Protected Objects Amendment Bill

I rest my case. That sort of frivolous wasting of the House’s time is the reason why legislation like this bill cannot be moved through in a timely fashion. I was talking about the Elgin Marbles. New Zealand First has been outspoken in that respect. We believe that Greece and the Greek people have been robbed of part of their heritage, and that the British Government should do the right thing.

The bill mentions ventifacts. I want to tell the House about a personal experience I had with regard to ventifacts. I happen to have a ventifact on my window ledge at home. I never knew what a ventifact was until Waverley School visited us—the school I was teaching in—at Titikaveka on Rarotonga. People from that school told us they had on their beach the only protected rocks in New Zealand. Evidently, a bill had been passed to protect the rocks on Waverley Beach, because they have all been shaped by the wind—those are known as ventifacts. As a result, those things look a bit like adzes. They are protected. Fortunately, in my case, the one I was given had been removed from the beach a long, long time before and had come out of somebody’s garden. When people ask me what it is, I am very proud to say I have one of our protected rocks.

I want to finish off by saying New Zealand First did not have anybody on the Government Administration Committee, so therefore I have not had a lot of information passed on to me about many of the issues around this bill. But it is certainly fundamental to New Zealand First’s philosophy that we should do everything we can to protect our unique heritage—it is what makes us and defines us as New Zealanders. Our very name, New Zealand First, subsumes that philosophy and carries that philosophy with it. Without further ado I say New Zealand First will most certainly be voting for this legislation, and I congratulate all of the people who have worked to get the bill to the point of going through its third reading.

Debate interrupted.