Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill

I apologise to Catherine Delahunty for that confusion. We have actually done some good work together, and I should have made that clearer earlier. Part 4 of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill deals with the recognition of places of historic, cultural, and ancestral significance. There are a couple of minor changes in Subpart 1. It changes the name of the register to the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero. Importantly, it introduces the concept of wāhi tūpuna as a new type of entry. What we try to do here is introduce the concept of independent expert assessors to make recommendations both to Heritage New Zealand and the Māori Heritage Council. It also provides that local authorities must have particular regard—that is the phrase—to Heritage New Zealand and the Māori Heritage Council’s recommendations on historic areas and wāhi tapu areas.

One does not want to be sort of over the top, but I suggest that Subpart 2 is actually quite an exciting proposal. What it does is it requires the establishment of a list of national historical landmarks, which will be called—surprise, surprise—the National Historic Landmarks List. What we want to do there is to promote an appreciation and conservation of the places of greatest heritage value to the people of New Zealand. Initially, we thought about having a finite number, but what we want to do is work together with local authorities, private individuals, and central government to draw up a list. Let me give a most recent example from a commemoration I attended a few months ago: the Battle of Ōrākau—there is an example of something that is a very important historic landmark, and yet it is a field, part of a farm. What we want to do is recognise this history, and we can go from there to do something about making sure people know where they are and why they are important. So it is not simply limited to buildings but it can be a place.

Supplementary Order Paper 444 sets out various provisions relating to landowners’ interests. For example, I refer to clause 75(4). Heritage New Zealand “must recognise the interests of an owner, as far as they are known,”. There are a couple of other consequential improvements—for example, the Supplementary Order Paper broadens the scope to reject an application to review an entry on the landmarks list—and there are a couple of technical changes. So I really think that Subpart 2 will be of tremendous benefit to this country as we get together and, through a very careful process, establish these landmarks—something like the national historic landmarks in the United States. That will provide a very good foundation, for example, when we are looking at protecting earthquake-prone buildings or dealing with sites like the site of the Battle of Ōrākau, and we will make sure that these places are treasured for the benefit of all New Zealanders.

Part 4 is of considerable interest because it has been completely amended. Every clause, every line of it in the version of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill that I have in front of me is a revised, tracked version. It is important to pause for a moment, I think. I am working with both the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage’s Supplementary Order Paper 135—the bits of that Supplementary Order Paper that relate to Part 4—plus the bill in its revised, tracked version.

Because this has been a long time between games, I will say—and it has been a long time in the process of working its way through this House—that it might be worth reminding members present just what the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero does and what its essential purposes are. The amended version of this in the bill is not contradicted by anything in the Supplementary Order Papers, as far as I can tell. The essential purposes of the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero are to inform members of the public about historic places and about historic areas, wāhi tūpuna, wāhi tapu, and wāhi tapu areas—in other words, those areas that are sacred, have some historic significance, have some ancestral connection, or are sacred because they may be burial places or of similar spiritual and significant importance to Māori and to those who live near them. Its purpose is also to notify the owners of historic places, historic areas, and all of those others I have just mentioned as needed for the purposes of this Act, and to be a source of information about these places. The New Zealand Heritage List becomes a register of those places that are of critical historical and national significance.

I do not think it is overstating the issue to say that these are important to New Zealand’s identity in the same way that tikanga Māori and taha Māori are important to my identity as a New Zealander. Even though I may be Pākehā, my relationship with Māori defines me as a New Zealander because I am nowhere else in the world so uniquely located as here with Māori people in this country. Although my heritage may be different from that of Māori, my current identity, which includes my heritage, is formed by the place where I live and my interaction with the other Treaty partner, tangata whenua. Wāhi tapu and the New Zealand Heritage list, which contains the recognised areas of significance, are fundamentally important to the way we move on this land and the way we see ourselves in relation to it. The protection and the recognition of that list are critically important to our national identity. It is not possible to overstate this. Although I may be labouring the point somewhat, it is not possible to overstate this.

