factory sites. Those dairy factories were built by English engineers, generally speaking, and were designed to last for 400 years. They were used for about 60 or 70 years, and then abandoned by the industry. That was the industry’s decision. Most of them are now in private ownership. Those buildings could be deemed to be historic, but they are not. They are all being bowled over, one after the other. It is quite probably the right thing to do, but because the workforce in those factories was predominantly Māori, there are bound to be buried Māori artefacts around them. The building itself may not be historic, but the artefacts probably are; I do not know.

Of course, at the end of the day, under the regime that is being proposed in this bill, one of those things or the other could be deemed to be historic. Therefore, any major development that is likely to go ahead in the Taranaki area could be halted or otherwise have a further compliance cost placed on it, because some ministerial group in Wellington—which would not even know where Taranaki is, let alone know what an abandoned dairy factory might be like, or know about any artefacts that may be buried around it—will be able to say that should happen.

One of the standards by which we need to judge political parties is the consistency of their stance, and particularly their philosophical consistency. I want to give a bit of background to the point I am trying to make. Recently I was reading the report back from the Education and Science Committee on the Education Standards Bill, from some years ago. Alec Neill gave the bill its name. One of the things that bill did was to set up the New Zealand Teachers Council, and one of the things it charged the council to do was to establish a code of ethics for teachers.

The original bill said that the code of ethics then had to be approved by the Minister. New Zealand First, I have to say to Mr Ardern, was able to convince the Labour Party to step back from its socialist roots, in the name of professionalism, and to come away from that particular stance. New Zealand First was even able to convince the Alliance to step back from its ultra-socialist roots. We were not able to convince National to move back. The minority report states that National insisted that the Minister should have to approve the code of standards for teachers that was established by that body.

Now I come to this particular bill, and I ask where the consistency is in National’s stance. National is saying that rather than outside organisations having the majority power to appoint members to a body that is really fulfilling national tasks, or the Government’s tasks, and certainly it is funded largely through the taxpayer—that, no, no, it should not be the elected representatives of the people who put those people on the board—it should, in fact, be people who have been elected by some 25,000 members of bodies. New Zealand First says there is an inconsistency in National’s stance on both of those positions.

The second inconsistency is that this bill will cut the number of members of the Historic Places Trust. We hear, day after day, members from that side of the Chamber saying that we need to cut back on the number of people in such positions, across the board. We have all these so-called party hacks who are being put up to those positions, they are costing the taxpayer oodles and oodles of money, and it is irresponsible to the taxpayer. Yet when the Government finally comes up with some legislation to cut the numbers, National says: “No, no, you can’t do that. We’ve got to keep the numbers as high as possible.” What New Zealand First is saying is that there is a total inconsistency in the position that the Opposition has taken. It is trying to play the old first-past-the-post politics. The Opposition still does not understand that we are now in an era of MMP. We have been since 1996. It is something that the National Opposition still does not seem to understand.

Hon Georgina te Heuheu: Is that what this speech is all about?

It is not about that. It is about the fact that National has not come to grips with MMP. New Zealand First has come to grips with MMP. We heard in the debate on the last bill how National had achieved something. We will give it full credit for achieving that. The one thing that National has achieved in 7 years is that it has led a debate, quite justifiably, around some legislative changes that were needed. That is the one thing that all the people who voted for National have got. For the people who voted for National in 1999, in 2002, and in 2005, that is it. That is as good as it gets. National is being inconsistent in its approach. It is not trying to play constructive politics, which MMP demands. New Zealand First says that that will not help things. [Interruption] At least I did not have to go back to Holyoake to get my quotes.

There is another part of this bill that New Zealand First completely and utterly agrees with. It is the part that changes the definition of the members who are to be appointed under it. I want to read what the clause says: “At least 3 of the persons appointed under subsection(1)(b) must, in the opinion of the Minister after consultation with the Minister of Maori Affairs, be qualified for appointment, having regard to their knowledge of te ao Maori (Maori worldview) and tikanga Maori (Maori protocol and culture).”

