State Sector Management Bill

Thank you very much, Mr Chair.

💬 Hon John Boscawen: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am sorry to interrupt; I was waiting for the end of the voting. I seek leave to amend a vote from last night on the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill vote. We cast two votes in favour—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The member will have to do that in the House, and not in the Committee, because that was a decision of the House and not of the Committee. You will have to do that in the House. I have called Grant Robertson.

I am quite interested to know how the vote is going to change, actually, because it was an interesting vote by the ACT Party.

We now move on to Part 3 of this State Sector Management Bill, which deals with Archives New Zealand’s merger into the Department of Internal Affairs. This is a very significant change. I am not belittling the change in relation to the National Library; as speakers on this side of the Chamber have argued, we regard the reduction in the independence and the amount of information and knowledge we will have about the National Library to be a significant matter. But the role of Archives New Zealand, constitutionally, in New Zealand is a very important matter. I will take a little bit of time in this first call—

💬 Chris Hipkins: The first of many!

—the first of many, that is correct—to talk about the overall significance of Archives New Zealand.

Archives in any country provide the ultimate accountability for Government, because we know that records will be retained and records will be maintained and protected. Not only that but under our system Archives New Zealand has the role of ensuring that departments deposit documents, and do not destroy them. In fact, that is the key reason the Chief Archivist needs independence, because the Chief Archivist is the person who can go to another Government department and demand its records be deposited. He or she has that ability; he or she has that statutory role. The question can very quickly be raised, once one makes the Chief Archivist a third-tier manager at the Department of Internal Affairs as to what happens when he or she has to go to the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs—his or her boss—to say: “You have to deposit that document. That document must be deposited.”? Immediately we run into the problem of this part of the bill, because the role of Archives New Zealand is core in ensuring that our democracy is open and transparent.

In the Education and Science Committee the Human Rights Commission came to us, and its officials wrote a submission for us in which they talked about the important constitutional role of preserving Crown records. That is not done just for historians; as they said, it is done, actually, for the accountability of our Government over the full term of those Governments. If people want practical examples of why that is important or significant, I give the examples of every single Treaty claim, and every time we dig in a street in Aro Valley in Wellington and need to know where the power cables might be. Actually, that example was an interesting case when some privatisation took place; it was interesting to learn just how much information there was. If we have that information, we have it because we have good records and we have good archives.

We have had a bit of discussion during this debate about what happened in the 1990s when Archives New Zealand was part of the Department of Internal Affairs. I will read out to members a letter sent to somebody on 13 June 2001 by the Hon Matt Robson. He was writing to somebody who was looking for some information with regard to a ministerial inquiry. I will read the second paragraph, in which Mr Robson states: “I have caused inquiries to be made of the tribunal’s division of the Department for Courts. Unfortunately, I have discovered that apart from the committee’s report, all documents relating to the inquiry, including the submissions, were destroyed in 1999. It appears that the destruction of these documents was inadvertent.” That is the kind of thing people are concerned about. That is the kind of thing that drove former Chief Archivists to come to us at the select committee and say: “This is not some theoretical exercise. This happened in the 1990s in New Zealand, and it was an unmitigated disaster.”

As my colleague Jacinda Ardern said before, one submitter noted that important historical records were lost to “vermin and indifference”. There is the apocryphal story about what happened to the copy of the Treaty of Waitangi when that was involved in Archives New Zealand becoming part of the Department of Internal Affairs’ “important historical records”. These things are simply not right in a good-quality democracy. In 1997 Sir Geoffrey Palmer said: “it is a core responsibility of the State to maintain a proper and impartial record of the decisions and activities of the New Zealand Government. Not only are such records essential nourishment to the intellectual life of New Zealand, they are an important instrument in the accountability of governments.” He went on to say that “the existence of a public record on every government exerts a salutary and beneficial effect on Ministers and that effect could be undermined if the strength and integrity of the archive system in New Zealand is diminished”. My colleague Trevor Mallard, from his experience, certainly knows about that. The Minister in the chair, Nathan Guy—with his twink bottle—might deserve to bear that in mind, as well.

The Human Rights Commission commented on this bill: “By integrating Archives New Zealand into the DIA and subjugating the agency to officials superior to a downgraded CA, the Bill risks undermining the independence of the CA and severely impinges on New Zealand’s constitutional and democratic protections.” That is it. That is what we are debating today: the undermining of our constitutional and democratic protections through this merger. It has been so glibly done, I might add. We have heard so little from the Government about what really justifies these changes.

