Research, Science, and Technology Bill, National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa) Amendment Bill, Public Records Amendment Bill (No 2)

After hearing the Committee stage of the State Sector Management Bill Labour’s position remains absolutely opposed to Part 2 and Part 3 of that bill, which have been split off into separate bills with regard to Archives New Zealand and the National Library. We remain committed to the merger of the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology and the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology into the Ministry of Science and Innovation, but we have to add the rejoinder that that ministry must be adequately funded, or we will not see innovation emerging from it.

I will mention in the House some of the observations that we have made today. It was disappointing to see the lack of understanding from the Minister in the chair, Nathan Guy. He appears to be a really straight, prosaic, and sort of plodding Minister, who gets the work done. He is a farmer by background, and he has never managed a large number of people. He has failed to demonstrate an understanding today of the culture of the organisations. He has been led by Minister Tony Ryall, who is far more cunning in his endeavour to restructure the Public Service with his hands all over it, and who has bullied Nathan Guy into accepting that there is just a simple realignment involved when putting the National Library, Archives New Zealand, and the Alexander Turnbull Library into the Department of Internal Affairs. Nathan Guy has been absolutely duped by his senior Minister.

It was appalling to see in the Committee, as we came to the debate on Part 3 in respect of public records, the Minister in the chair, having been requested to table a Crown Law opinion by Grant Robertson, reach for the twink to alter that report before Labour could get to the Table. The whole point of Archives New Zealand and the independence of the Chief Archivist is to have transparency and open access to the public record, and with that independence only the Chief Archivist can decide what can be deleted. How on earth could we trust that Minister in the chair, who will forever be named “Twinky Guy”? That will stick with him. He has never managed an organisation, and he fails to understand the cultural impact of an organisation that he has inherited, which went through this experiment in the 1990s. That experiment failed dismally, and only a decade ago Archives New Zealand was given institutional independence and has thrived ever since.

The audit department could find no fault with Archives New Zealand; neither could the public of New Zealand. There have been no complaints. But we heard the Minister in the chair say the reason why it needs to be put back into the Department of Internal Affairs is that its building had a leaky roof. Well, Minister Tony Ryall had a far better rationalisation than just the leaky roof. When he first came into the House he said, in a very quiet and measured voice, that the purpose of these amalgamations was to improve services within their existing boundaries, reduce cost in the short to medium term, and future-proof the long-term delivery of Government services. What a lot of baloney! What a lot of blah! Tony Ryall did this so that he could slash and burn the public services in order to grow some superministries and get them under his purview. I think that it is very sad to see Nathan Guy being marginalised, just as the National Librarian and the Chief Archivist are absolutely being marginalised by their third-tier reporting positions in relation to the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs.

Tony Ryall did make a good point about the new digital platform, but why would Tony Ryall think that the digital platform was better placed within the Department of Internal Affairs than within any other ministry? Why? It is going through a process at the moment of digitalisation, and this will simply add layer upon layer of pressure on that platform. Heaven forbid, we have seen that happen in Parliament, as we have tried to upgrade a simple information technology programme for members of Parliament that has simply failed us in doing that function. I do not think the digitalisation here will ever deliver the efficiencies that Tony Ryall wants to achieve.

Chris Finlayson is the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, and I find it distinctly interesting that his opinion has been absolutely missing here in a Cabinet decision. What on earth was the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage doing missing in action, and allowing this fundamental error to occur? Well, he was not a Minister and he was not around in the 1990s to know that a merger failed then. And it will fail again, as the culture of these organisations causes nothing but conflict within a Government department. So we see the Minister here being limp in his delivery, trying to convince us all that this measure will be a good thing, primarily for the public of New Zealand.

It was nice to hear Minister Ryall actually show a little concern about the staff. I have never heard Government Ministers ever acknowledge the pressure that they put on the public services, and that is why we are sitting in urgency at 3.20 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. Tony Ryall said the librarians and archivists all wanted to be given certainty of the merger into the superministry, the Department of Internal Affairs, by February. That is why we are here discussing this bill in urgency today. I had never heard a Minister of the Crown show any vague concern at all about the staff’s well-being as bureaucrats. They have been treated as fodder; they have been slashed and burned. Those Government Ministers have shown an absolute arrogance and failed to understand the professionalism, and also the institutional memory, of so many of our senior professionals—they are not bureaucrats—in the Public Service. New Zealand had a Public Service that we were proud of in the 9 years under Labour, and it is now being decimated under the guise of bringing in efficiency and improved services for the public.