New Zealand First totally agrees with that way of putting legislation. The focus is upon the knowledge, the understanding, and the skills that are to be brought to the task, rather than on the ethnicity. I am speaking of this because there is a Green Party amendment that says the persons who are appointed under this particular legislation have to be ethnically Māori. The logic of this is that Kiri Te Kanawa could not sit on the board of National Opera of New Zealand because she is not Italian. When we think about it, she does not have Italian genes. That is exactly the same logic that is behind this particular provision. We know that Inia Te Wiata was an expert in opera. He also carved the pou at New Zealand House. I have heard from people in the know, and I could be wrong but I am just saying this—it is something I have heard; it is hearsay—that he did not have a great deal of knowledge about carving, and the history and traditions behind carving. The logic of this says that he should be able to have input into an area that he did not have a great deal of expertise in, because of his ethnicity, but he should not be able to be on the board of any organisation that was making decisions around opera, in which he was world renowned.

We could take it even further—to the stupidity of the logic that flows from this amendment. Turi Carroll could not have become Acting Prime Minister of New Zealand, given that the Westminster system grew from the British experience. That is how stupid this particular legislation is. In fact, it probably also says that the 80 percent of the Kiwi rugby league team who are Samoan should not be able to play rugby league because it was born in the north of England. That is ludicrous, and it is ludicrous to define who can or cannot sit on boards because of the peculiarities of their DNA. It is their life experiences and the knowledge that comes from that which is the important factor. New Zealand First has to confer with the wording of this part of the bill because it is something that we, and particularly our leader, have been arguing for, for many, many years. Thank you, Mr Chairman.

I would just like to draw attention to two amendments that the Green Party has proposed to the Historic Places Amendment Bill. The first one, as the previous speaker pointed out, is an amendment to clause 19 to require a person who is representing Māori on the Historic Places Trust to be Māori. This bill proposes that a person who represents Māori on the Historic Places Trust no longer has to be Māori. The Historic Places Trust, the Māori Heritage Council, and other submitters opposed this, but the Government Administration Committee chose to ignore their submissions. What this really does is set a new precedent for what is Māori. This precedent, once established in this legislation, could extend throughout legislation in New Zealand. No justification or reason for this redefinition of what is Māori is given. We can only assume that it is part of the post-Ōrewa backlash. The implication is that non-Māori can advocate for Māori issues just as well as Māori can. This is like saying that we no longer need to have women in various positions—that we can just have men as long as they have a bit of an understanding about women’s issues.

As many have pointed out, the submitters said basically that in order to be Māori one needs to have whakapapa. The Māori Heritage Council said that whakapapa is the foundation of Māori identity as tangata whenua and that it is crucial that the relationship between Māori and their historic and cultural heritage is retained. The Greens agree with that, so we think this is really just a new and completely unjustified redefinition of what is Māori. In fact, the bill comes up with an entirely new definition of who is Māori and who is not. Maybe all Pākehā could be on the Māori roll in the future as long as they have a knowledge of what is Māori.

The other amendment is to clause 16. Under this bill, the Historic Places Trust board would be given discretion about whether it would impose an interim protection order when it is publicly notifying a review of a change of category—say, from category 1 to category 2 status. We are concerned that giving the board this discretion could effectively amount to a loophole that would mean that in the future the board would not have to impose any interim protections or injunctions. So we have a very small, but important, amendment that states that the trust would have to issue a protection order unless it put up a very good reason as to why it would not want to do that. This would mean that it would not be absolutely necessary to require a protection measure for historic places undergoing a category review, but that if the trust did not do that, it would have to give a good reason for doing so. This amendment eliminates what could effectively be a loophole and says the trust has to put up reasons when it will no longer provide protection measures for historic places.

We need to remember that in this bill we should really be doing a fundamental review of the Historic Places Trust. We should be asking ourselves why so much of our heritage has been bulldozed while the Historic Places Trust has been in place. Why is the trust so toothless? Why have entire sections of our country been bowled while the Historic Places Trust has wrung its hands and apparently done nothing? Really, we should in this bill be giving the trust some teeth and some strength in order to really protect our heritage. It is unfortunate that the bill does not do that.

In relation to the tirade that Brian Donnelly subjected the House to, I want to quote a past colleague of his, Jim Peters, who I think was a very worthy member of this House, and who said during the first reading of this bill: “The Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, who introduced the bill, spoke about the excellent work done by the chairperson of the board. Furthermore, the previous member told us about the numbers of volunteers out there who are doing excellent work. All of that would presuppose that the Historic Places Trust Act passed by the National Party Government in 1993, which includes all these issues,”—and there are others he referred to—“had no need of amendment.” Then he asks: “So why is there an amendment bill before us with a few little issues for us to look at?”.