Labour again has a number of amendments that we have put up on Part 3 to try to mitigate some of the worst aspects of this bill. We make it absolutely clear that when Labour is returned to Government we will be seeking to give Archives New Zealand and the Chief Archivist the independence that they need for reasons of democratic and constitutional infrastructure, as we have said before. It may be that consideration could be given to a model beyond a department, such as a Crown entity model or an Officer of Parliament model. We are open to those suggestions, but we underline our view that the critical role of an independent Chief Archivist must be protected.

Quite simply, this bill does not do that. The Chief Archivist will become an employee of the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs. The Chief Archivist will have no right of access to the Minister and no independent reporting right to the Parliament. This bill diminishes the rights, independence, and influence of the Chief Archivist. The Crown Law opinion, which Mr Guy had to have torn from his hands, emphasises that point in many ways. It has looked at the legal aspects of the merger, and did that completely without the context of the Department of Internal’s Affairs structure, which is actually the practical way that the merger will work.

No doubt, if Mr Guy chooses to take a call, he will tell us that the provisions in Part 3 do enough to ensure the independence of the Chief Archivist. However, as David Shearer said earlier, every submitter who came to the Education and Science Committee told us that they did not believe that that was possible. The two former Chief Archivists who came before the committee gave incredibly persuasive submissions about their experiences under a regime where they were part of the Department of Internal Affairs. They said their influence was limited, their time was taken up with other matters, and their ability to have archives given some kind of importance was severely diminished alongside the other priorities of the Department of Internal Affairs. Some people do not think these issues are important, but having archives, having good-quality material and systems that hold Governments accountable, is what holds our democracy together. Part 3 undermines that, because the reasoning behind this merger has nothing to do with good-quality archives; it has to do with the Minister’s belief—influenced by officials, no doubt—that digitalisation is all that matters. He believes that that project is all that matters, and that there will be fewer departments.

When the merger was announced on 18 March, I began a process to request information under the Official Information Act to see the justification for it. It is quite ironic that I had to go to the Ombudsman on appeal—twice—to get the information. Until today I had not seen the Crown Law opinion that was referred to earlier, because the Minister of State Services—more than the Minister responsible for Archives New Zealand, who is also the Minister responsible for National Library, and did provide some information—made sure that that information was withheld. The information was withheld because officials in the National Library, Archives New Zealand, and elsewhere knew that this merger was not the right thing to do. They knew that this was wrong, because in the 1990s they seen the experience. They had been there and done that. Two former Chief Archivists also told the select committee that in the 1990s some Chief Executives of the Department of Internal Affairs were very helpful and had tried their best; others had had not. There were others—and one in particular—who had a different agenda, which was actually about whether the Archives could in fact be run privately. I am sure that that agenda could come back one day. When Chief Archivists and Archives New Zealand staff get in a situation where the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs has a completely different agenda, then that is a very unfortunate thing. Part 3 is a very, very bad part of the bill.

In my second reading speech I talked about my adventure to the national archives, around the corner from Parliament, and about some of the documents I had seen. I tell the Committee that I got to see some wonderful documents of our history. I saw police records from the Wairau Affair. I saw a wanted poster of Hone Heke, which had been found, literally between the pages of another book, only weeks before. I saw transcripts from the Parker-Hulme murder case, which was immortalised in the movie Heavenly Creatures.

I also saw something that I think is instructive for us today. I found some wonderful photographs of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in Egypt taken during World War II. A no doubt good-intentioned army soldier had decided to paste all those wonderful pictures into a book, thereby wrecking them. I think that is the metaphor for today. I do not doubt the good intentions of what the Government is trying to do. I do not think it dislikes Archives New Zealand or dislikes the National Library. I think it is going into this merger with good intentions, but I say that we will see bad consequences.

I am a historian by academic training, and those old adages ring true: “Know your history”; “Know where you’ve come from to know where you’re going.” The risk is that we will be repeating the mistakes that were made in the 1990s before those departments were separated. We will have to go through a whole process, once again, of disaggregating them.

Part 3 of the bill amends the Public Records Act 2005. We are not talking about a dusty, old collection of papers; we are talking about important taonga—treasures—of our New Zealand culture and our history. We are also talking about important constitutional features of our democracy. I want to re-pose the questions and answers that I heard at the Education and Science Committee from the New Zealand Historical Association. It asked whether the system was broke; the answer was no. It asked whether we were adopting best practice today; the answer was no. It asked whether the bill would take us backwards; the answer was yes. It asked whether there were risks with this bill; the answer was yes. Those risks we are talking about are to the independence of Archives New Zealand, to the great work it is doing, to the safe custody of our national taonga, and to our international image. We are also talking about Te Tiriti o Waitangi impacts.

