Debate on Crown Entities, Public Organisations, and State Enterprises — New Zealand Antarctic Institute

I call John Hayes.

💬 Grant Robertson: Here’s a polar bear himself!

For the benefit of my colleague across the House, there are no polar bears in the Antarctic. I know that. I do not know what school you went to and how good your teachers were, but there are no polar bears in the Antarctic.

I will just take you back a bit, because you do not seem to know much about the Antarctic. A review back in 1994 recognised that the Antarctic was strategically important to New Zealand, and this led to the establishment of the New Zealand Antarctic Institute, known as Antarctica New Zealand. That was sorted through in 1996. I think it would be fair to say that Antarctica is seen as the last pristine area in the world, and all of us in New Zealand see that preserving and protecting Antarctica is a vital role of the Government.

Antarctica New Zealand is the Crown entity responsible for developing, managing, and executing New Zealand’s activities in Antarctica and in the Ross Dependency, and it reports to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee annually on its performance. Antarctica New Zealand manages Scott Base, which is New Zealand’s Antarctic research station, and it maintains—without sun at this time of the year—New Zealand’s operational presence in the Ross Dependency for the benefit of present and future generations of Kiwis. Key activities include supporting scientific research, conserving the intrinsic values of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, and raising public awareness of the international significance of the continent.

I think the Antarctic Institute is well rated in both financial and service performance terms, and its operational presence, environmental stewardship, and public engagement has been very good. The Crown provides annual revenue of around just under $14 million, and in this last financial year under review it had a net operating surplus of $400,000. Most important, it achieved a cost saving of 30 percent of its budget, and it met that. It also made very significant savings in fuel, something like, in the financial year under review, 666,000 litres of fuel that it did not need to use down in the Antarctic, and that is 44 percent more than the target fuel savings for last year.

The installation of wind-driven generators has contributed to this outcome and particularly to the future energy security both of the American McMurdo Station and New Zealand’s Scott Base. I think that this relationship around the supply of energy to both stations reinforces a long and a very successful relationship with the United States Antarctic Program.

I have just a couple of words about the New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute. This was launched by the Prime Minister earlier this year, and it will lead to multidisciplinary, multinational research down in the Antarctic. This vehicle has been established as a means to attract new international funding, working in collaboration with the private sector. The public-private partnership is an innovative new model for science funding and will ensure we continue to build capacity in New Zealand’s polar science community.

That institute has already completed the first international study on Antarctic tourism impact, and it has partnered with Landcare Research to lead international development of an Antarctic environmental portal to better manage ecosystems. It has also undertaken a joint recovery with the United States of a 763-metre-long core from Roosevelt Island, a world-leading climate record of the last 30,000 years.

Finally, I think it is also worth thinking about the importance of the Antarctic industry to Christchurch, because it contributes around about $280 million every year to the Canterbury economy. That really imposes, I think, a particular obligation on the chief executive Lou Sanson and his team, and the chair Rob Fenwick and his board, to be thinking creatively about how to expand their vision to generate significant benefits for future generations.

Report noted.

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