So I just want to try to cover what I thought was a tirade by Brian Donnelly—a lot of which was totally off this bill. National is very clear as to why we oppose it. Brian Donnelly represents a party that supposedly sits in the middle—although, of course, since its coalition with the Labour Government, it probably sits more on the left now. National is very clear about the value of having people from the community contributing to this very important area of our history. Our opposition in relation to the membership of the board is about the undue weight that will now be given to those members who are appointed by the Government.

That was never the case before. Now, the membership of the board will reduce, and the majority of the members will be appointed by the Government. That smacks of typical socialist interference, and nothing that has happened to date, since the original bill was enacted, would suggest that that is a necessary amendment. I would have thought that Brian Donnelly, whose party supposedly sits in the middle, and is supposedly the people’s party—that is how their leader likes to represent it—would have seen the error of this Government’s amendment in this way. There will be a reduction in members, and the majority will now be appointed by the Government. It will put its cronies on. I would have thought that Brian Donnelly would not want that, but clearly he has totally sold out to the left because it suits them at this point. But it is a disappointment nonetheless.

He has tried to misrepresent National’s position. Our position is purely that we recognise that the Act, as it stands, worked well. It had a majority of people not appointed by the Government. It worked well. The Minister even recognised that in her first reading speech, yet here we have typical socialist Labour Government beefing up the membership by their own appointments. There is no call for it. Nothing that has happened in the last decade has shown that that was necessary. We oppose the bill steadfastly on that point, and we will not be moved from that. There is no need for it.

The other reason, of course, which my colleagues have already referred to, relate to the issues around wāhi tapu. I just want to refer to the contribution given by the Green member Sue Kedgley. They seek to have the current position in the Act retained, by which the members must be Māori. Brian Donnelly can demean or rubbish the suggestion that ethnicity is not necessarily important, but if one looks at the provisions in the Act that talk about wāhi tapu and the need for the trust to make judgments around wāhi tapu, one can see that it would be very difficult indeed—and National is still open on this matter—if one did not have Māori blood, whakapapa, because so many of the issues surrounding wāhi tapu do depend, in my view, on an understanding of those genealogical links.

I am delighted to take a call on Part 1 of the Historic Places Amendment Bill, because there has been a great deal of rather confused debating on the issue. This legislation is about strengthening the Historic Places Trust, which has had significant funding increases over the 6½ years of this Labour-led Government. I thank the Hon Brian Donnelly for his support in this work, because he too cares about New Zealand’s heritage, particularly our built heritage.

I understand how anxious people are that those with an interest in heritage across New Zealand are well represented at this important organisation. But I was truly astonished when the National Party described Dame Anne Salmond, John Acland, Tumu te Heuheu, Te Aue Davis, and the other astonishingly able New Zealanders as Government cronies. It is just a ludicrous idea that those people, whom I had the honour to appoint in many cases, are Government cronies. It is truly astonishing.

I point out to the National Party that the Hon Nick Smith, when he was Minister of Conservation and in charge of the Historic Places Trust, did a really important and useful thing. He forced the Historic Places Trust to regionalise. As a result, we now have much stronger regional organisations in the trust. Unfortunately, the Hon Nick Smith was never able to persuade the National Government to properly fund the Historic Places Trust. As a result, although the trust regionalised, it then had severe problems at the central level with delivering on the increased interest that New Zealanders expressed across New Zealand about preserving our historic places. So in this legislation we are making sure that the vastly increased funding is properly accounted for and that the Historic Places Trust, as a result of the important work it is doing regionally, can come back and advise the Government. The role of the Historic Places Trust is less hands-on now, and much more about advising the Government—and, indeed, select committees and other groups—about the policy we need in order to extend this work.

One fabulous example I can give the Committee is the work the Historic Places Trust did in preserving the Kerikeri Basin. We now have significant funding going into a roading project there, because the stone store and the camp house were severely at risk of being washed away in a flood. The vibrations of the massive amount of traffic going round and across the bridge over the fiord were causing severe damage. This area is an important part of New Zealand’s heritage. The Historic Places Trust is applying that sort of analysis to the risk that much of our heritage faces, and it is coming back to the Government with sensible proposals, including policy changes relating to how we can do better in this whole area.

So we should give credit where credit is due, but the funding needs to be accounted for. This Government is determined to go on representing those fabulous volunteers across New Zealand, who are the people who make the local decisions, and making sure that that is defended and supported with Government money and good policy. That is what this legislation is about. The idea that the people who are appointed by the Government to the Historic Places Trust are Government cronies is, frankly, offensive, and I really do take deep exception to that.