When we look at the risks to the independence of Archives New Zealand we see that this bill, firstly, downgrades the Chief Archivist from the position of a chief executive to simply an employee of the Department of Internal Affairs. He or she will be legislatively accountable, yet will have financial, organisational, and authoritative means counting against them, because, basically, the chief executive—a third-tier employee—will have to comply with the culture, the strategic direction, and the financial direction of the Department of Internal Affairs. That is not just an academic debate; the independence of that position will be eroded.

The Minister in the chair, the Hon Nathan Guy, talked about the Crown Law opinion, but he did not mention how rushed it was. He did not talk about the fact that Archives New Zealand is not like the Passports Office, which he used as an example. We are talking about important constitutional roles in our democracy. The risk is that the chief executive of Archives New Zealand, downgraded to a third-tier official, will have all the burdens of administrative work within the hierarchical structure of the Department of Internal Affairs but will not be able to sit on the executive team, in order to actually make a difference. We are really talking about the worst of both worlds.

Secondly, the select committee made a good change in deleting most of the provisions in clauses 47 to 58, which means public records will be retained in the possession of Archives New Zealand and not by the Department of Internal Affairs. There were legitimate concerns expressed by people who have items in the Archives or who would like to donate items to the Archives in the future. We are talking about differentiated roles between the two different departments being taken over and the Department of Internal Affairs. On the one hand we have the Department of Internal Affairs, which looks after items like censorship; on the other hand, we have the important constitutional role to manage our archives well. As the Lange papers in Archives New Zealand show, or WikiLeaks shows—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but the time has come for the luncheon break.

Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

I return to Part 3 of the State Sector Management Bill. When I was speaking earlier on, I was speaking more generally about the concern Labour had on a philosophical level about what is happening in Part 3, which undermines the independence and ability of the Chief Archivist to perform his or her core constitutional role.

I will now refer to specific elements of Part 3. Firstly, I refer to a change that has been made by the Education and Science Committee on the question of Archives New Zealand’s continuing existence in some form or name. Essentially, the bill removed all references to Archives New Zealand because Archives New Zealand as we know it, as a Government entity, will not exist. Archives New Zealand is still the repository for documents—this would continue. A number of submitters raised questions around the ownership and control of documents, and people had concerns that as the bill was drafted, the Department of Internal Affairs rather than Archives New Zealand would have ownership and control of those public documents. Clearly, that concerned a lot of submitters; it was raised by a large number of people. I am pleased to say that the committee was able to make a change, and a large number of clauses have been changed so the phrase “Archives New Zealand” is included.

That is important because, again, it goes to the heart of the matter of ensuring that there is an independent archive. The absence of that, and the handing over, effectively, of control or ownership of documents to the Department of Internal Affairs raises all those concerns again that it will not be Archives New Zealand that controls these important records but a Government department into which the archive has been subsumed. In that small matter we were able to achieve a change in the Education and Science Committee, but it does not take away from the other matters that we have traversed.

A number of submitters raised important concerns about the way in which the Chief Archivist is appointed and how his or her independence is maintained. The critical change made was that, under this bill, the Chief Archivist can act independently “in exercising his or her professional judgment;”. Under the previous legislation, the Public Records Act 2005, the Chief Archivist was independent in the discharge of his or her duties and functions. We now have a difference. There is a downgrading, so that rather than the Chief Archivist being responsible for, and having independence in, all of his or her activities, he or she merely has independence in the exercise of his or her professional judgment. The select committee sought clarification from the officials that this really was about ensuring that the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs’ authority remained totally unchallenged. That is the nub of the problem. In this situation, we need a Chief Archivist who can challenge the authority of the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs where that is necessary. That alteration in terms of the description of the Chief Archivist’s independence is a critical change, and one raised by a large number of submitters, but one that we were not able to resolve satisfactorily in the select committee. In one of my typescript amendments, we are attempting to rectify that situation, and I encourage the Government to ensure that that amendment is passed.