We oppose this legislation. Labour Opposition member Grant Robertson put forward several very serious amendments. Those serious amendments were totally disregarded, with the Government’s attitude being: “Why bother? You are there. We won. You lost. Eat that!”. Those amendments, which were put forward by someone who knows about the culture of Archives New Zealand, the National Library, and the Alexander Turnbull Library, were totally disregarded. That is the right of the Government, but there will be problems with the lack of independence of the officers of those institutions. I was pleased to hear my colleague say that when Labour returns to Government—and it will happen—we will restore their level of independence to the Chief Archivist and the National Librarian.

This is a sad day. The Government has got it wrong. It will not admit that, and it never will. Government members will stand up and say it is fantastic that they have done this. They will say it is done and dusted, so we should move on to the next item on the Order Paper. There are people behind this; there are entities behind this. They have been built up with a level of pride and professionalism, which will be decimated in this transition back into a superministry. I think that is terribly sad. I do not believe that the move towards digitalisation in this legislation will work any better than it did when we set out to do it. I recall a speech by Marian Hobbs that talked about the need to digitalise the archival record. It is slow, and it is not easy. It is a long process, and we have to invest in that process. But what will we achieve here? We will achieve something like the loss of 15 jobs. The Government will say that is good—15 more public servants down the road, at a saving of $165,000 a year. The Minister of Internal Affairs today, for the first time, tabled his figures, which stated that, oh no, it would be $1.5 million. We have never had access to that figure, even though we have asked for it in written questions and there have been Official Information Act requests. So we query—with a Minister who had his twink pen ready to delete things—whether there is even any rigour behind the figures that that Minister tabled in the House today.

Our minority report on the State Sector Management Bill before it was divided says it all. We are deeply saddened.

Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. Here we are, on Saturday afternoon. I hope no National Party voters are watching the broadcast today, because I think if they are, they would be a bit more distracted from the “smile and wave” of the Prime Minister and they would look at the substance of what is happening today. If we look at the substance of what is happening today, we see that bad legislation is being passed under bad process, and I think those voters would look twice at National. I guess it is not surprising that we have this bad legislation being passed under bad process, but I have been shocked. I ask where the National members are today. Where are they? Why have they not stood up and presented their argument—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member cannot refer to the absence of members.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. [Interruption] They certainly have been absent. We have seen—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I know the member is new, but once I have made a statement and I have ruled, the member must not try to relitigate it.

We have seen some serious argument, with serious counterargument missing. We have seen some serious amendments presented and also voted down. I am not talking about just political amendments; I am talking about serious, credible amendments, which were also voted down.

Before the lunch break we were discussing the urgency, and I think this is why this is bad process. Why are we passing this legislation at 3.20, nearly 3.30, on a Saturday afternoon under urgency? When I think of urgency, I think of tackling the climate crisis. I think of tackling the great economic problems. I think of tackling that growing gap between the rich and poor and tackling inequality in New Zealand. Over the lunchtime I went and welcomed Sea Shepherd to Wellington. When I think about urgency, I think about those hundreds of whales about to be slaughtered in the Southern Ocean, not about one Government department taking over a couple of other departments in the name of ideology.

Before lunch I talked about my photo analogy. I went to the archives and found this great collection of World War II photographs that had, ignorantly and in an uninformed manner, been stuck together with glue. That had wrecked those precious photographs for ever—those tremendous one-offs. I think that is an apt analogy for this legislation. We are seeing an uninformed and ad hoc approach with this legislation. It is being rushed through under urgency, without due consideration and due argument and thinking. We are not talking about dusty old documents or about hypothetical things; we are talking about treasures—the treasures of our country.

In the rushed debate today, we have not heard answers to the questions about why we need to be doing this, and whether the institutions and the departments are broke. We have not heard whether we are talking about best practice to support the users of the National Library and Archives New Zealand. We have not talked about the best practice internationally, or about whether this is taking us forwards or backwards, and we have not heard answers that legitimately address those concerns. A telling omission in the debate, in the officials’ recommendations, and in the Cabinet document is what this bill will actually do for users of the National Library, what it will mean for historians, researchers, and genealogists, and what it will mean for people who donate goods to the Alexander Turnbull Library. It is a telling omission because it shows that this legislation is more about ideology to do with getting rid of a few workers in the State sector—about State sector ideology—than it is about supporting best practice and these much-loved and treasured institutions.

I believe that there is an absence of a robust argument or actual tabled figures when we talk about things like future-proofing, efficiency, and digitisation. If we do not have the facts, then we are simply spouting slogans. That is what we have heard from the get-go, at the start of this process in the Cabinet document through to the debate today. We have seen the bad process when the Minister in the chair—the “Minister of Twink”—quickly twinked out our documents and the document that he tabled. If only another Minister could twink out those houses in the Mana electorate where his motorway is going through!