I go on to the other issue raised by the National Party, which was around wāhi tapu. I say to National members that I am astonished at this attack on places like burial sites, sites associated with births, deaths, and other major occasions, sites associated with ritual and ceremonial worship, healing places, and battle sites. I am astonished that those places, because they are important to Māori, should somehow be opposed. I find it astonishing that the National Party is attacking those places.

Last but not least I say to National members that I was at a forum in Auckland where two of the National Party spokespeople on this area gave an undertaking to Auckland people who were interested in heritage and culture that there would not be stupid, petty, party-political attacks on pieces of major, important legislation to do with our cultural and heritage well-being. I am disgusted at the sorts of attacks that are coming from National members. It is like the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Bill all over again. We had to ring the National Party leader because this group of idiots was saying to us that they were going to oppose that bill. It is time the National Party took a responsible attitude to our heritage.

Kia ora, Mr Chairman. Kia ora tātou i te Whare. There are a number of issues that I would like to speak to in respect of the Historic Places Amendment Bill, but I would also like to speak in general terms about our concerns as to where this Government is taking things in respect of Māori. I am talking about the Budget, where the increase for things Māori was minus—there was nothing for Māori in the Budget. I am talking about the fact that Te Puni Kōkiri’s primary function of monitoring has been dropped away to almost zero—to a point where its role in determining whether other agencies are delivering to Māori has been reduced to zilch. I can think of a situation where the Government is determining what will now be a pōwhiri and what will not be a pōwhiri, and what will be a whakatau and what will be a pōwhiri.

In this bill Labour has decided to take out the requirement for there to be Māori on the board, and instead put in people who are not Māori. To give non-Māori the opportunity to be appointed to those positions flows very much with Labour’s policy of the ongoing demeaning of Māori. I point across to my own colleagues Mr Dover Samuels and Mr Mahara Okeroa, both Associate Ministers who, when their Minister was out of the country, were not even given the opportunity to speak to those portfolios. It seems as though this Government is quite happy to use Māori in its various performing functions, but when it comes to delivering for Māori it is simply not there.

I also look at what is happening with this Government in terms of the bureaucracy it is growing here, and the philosophy it has of recentralising control into the hands of Government departments. I am thinking in terms of prisons. The Government shut down the private prison that was doing a better job than that done by State prisons for more than 100 years. One private guy was given the opportunity to run a private prison. He did a good job, and the prison was shut down. I think of the district health boards and of how the Government is recentralising a lot of the regional contracts back into the hands of those boards and increasing the conflict of interest by allowing the funder to also be the provider. I think of the education contracts that used to be out with kura and that are now being taken back into the colleges of education—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Order!

I come back to this bill, Mr Chairperson, and refer to people who are not Māori determining whether the board is acting in the best interests of Māori. That is like assuming that rats born in a kennel know what it is like to be a dog. It is the silliest argument I have ever heard. Yes, the Minister can talk about Tumu te Heuheu and about Te Aue Davis. And, yes, they are rangatira—there is no question about that—but no longer are they guaranteed positions on the board she is talking about. So I ask her please not to talk about them as though they are great and important people if she is not prepared to recognise them in legislation. In fact, not only is she not prepared to recognise them in legislation but she has deliberately taken them out, through her legislation. So we do not accept that this bill is in the best interests in any way, shape, or form of advancing the interests of Māori people in terms of historic places.

Neither do I see, apart from the giving of a little bit more money, where the bill strengthens the activities of the Historic Places Trust or the board—simply because I note from the comments made by the board itself, the Historic Places Trust, and the trust’s Māori Heritage Council that the Minister did not even bother to listen to the recommendations they made. I think it is important that those issues be pointed out, because the Māori Party stands to defend the rights of Māori at all times. Kia ora tātou.

As that matter has been raised by a number of speakers, I will address it directly. The State Services Commission now recommends that rather than define the racial characteristics we require of individuals, we describe the interests and the knowledge we require of individuals to apply to legislation.

One of the points I would like to make is that some 5 years ago when I was asked by Cabinet to seek a new chair for the Historic Places Trust, I went to a number of kaumātua and kuia around Auckland and New Zealand and asked them for their opinion of who would make a good chair of the trust. This trust is absolutely vital to all New Zealanders for all of our shared heritage and for all of the heritage that each group brought to New Zealand both before and after the Treaty of Waitangi. Dame Anne Salmond was recommended to me by Māori leaders as somebody who understood the shared heritage and, indeed, who had done a great deal to explain to Pākehā the importance of, for example, Māori oral history. I am not suggesting that Dame Anne Salmond alone should represent Māori views, but I do not agree that anyone required, as in this legislation, to have knowledge of Māori heritage and Māori spiritual values should necessarily be Māori.