The relationship between the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs and the Chief Archivist is obviously at the heart of that matter, and, again, it has not been dealt with adequately in the bill. The chief executive will be the employer and the Chief Archivist’s role will be subsumed because of the structure of the State Sector Act. The release of the structural document for the Department of Internal Affairs reconfirmed this and showed that the Chief Archivist will be a third-tier manager, outside the executive leadership team. That is a very important point. The Chief Executive and managers of the Department of Internal Affairs, who will set the strategic direction for the Department of Internal Affairs, will not include the Chief Archivist. We on this side of the Chamber find that simply unacceptable for such a significant constitutional organisation. We would like to see that changed and there are Supplementary Order Papers dealing with that.

The National Library’s situation is similar. The whole question of reporting has completely changed. Reporting will be via the Department of Internal Affairs. The National Library will report to the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs, and that is not acceptable.

I will carry on from my colleague Grant Robertson, who started the debate after lunch. The Minister in the chair, the Minister of Internal Affairs, made Part 3, which contains the delegations and functions of the Chief Archivist and administrative matters, sound very prosaic, boring, and bureaucratic. But what the Government obviously fails to get is the cultural impact made by Archives New Zealand, and the professionalism of the role of the Chief Archivist, on both central government and local government.

The Chief Archivist is tasked with creating and monitoring standards for both paper and digital records management in central government and local government. That includes deciding what may be disposed of and how records are made open to the public. It is a big power. We have already seen—with the Minister in the chair changing a Crown Law opinion with his twink pen before he was prepared for the Opposition to pick it up—how records can be dealt with by stealth. It is funny that we are now up to the public records part of the debate, when we have just witnessed that activity by the Minister in the chair. We can see how important independence is for the role of the Chief Archivist. Public records should not be altered, and the public has the right to access those records.

I chaired the Health Committee inquiry into agent orange. The select committee asked for the Ministry of Defence papers on where agent orange was used in Viet Nam. We found, with great alarm, that huge chunks of that public record were simply missing. It was annotated and then there were big gaps. That is of huge concern, especially if, when future Governments scrutinise the activities of either the Crown or Crown entities, they find that there has been obvious tampering or loss. That is not good, professional record-keeping. That is a critical role of the Chief Archivist.

That function was one of the reasons why, in May 2000, the previous Labour Government lauded a new dawn for the National Archives. Marian Hobbs said: “Most people know that the Archives preserve historic documents fundamental to our existence as a nation, such as the Treaty of Waitangi and the 1893 Women’s Suffrage Petition. … the work of the Archives is directed at ensuring that a full and accurate record is kept throughout Government.” That is a critical function of the Archives.

In Part 3, we see that even though clause 41 states the Chief Archivist is to act independently, the Chief Archivist will report to the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs, for goodness’ sake! The chief executive is under great financial pressure. I ask how easy it will be for the chief executive to exert pressure on the Chief Archivist to cut corners, and to not properly store and maintain the public record. That is the danger of having a lack of independence for the Chief Archivist through the restructuring that happened after the Minister received the Crown Law opinion. It is a real worry.

It is also a real worry for members in the Chamber to see the Minister in the chair twinking away. I found that deeply disturbing. He now has the name “Twinkie” Guy, and that will stick for ever. “I’ve been twinking”, “Twink Big”—there will be talk about the Minister of Internal Affairs “twinking big”. You know, it will not go away; we are determined that it will not go away. It becomes part of the legacy of this House’s storytelling now.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: He’s a big twinker.

He is a big twinker—he is. Members may think the Minister is very prosaic and a solid performer, but the stealth with which he reached for that twink will go down in history as we engage in the debate on Part 3 of the State Sector Management Bill, which is anything other than boring. That is why we are going to keep on with our pressure here, right up to Christmas. Our colleague Grant Robertson has some very good amendments, which I do hope the Minister listens to.

I join my colleagues in speaking on Part 3 of the State Sector Management Bill, and I wholeheartedly endorse the comments made by Grant Robertson and Steve Chadwick in relation to the importance of Archives New Zealand and our concern about what this legislation will do to the independence and robustness of our information-keeping service. Many of the same concerns applied to the discussion on the National Library. The independence of records and the ability to maintain them so that people can analyse and consider our history to reflect critically on what was or was not done, and to be able to look at, for example, how we are governed, is a fundamental right and a fundamental necessity in a democracy. So we are very concerned about this. Although, as others have said, new section 12 in clause 41 states that the Chief Archivist is to act independently, we do not believe that that goes far enough. The provision is constrained in that it states the Chief Archivist “must act independently in exercising his or her professional judgment;”, but we are not confident that that independence of the Chief Archivist will be maintained when the role is that of an employee and a third-tier manager.