The Minister will know that from his assiduous work on Treaty negotiations and the hui that he has attended up and down the country, the celebrations, the commemorations, and the functions of one kind or another that he has had the privilege of attending on many, many marae around the country. He will understand the emotional and spiritual significance for Māori of the places of historical, cultural, and ancestral significance.

So in Part 4, which ranges from clauses 63 to 81, I think what we are trying to achieve in this Committee is the greatest legislative accolade, I suppose; the greatest legislative acknowledgment of the importance of these places to the identity of Aotearoa New Zealand. They become important not just because they are important to Māori but because we move across the land together. That is part of our national identity. I commend this part in particular to the Committee.

I am pleased to take a call on Part 4 of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill and also to take the opportunity to apologise for the slight confusion on Part 3. Part 4 and Part 3 are linked. I do want to acknowledge the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage because we have had a very useful conversation about the importance of the way in which this bill deals with issues of significance to tangata whenua, hence clause 66. That clause, which relates to wāhi tapu, wāhi tūpuna, and wāhi tapu areas, is linked to the negotiation that we had, and therefore I should have withdrawn my Supplementary Order Papers, Supplementary Order Paper 372 and Supplementary Order Paper 373. This has strengthened the ability of Māori to have a very good relationship with archaeologists around cultural sites, because, of course, cultural sites are not just a matter of archaeological sites. This relates to clause 66 and relates to wāhi tūpuna, wāhi tapu.

It is very interesting to have conversations with archaeologists and people who are not familiar with Māori culture about the difference between an archaeological site and a wāhi tapu. Archaeological sites are evidence. They are based on the physical evidence found within the land. The wāhi tapu are based on a cultural and spiritual landscape as much as a physical one. And so our citizens, particularly archaeologists who do not come from that background, really need to understand what is in clause 66. That is why I am grateful to the Minister for the strengthening of clause 42 in the previous part, because it has made much more explicit the cultural competencies and access to appropriate cultural relationships and support that an archaeologist needs in dealing with archaeological sites. Yes, we are talking about wāhi tapu here, but often these things are in the same zone. So I would like to commend the Minister for the work on this. I think there is a lot of good in this bill and there is a lot of detail that is actually important for a more sophisticated understanding of the differences between heritage and wāhi tapu; between archaeology and wāhi tapu.

Heritage might be a broad term, but beneath that we need this bill to spell out some of these things. So I just want to acknowledge the good work done to make the bill more workable and also to acknowledge the previous speaker, Maryan Street, for talking about the landscape in which we are all living and working and how this is an issue of importance to all New Zealanders. The critical thing about heritage is that the more we can all understand how wāhi tapu, for example, function in the landscape from the point of view of tangata whenua, the more culturally appropriately we can deal with some of our issues. I have been involved in many situations where coastal land, for example, is proposed for development or sale and then the private developer is shocked to find that there is a wāhi tapu, or where tangata whenua have been in a weak position to advocate because it has not been clearly recorded. I think that is where the fact that any person may apply to the Māori Heritage Council to enter a wāhi tūpuna, wāhi tapu, or wāhi tapu area should actually assist us to have more of a no-surprises understanding.

Every part of Aotearoa is a cultural landscape and important to all cultures here, but particularly to the first nation, to the first people. So it is really important that the clear recording and the scope that is offered in clause 66 assists us in avoiding cultural misunderstandings, avoiding conflict over people’s expectations. If people know from day one that coastal land contains wāhi tapu, they are not going to have unrealistic expectations of what they can do on that land. Given the fact that there is not much land left belonging to Māori where the sites are neatly positioned—they are all over the motu in all kinds of different places, with all kinds of different levels of meaning and significance to different mana whenua—this bill allows them to be registered and to be clear. I am hoping that councils will demonstrate an understanding of this. For example, in clause 66(3) a council may decline an application in the case of a wāhi tapu if it lacks sufficient merit, having regard to the criteria. I do hope that councils will robustly read those criteria and follow the meaning and the intent that is in this legislation to make sure that the judgments made are in the right place.