Indeed, on the subject of Māori being excluded, I want to point out one of the other changes that was made in 1993 by Doug Graham and others to create the Māori Heritage Council as a body equal with the Historic Places Trust. So Māori are represented in this organisation as an integral part of the organisation, and the legislation that defines the purpose of this legislation states that Māori heritage is central to it. Again, I want to thank the Hon Brian Donnelly for his lucid support of this legislation. No, not everybody on the Historic Places Trust agreed with that change, but this legislation does bring it into line with other legislation.

I want to address the other issue that is on the Green member Sue Kedgley’s Supplementary Order Paper, which is that the trust must apply section 194 of the Resource Management Act to an application. I am not ever happy that we force registration on every owner. We are getting to the stage where I think New Zealanders genuinely do take pleasure and see value in historic heritage registrations, but I am not happy that, given that the Government Administration Committee considered this matter, the Green Party now wants to change the bill without proper consideration. We can do a lot of damage in this kind of legislation. We sometimes find people refusing, for example, to divulge heritage values because they fear it will limit their commercial and ownership rights. I am very happy, of course, to promote the Supplementary Order Paper that I propose, which merely changes the date, but in general I am opposed to those amendments proposed by the Green Party, because the select committee did not find in favour of them. With those comments, I commend this bill to the Committee.

I stand to speak against the Historic Places Amendment Bill. I am disappointed that the bill has come to this Committee stage still containing the aspects that were previously considered unsatisfactory by this side of the Chamber. I guess to some extent the reality is that in expecting change from the present Government, with its ideological mindset, it is the expectancy that is at fault, for it is clear that the Government is locked in pursuing not the interests of Parliament, of a balanced debate, or of the country, but only its own ideological programme.

If we needed any clearer indication of the Government’s being besotted with its own agenda to the exclusion of all else, we need only examine its response to the power blackout of yesterday. At best, its response could be described as bland. It is as if the Government would prefer that the blackout had not happened but, as it has happened, has no intention of accepting ministerial responsibility or acknowledging that it is looking at a symptom of infrastructural disease caused by the last 6 years of neglect. Fixing this sort of problem is not on the ideologically driven agenda of Labour.

How do we see the Government’s ideological bent displayed on this particular issue? The unacceptable and unexplained part of the bill is the sweeping change to the membership of the Historic Places Trust, in two ways. Firstly, the number of trustees is being reduced from eleven to nine. Secondly, of the nine trustees six will be appointed by the Minister. Why does the Minister need to have such a dominant effect on the appointment of trustees? My caucus colleagues have given details of the initial legislation that brought this trust into being. It was never perceived to be a plaything of a Minister.

The Government seems intent on taking control of every aspect of life it can, in ever-increasing measures. Indeed, I was told the other day [Interruption]—and the party Mr Donnelly belongs to helps the Government—by someone on the West Coast, a really good philosophical West Coaster, that there are not many avenues in life left where the Government has left any life. The Government consumes everything, and this measure is akin to many of the regulatory stands it has taken—for instance, the food and safety regulations. Increasingly, Government-controlled agencies seek to permeate the fibre of our society to ever greater degrees, coming ever closer to controlling individuals in each aspect of their lives—because that, I think, is what it would like to do.

The change to ministerial control of this trust is not justified. It is not even explained, beyond the statement that it “better reflects the funding arrangements” for the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. This completely overlooks the value of having independent trustees and the time-honoured checks and balances and the input that independent trustees bring to organisations.

Another concern with regard to these appointments is that it is now a matter of compulsion not just that three members have expertise in matters Māori but that three members be Māori. Again, it is not the aspect of ethnicity that concerns me; it is the Government—

💬 Hon Brian Donnelly: That’s not exactly consistent with what Georgina was saying.

The member has not let me finish, but then he never does. It is consistent with what Georgina has said, because my concern is not—as I was just saying—with the ethnicity of the make-up of the trust; it is with the Labour Party’s absolute fixation with compulsion. It permeates everything. I heard today that it will now be compulsory for people to declare when their dog dies, and that those who do not do so will face a $100 fine. I have not verified it yet, but I understand that that is to happen.

I move, That the question be now put.