The people who work in places like Archives New Zealand and the National Library are professional people who are absolutely committed to what they do. We know here, from dealing with the Parliamentary Library, just how committed the people who work in this kind of role are to doing the job properly to ensure that they act in a way that is open and transparent, and that applies equally to those working in Archives New Zealand. Those people do that work because they are passionate about maintaining records and having those records accessible to New Zealanders. The reality is that reducing the independence of the Chief Archivist will have flow-on effects on everybody who works in Archives New Zealand. I would like the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Internal Affairs, to respond to some of the concerns that members on this side of the Chamber are raising.

My colleague Moana Mackey talked in the debate on the previous part about the provisions for the transfer of employees of the National Library and compared them with the transfer provisions in Part 1 for those working in the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology and the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology. I want to make similar comments in relation to the transfer of employees of Archives New Zealand. Effectively, this bill is very limited and we want some confidence that the provisions outlined in clause 59, “Transfer of Archives New Zealand employees to department”, actually do cover all the areas covered in the provisions relating to the transfer of Ministry of Research, Science and Technology and the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology staff, which seem to be comprehensive. Those provisions refer to people being covered by their collective employment agreement and ensure continuity of service, and, importantly, make the clear distinction that these people are not new employees for the purposes of either KiwiSaver or, more important, the Employment Relations Act. If that was the case, as Moana Mackey and I have said previously, they could be fired at will, without reason, and without recourse to any justice. We want to know precisely what the provisions in clause 59 do guarantee to people who work in Archives New Zealand.

I had a quick look at sections 30E, 30F, and 30G in the State Sector Act, which essentially relate to issues such as technical redundancy. In other words, if people are transferred they will not have access to any sort of redundancy payment. I would like the Minister in the chair to come to the party to give us some reassurance on that matter, to perhaps get some advice from officials, and to tell us precisely what that means and give us some confidence that employment rights for these workers are protected. As I say, the people who work at somewhere like Archives New Zealand are professional people who want to do a good job and concentrate on the issue of managing our information.

Part 3 amends the Public Records Act 2005. In essence it removes the reference to “chief executive” and replaces it with “Chief Archivist”. Therefore, the Chief Archivist can focus purely on his or her pure role of getting on with the functions of the job, which is vitally important.

We have heard a lot this afternoon about what occurred in the 1990s. I point out that, moving forward, Parliament addressed that with the Public Records Act 2005, which was supported by the then National Opposition. The 2005 Act focused on the auditing of practice and the independent external parties that the Chief Archivist has to have come in to look at his or her performance. Also, the results of the audit are tabled in Parliament, which is another important point of scrutiny. These provisions further strengthen the independence of the Chief Archivist, as confirmed by the Crown Law opinion. As a result of that, three reports are available to the public. First, the Chief Archivist is responsible for the State record-keeping of public offices; secondly, there is the audit report; and, thirdly, there is the report of the Archives Council. Those three reports will all be available to the public.

The crux of Part 3 is covered in new section 12 in clause 41. It states, for those who are listening, and even for the Opposition, that the Chief Archivist “(a) must act independently in exercising his or her professional judgment; and (b) is not subject to direction from either the Minister or the chief executive.” The Committee should be reassured by that very important point. The provisions have been further strengthened by those who have been involved as part of the select committee process, and I need to acknowledge those people who have been involved in that process.

The other important point to make about this is to look at where Chief Archivists operate around the world, and I think it is important to give members some examples. They all have statutory independence. In Australia, the Chief Archivist sits within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. In Sweden, the Chief Archivist operates under the Ministry of Culture. In the UK, the Chief Archivist operates out of the Ministry of Justice. In Ireland, the Chief Archivist operates out of the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport. And, in Canada, it sits within the Canadian heritage portfolio. All operate with statutory independence.

I also wish to mention, in relation to the focus on digitisation and getting more information online, the $12.6 million that over 4 years will help to store, preserve, and give access to important public records for all New Zealanders. The other significant point is that a recent survey concluded that half of the information that local governments up and down the country have in their records is not now in a form that they can reuse. That is an important point. We have to move forward on these matters while allowing the Chief Archivist to have statutory independence, and that very important provision is covered in new section 12.

The Minister in the chair did not put in his statement that many of the functions of the Chief Archivist have been removed. That clause has been taken out, which weakens the role of the Chief Archivist rather than strengthening it.

Coming to the point of the international research that he referred to, if we look a little closer at some of that international research, we will find that the safeguards for the archivists in those countries that he mentioned are much more robust than what he is proposing to put forward in the State Sector Management Bill. If he looks at the examples of the UK and the US, he will see that they are, in fact, completely separate. They provide the sorts of safeguards that he believes are in the bill, but, in fact, are not there at all.