I am still baffled as to why we are debating this legislation today, and why the National members on the Education and Science Committee did not go back to their caucus and Cabinet and say: “Well, look, fellows, all the evidence from all the experts said that we should not be doing this. There is no real reason—we are talking about only $165,000 a year. Come on, guys, let’s have a bit of common sense.” Unfortunately, those members did not go back and say that, and they have not presented today a coherent argument as to why we are doing this. We heard from the Minister of Internal Affairs about the National Library’s leaky roof under the previous Government. Come on, let us be serious—we are talking about our national treasures today.

However, I thank the members of the select committee for the questions. I thank Grant Robertson and David Shearer for their excellent work on Parts 1, 2, and 3. I thank the submitters—people who are passionately inspired by and who care about our national treasures. For them, this legislation is not just about dusty old documents; it is about their lifeblood, something they are absolutely passionate about. We heard about whether this legislation will be debated over summer barbecues this year. I am sure that it will be, and I hope it will be. What we are talking about is not lemon institutions—bad Government departments—but about institutions that are well regarded internationally and that perform well, according to the Cabinet paper that started off this process.

I guess the main reason why I am opposed to this legislation is that it is a contradiction in terms. The legislation says that we will be preserving these institutions’ statutory independence, which is a contradiction, because at the moment we have the reality of independence for the National Librarian and the Chief Archivist, and we are relegating them to a third tier. It is as if we are dropping them from the All Blacks and putting them down to a provincial rugby team—we are putting them on the bench. It is a contradiction to say that they will still have the same level of independence. The fact is that they were chief executive officers, but now they will simply be employees. They are accountable to the Department of Internal Affairs, and they will have to comply with the culture, the financial decisions that are made, and the personality of the chief executive of the Department of Internal Affairs. They will have to compete with the other third-tier chief employees from agencies such as the Passports Office, which Minister Guy talked about earlier. They will have to compete within the Department of Internal Affairs for focus, and that is not good enough. The National Library and Archives New Zealand are not just any old departments like the Passports Office; these are important constitutional departments.

We have the risk of conflict occurring between the different departments within the Department of Internal Affairs. We have the risk of their voices, which are so important, being silenced. We also have the risk that we will see the worst of both worlds—we will see the Chief Archivist and the National Librarian spending a great deal of their time on the day-to-day administration of being part of the Department of Internal Affairs, without having any ability to influence the executive team of that department. I point out that there have been some good changes to the legislation, such as the ability to have a separate and independent vote, and the good change from the select committee, which was to delete most of the clauses between clause 47 and clause 58, thereby retaining the public records within Archives New Zealand, and not with the Department of Internal Affairs.

Lastly, I want to touch on the risk to our image, and this is true. National members may scoff, but the risk is true. We are worsening the standard, when countries all around the world are investing in their institutions, such as these. They are adopting best international practice. Now the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada all have more power, more profile, and more independence of their statutory offices, like the National Library, than we do in New Zealand. This legislation takes us backwards. It is contrary to the Unesco guidelines, it is contrary to the International Council on Archives document on principles, and it is a step backwards.

In summary, I am glad the State Sector Management Bill has been divided, because I wholeheartedly endorse the Green Party’s vote against Parts 2 and 3. It is bad practice to be passing this legislation under urgency. It is bad legislation. It is bad not to listen to the select committee submitters, who were overwhelming. It is bad not to listen to the experts in the field who produce coherent arguments, which were not backed up. It is legitimate to ask: is it broke? No. Is it adopting best international practice for the sector? No. Does it take us backwards? Yes. Will it really impact on the independence and the actual great work of these institutions? Yes. Should this legislation proceed? No.

I will take a relatively brief call on the third readings. First, I say right from the outset that over the course of the last 6½ hours that we have been debating this legislation, we are still waiting for any good reason why Archives New Zealand and the National Library have to be pushed into the Department of Internal Affairs. We listened to Nathan Guy talk about all sorts of things, but there was no solid rationale and no coherent argument for why we are here today, debating this ridiculous legislation, until Tony Ryall rose at the very end and mentioned the word “digitalisation”. Digitalisation seems to be the key that brings us to the House today to try to bring Archives New Zealand and the National Library into the Department of Internal Affairs. It is a software solution to a much more complex set of issues than I think Tony Ryall realises. The situation with Archives New Zealand and the National Library is that “it ain’t broke”, and we should not be trying to fix it. They are very good institutions, they have shown themselves to be much better as independent organisations, and we should not be trying to push them into the Department of Internal Affairs.

But the other part of this legislation deals with research, science, and technology. Dr Wayne Mapp went to some lengths to explain how this part of the legislation will bring about a huge step change in the way that the economic progress and fortunes of this country will proceed. The name of the new Ministry of Science and Innovation is good, but if we look beyond the name we see that there is not much more to it. Let us face it. The new ministry has a new leader, who was recruited within New Zealand. That is fine, but the Minister did not even bother to look more widely internationally.