I raise one more procedural matter. Before, when the Minister tabled the Crown Law opinion, he said that it was publicly available. None of us had been able to get hold of it.

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: It’s on the website—it’s on the Department of Internal Affairs website.

That is not our understanding, I say to the Minister. I think the fact that he brought out the white-out bottle before he started to table the document probably speaks to the fact that this Government has been less than forward with its information. Let us look at people who have tried to put in an Official Information Act request—and I include journalists and even Radio New Zealand, who is here today. Radio New Zealand has been trying to get Official Information Act releases done and has appealed to the Ombudsmen over and over. It has been unsuccessful in most cases. I think the fact that this bill is being discussed today, in light of all that, is testament to where I believe this Government wants us to go in terms of information and its availability to the public: backwards, rather than forwards. It will be more guarded, more protected, and more compromised than it was before.

I will mention a couple of issues around the independence of Archives New Zealand. I refer to the very good submission that was made by the Human Rights Commission. The Human Rights Commission cautioned against downgrading—that was the term it used—record management, which would call into question New Zealand’s standing as the most transparent and the least corrupt country in the world. In its submission it referred to the Transparency International ranking, which puts New Zealand as the least corrupt country in the world. It believes that this bill would, in fact, compromise that position, and goes on to make a very important point: “The Bill splits possession and control, awarding possession of Archives to the DIA, while the CA retains control.”

That creates a real conflict of interest, I believe. It creates a conflict of interest between the powers that flow from possession—that is, holding it—and the Chief Archivist acting on the basis of control rights. If we have an archivist at the third tier of any bureaucracy, there is absolutely no way that that person can stand up and independently argue the case to keep that information independent as it should be. I just cannot believe that the Minister can honestly stand up and say that this legislation will move Archives New Zealand forward in New Zealand; indeed, it is moving it backwards.

When we come to the rationale of why we are here debating this bill under urgency on a Saturday afternoon at 2.25, again, the Minister comes up with no real or good reason for why we are here, except for technology and technological changes. I have been told that the servers and the computing capacity that are under the control of the Department of Internal Affairs are actually at maximum now. We will be bolting on to that the library and the archives in totally different formats.

I will respond to the comments made by the Minister in the chair, the Minister responsible for Archives New Zealand. I appreciate his taking a call on Part 3 of the bill. I think we found out what he did in his lunch break: he logged on to Wikipedia and did a search on “archives” around the world. But he did not actually address any of the questions that we have been raising about Archives New Zealand. Regardless of how they operate in other places in the world—with very different political systems, very different public service set-ups, and very different cultures—he still needs to discuss the concerns we have been raising about Archives New Zealand. It reminded me of a comment that the Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister, Bill English, made earlier this year. He said he thought we could get rid of a whole lot of Government departments because they did not need policy advice; they could just Google it. Government by Google! I wonder whether this is an extension of that: Government by Google and Wikipedia from the Minister responsible for Archives New Zealand, who is overseeing—

💬 Grant Robertson: We could let Google do the Archives.

We could let Google do the archiving. It would perhaps be helpful. This is very, very telling legislation. In Part 2 the Minister was forced by Standing Orders to table a document that he had been quoting from. Members of the Opposition noticed a bottle of twink appearing after the document had been tabled. We were concerned and we raised concerns about that. My colleague Steve Chadwick very helpfully suggested that perhaps if the Hon Nathan Guy was to write his autobiography—in light of Richard Prebble’s autobiography, I’ve Been Thinking—he could call it I’ve Been Twinking. That is just a little helpful suggestion to the Minister from the Opposition on a Saturday afternoon.

I want to talk about the impact of this part on the Chief Archivist.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: You don’t even agree with this.

Oh, Tau is awake. I welcome Mr Henare back; it is always a pleasure. We notice when we go through the departmental report that the officials are at pains to constantly point out that the Chief Archivist is subordinate to the chief executive—subordinate. This is not just about the Archives simply moving to a new place where they will still be able to operate in the way they always have. It really stands out in the bill and in the departmental report the extent the Government has gone to to point out that the Chief Archivist is subordinate.

It is ridiculous to suggest that when the Chief Archivist is relegated to the third-tier level of management in the Department of Internal Affairs, he or she will be able to operate the same way he or she already has. Archives will now be subject to budgetary pressures. The Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs gets his budget. He has a lot of different parts in his department that have to be covered, including very worthy areas like the New Zealand Fire Service, Passports, and Births, Deaths and Marriages. The Minister in the chair has given us absolutely no guarantee that money that is currently dedicated for Archives New Zealand—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Who cares? Who cares what that member says?

Tau Henare says that he does not care. We know that National members do not care about the preservation of documents for the future. They constantly try to rewrite history every day in this House. It would probably help them if the documents that prove that they are wrong were no longer in the public arena. I understand why Mr Henare would be pleased to see Archives New Zealand destroyed, because he has had a very colourful political history, jumping from political party to political party. He would probably quite like it if all those documents disappeared. He would probably also like it if all the documents showing that he was the worst union organiser in the history of the universe disappeared from the public arena.

The new Chief Archivist will be subordinate to the Chief Executive. He or she will very, very definitely face budgetary pressures and cuts now that he or she is in a department where he or she has to share resources, and that will be damaging for Archives New Zealand. The other point, of course, is that now Archives will no longer present an annual report to Parliament.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Oh, wow!

Mr Henare has never liked having to do any work at a select committee, so he is probably hoping that this means a little bit less work for the Government. But the fact is that the financial review process is very important. It has been one of the ways in which we have been able to follow the progress of Archives and the National Library, which we discussed in the debate on Part 2. What did we learn from that financial review process? These are incredibly well-run organisations. They are efficient, they get top marks across the board, and there is no mischief that needs to be solved in Part 3 by destroying the Archives, which again begs the question of why we are here in urgency on a Saturday passing legislation that fixes nothing.

I appreciate very much the opportunity to take my first call on the State Sector Management Bill on Saturday afternoon at 2.30. We will be on this bill for some time, I think; there is a lot to talk about too. I am sure that Mr Henare will make a contribution. He will get on his feet and make a 5-minute contribution because he obviously feels so passionately about this legislation, although I suspect that those opposite will continue to sit in silence.

In addressing Part 3 I say that I have been listening to the debate on this bill, and I have been becoming increasingly concerned about what is happening to the independence of our National Library and our Archives New Zealand. They really are important; in many ways they define us as a people. They protect our democracy, our history, and, of course, the accountability of the Government—a very, very important matter. But we are seeing that this Government’s preparedness to be accountable is being washed away by every session we have in urgency. No one is allowed to come along and say what they think. No, the Government does not want to hear from people. It does not want to go through the process, and actually I am really worried about that, because I do not ever want to see a situation exist where those in power write our history or influence it. We have seen that happen in history, and we do not want to have that happen in New Zealand. But this could be a key step towards it, and I am very worried about that.

Archives New Zealand and our National Library are part of our collective memory as a nation. I was looking at what is in the Archives; for the purposes of listeners, I tell them that I think the Archives are worth going through. What are we talking about there? We are not talking about a few dusty old books locked away in a couple of rooms; we are talking about over 96 kilometres of archives, 21,500 motion picture reels, and over 5 million records. They are described on Archway, which is the main online website finding aid.

Archives New Zealand also holds our founding document—the Treaty of Waitangi. It holds our founding document—

💬 Grant Robertson: Damaged when the DIA had it.

That is right. It was damaged when it was last under the auspices of the Department of Internal Affairs. Archives New Zealand also holds the Declaration of Independence of the northern chiefs. I would have thought that the Māori Party would be really concerned about the possible damage that could be done to that document, and the interference that could go on, if, for example, the Government pretended that we had never had it.

💬 Hon Member: They might twink it out.

Yes, they could twink it out. The “Minister for Twinking” could just twink it out. That is right. The Archives hold the women’s suffrage petition from 1893. That is really, really important, but of course that could be twinked out as well, could it not? We could pretend, and just go back to saying that we did not want women to have the vote.

I noticed that one of the really interesting collections on display at the moment at Archives New Zealand is called “Walter’s World”. Mr Nash, that wonderful Labour member, would be interested in this, because it is about his great-grandfather. The collection is called “Walter’s World: the Nash Collection”. The Archives website says about the exhibition: “From food to fascism, from world travel to World Wars, Walter Nash kept everything. His papers provide an insight into all aspects of the world in which he lived. The extent of the collection is vast—several thousand “bundles” of papers, photos and other items. They are currently being listed for placement on Archway.” The collection is based on loose themes, it is the Nash collection, and it is about one of the great Labour Prime Ministers of New Zealand. It is an important part of our history, a really important part of our history, on display at Archives New Zealand, along with many, many other really important collections. As I said, they are part of our collective memory as a nation.