The Minister has spoken about the vouchers and the grants that this Government brought in, under the Government’s Budget earlier this year. What do those grants and vouchers do? He said that they are superior to the 15 percent tax credit that this Government abolished when it came into power. I can tell Dr Mapp that they are certainly not better. It is half the value of what National promised when in Opposition. National promised twice the value that the Government delivered in the Budget. The Government has done away with the 15 percent tax credits. If we went around any private companies in this country and ask them whether they would prefer a bunch of grants that they would have to apply to a Government department for—so that whether they get some money to do research and development would depend on the good feelings and the warm feelings of a bureaucrat—or whether they would want a 15 percent tax credit, I can tell Dr Mapp that we would find they would prefer the 15 percent tax credit all up, all of the time. But it is not only that.

The third thing I point out about the tax credit is that it has taken 2 years for money to be paid out on these grants and vouchers. In those 2 years we could have had decent innovation amongst our companies out there—decent innovation. Instead, tax credits were stopped and it has taken 2 years for us to construct this new, wonderful scheme that the Minister has brought out whereby basically companies have to go cap in hand to a bureaucrat in order to get money to fund their research and development.

💬 Colin King: Instead of using creative accounting.

Colin King is interjecting. I say to him that Australia came over and took our 15 percent tax credit, lock, stock, and barrel—everything that we had done—and transported it over there. That is what Australian companies have. This Government proclaims that it wants us to catch up to Australia, and the Australians have come over to New Zealand and taken one of our best ideas and transported it back there. The Australians are using it, and their companies are getting all the advantages. That is not to mention that the Australians have bumped up their research and development spend by 25 percent.

One of the main drivers of this Government’s economic development, which is research, development, and innovation, is purely pathetic. The Government has dismantled the best thing that has been brought in. It is the biggest tax cut that companies in this country have ever received. It is bigger than the tax cut that was announced in the Budget. Companies that are exporting, which are the most valuable to us in New Zealand, have had a tax increase as a result of this Government. It took away the 15 percent tax credit, and that 15 percent tax credit was one of the biggest helps to innovation and development in this country.

💬 Hon Dr Wayne Mapp: Good for creative accounting.

It is simply what we have now—State welfare for companies. It will do nothing to raise the research and development private spend, which is at an abysmal level in this country; it will do nothing for that.

💬 Hon Dr Wayne Mapp: Prove it.

Dr Mapp keeps on interjecting. Dr Mapp keeps talking about Denmark being a wonderful country. Denmark has the same agricultural basis as New Zealand, but it has managed to increase its manufacturing and its innovation. How about taking on some of the same things that Denmark has done, rather than sitting there and talking about what a wonderful place Denmark might be? What about having a tax credit for research and development? Denmark has lots of assistance and lots of support, and far more support than this Government is handing out. If this Minister really wants to be aspirational, why do we not go over to Denmark and see who is over there who might lead our Ministry of Science and Innovation, rather than opening up the recruitment process for a period of 2 weeks and 3 days? Somehow, in 2 weeks and 3 days, we were supposed to attract the best and the brightest throughout the world. Instead, we kept our aspirations looking towards our feet, rather than looking towards the sky. Instead of that, we certainly have not gone through the right process.

I believe that although this legislation seeks to bring the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology together with the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, and create a new, dynamic, innovative powerhouse in the Ministry of Science and Innovation, it is doing nothing of the sort. In fact, as we found out at the Education and Science Committee, when we asked some of the officials: “Where are the aspirational aspects in this bill? Where is the statement of intent as to what it will do?”, they said: “Well, actually, we’ve just been struggling with trying to bring the two parts of these two organisations together, and we really haven’t got to that yet.” I think that should have been set through the leadership of the Minister, and we should have had an aspiration that we could have actually followed in the legislation that followed that aspiration. Instead, we have legislation welding together a couple of departments. We are not opposed to it, because when we come back into power we will make something of them. We will take this shell, we will take this pathetic attempt at innovation—nothing more than the words—and we will stitch it together and actually make something of it. That will include having a tax credit, such as the one the Government has taken away.

This legislation that has kept us here on a Saturday for 6½ hours is nothing short of a complete waste of time. We have taken Archives New Zealand and the National Library of New Zealand back to the Dark Ages of the 1990s, and we have been completely and utterly unaspirational, as it concerns the Ministry of Science and Innovation. I can think of many, many things I could have done with these 6 hours today rather than sitting here in this House and listening to that. Thank you.

This John Key - led Government is overwhelmingly supported by New Zealanders. I will tell the House two of the six reasons why that is. We have a strong economic plan, and two components of that plan are supported by this legislation: enhancing science and innovation, and getting a better, and more efficient and effective public sector. That is why I am delighted to support this legislation.