Recently a Booker Prize winner said of politicians: “Tell me what you read and I will understand what you know.” I would love to know what the Minister reads—I would love to know. He has clearly taken no notice of the very good advice he has had from Archives New Zealand, or the lessons of the 1990s merger. There was a lot of history there, but National took no notice and Labour, of course, had to fix it up. The Minister had to twink out a document that was tabled in the Chamber today because he had not read it properly, so I think we understand what he knows, because we know what he has not read.

I am friends with a number of senior people in this field and they are really alarmed at this bill. They are very, very alarmed at the potential of this bill to undermine their independence and their passion, and—

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: Professionalism.

—their professionalism; that is right—also their jobs. We know that this move is driven by ideology.

I move, That the question be now put.

I am very happy to take a call on the State Sector Management Bill and express some concerns that I have about the amalgamation of Archives New Zealand into the Department of Internal Affairs, and in particular the impact that that will have on the independence of the Chief Archivist. We cannot underestimate and understate the importance of the independence of the Chief Archivist, given the importance of the material—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Leave it to Beaver.

—that is right—that Archives New Zealand looks after. I can recall, for example, only 3 or 4 years ago, following the passing of the late Rt Hon David Lange, that there was a bit of a furore about material held by Archives New Zealand in his name being made public and whether there was adequate process to make sure that we were not releasing some stuff that should not be released. I think some SIS stuff and some Government Communications Security Bureau stuff ended up being released when David Lange’s papers were all released. There was a review, I understand, of some of the practices and processes—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: He forgot to hand it back.

Yes, he forgot to hand it back; that is right. There was a review of the practices and processes that Archives New Zealand undertakes in releasing papers following somebody’s demise. One of the things that that underscored, however, was the importance of the independence of Archives New Zealand as the guardians of our nation’s history. After a period of time, people have a right to know what is going on and to have access to whatever is contained within such papers, however inconvenient the content may be. Archives New Zealand records significant volumes of information regarding ministerial decisions, Government decisions, members of Parliament, and public records. That information may become inconvenient over time and Ministers and members of Parliament may not want it to see the light of day. It would be very concerning if we created an environment in which any political pressure could be brought to bear very subtly behind the scenes on the Chief Archivist.

The concern I have is that if the role is downgraded to a third-tier manager within the Department of Internal Affairs then, in fact, the diminished significance of that role leaves the Chief Archivist more open to pressure. It leaves the Chief Archivist more open to pressure in a number of respects. First of all, the reporting function to Parliament will be significantly weakened. At the moment, the Chief Archivist has a direct reporting line to the Minister where he or she can advise and meet with the Minister independently. The Chief Archivist has a direct reporting line to this Parliament. The Chief Archivist presents us with an annual report and all of the other documents that an independent agency would present to this Parliament. Much in the same way that I have concerns about the role of the National Librarian being merged within the Department of Internal Affairs, I have concerns about that regarding the Chief Archivist.

The potential for the Department of Internal Affairs to starve Archives New Zealand of the necessary resources to fulfil its statutory functions is increased by the changes being proposed in this legislation. Also weakened is the ability of the Chief Archivist to express concerns about that and to whistle-blow or alert Parliament or the Minister to the fact that it does not have the resources it needs to carry out its statutory functions.

We have seen in recent years a welcome move, quite frankly, to reduce the volume of information provided in annual reports and statements of intent that come to this House. I am concerned that if we try to shrink down the information that we get from a department like the Department of Internal Affairs, which has such a broad range of totally incompatible functions, we will lose all meaning in what is reported to the House and Parliament will not receive the information it needs. If we put that in the context of having entities like the Chief Archivist and the National Librarian merged into the Department of Internal Affairs, that concern only becomes more apparent, because the more contradictory and incompatible the functions incorporated within the Department of Internal Affairs, the more likely it is that they will feel the squeeze and the significance of the functions that they undertake will be undermined. There have been significant concerns raised about this particular proposal by people who work in this area. The New Zealand Historical Association and the New Zealand Society of Authors were particularly concerned about having access potentially restricted to archived material if political constraints and political considerations become part of this mix.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Boy, this is riveting stuff!

He is on the edge of his seat. Tau Henare is quite literally on the edge of his seat and I think that that is really good.

💬 Grant Robertson: It’s the only way he can sit down.

It is the only way he can sit down nowadays, but I am glad that he has found this particular contribution entertaining and I would be happy to continue to entertain him for another 5 minutes.

I move, That the question be now put.