That is why I have been a strong advocate in this bill’s debate to make sure that the voice of mana whenua hapū are heard, because it is impossible for anyone else to be an expert on another person’s culture. It is simply not possible for us to be those experts, so it is always about the negotiation, the relationship. Having lived with an archaeologist for nearly 20 years, I know that archaeologists are not experts on Māori culture. Archaeologists are not experts on wāhi tapu. They are experts on archaeology, which is the physical evidence, not the cultural, physical, and spiritual evidence or relationships that are upheld. So I commend this aspect of the bill to the Committee. There is always more that I would like to do, but I think we have made some good progress.

I take a call on this bill, the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill and I just want to firstly acknowledge the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, who is advancing this bill, and other colleagues who have been driving this from the beginning. I also want to acknowledge the fact that there seems to be a general acceptance around this Chamber supporting this bill, which I think is a really, really good thing. I think that for most of us usually the only time we start considering some of our historic areas in this country and in our history is when we are going overseas. When people ask you where you are from and you say you are from New Zealand, then the questions begin to flow about what we know about New Zealand and its history.

Only yesterday afternoon we had a celebration of the Top Scholar Awards next door to this Chamber. Before that was done, the kaumātua of Parliament was there and he began by welcoming the 35 or so recipients of the Top Scholar Awards from throughout New Zealand. In Te Reo he chanted, and that gave the recipients something that moved all those who were present, by my estimation and observation. I do not understand Te Reo Māori. I do some, but I do not understand the depth of Te Reo Māori. But yesterday during that chanting and the blessing that was given by our kaumātua to those recipients there was a common feeling of oneness in that particular room, even though many who were present would probably not understand the detail or the depth of meaning that was conveyed by our kaumātua.

That brings me to Part 4 of the bill. In this particular bill we are recognising historic places probably not only in a more formal or legal manner but, I think, in a more in-depth manner. Firstly, for our historic places, our historic areas, the use of the words “wāhi tupuna”, “wāhi tapu”, and “wāhi tapu areas” is significant.

In the electorate of Māngere—which I represent and affectionately call the gateway to the nation, the land of the young, beautiful, and gifted—we have such places that the local kaumātua and the iwi recognise. In fact, not too long ago I was privileged to welcome some people into Māngere at the Māngere mountain, that historic place there. I am not a historian, nor am I an archaeologist, but I learnt quite a bit by being present and from observing and listening to the people who were presenting at that particular forum. I say to you that the majority of people who were present at the forum were not necessarily Māori, not necessarily experts in this particular field, but we all learnt of the depth of history that is in that place, of the meaning of Māngere. In fact, it was the elders who then later on said that the true name for Māngere is not Māngere but Te Hau a Māngere, which refers—from my understanding as it was explained to me—to the winds and how that mountain blocks off a significant part of the winds that cover that region.

From my perspective as a Pacific person who is a New Zealander with a proud heritage in Samoan culture, I think this bill is great news in terms of this Parliament uniting around the fact that we do need to recognise some of these historical and cultural heritages, which are of significant value not only to Māori people themselves but, I think, to the rest of New Zealand. There is only one New Zealand. There is only one place where Māori reside, and that is Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud.

The second part I am going to refer to—and I am not sure whether the Minister will be able to respond to it, either now or at a later stage—is that the bill makes reference to the role of local government. It refers to the fact that the local authorities must have particular regard to the recommendations made by the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. I was not part of the Local Government and Environment Committee that deliberated on this particular bill, but from a recent scanning of it I do not see any reference at all to whether there is an avenue for the local council to be able to seek assistance from central government in terms of how it would protect and promote areas if Heritage New Zealand recommends that an area—for example, in Manukau—is deemed to be recognised as category I or II and therefore imposes on the council a role to protect that area, to build some advocacy and support for it, and even to build it as an iconic tourism product.

As I said, for me, from my scanning of the bill it is unclear as to whether that could be made a little bit more clearer. I know that the regular complaint to central government from many of the councils has been that central government has a tendency to impose legislation on local government or implement legislation without necessarily giving local government the support that it ought to receive. Without that support, local government therefore tends to complain that it must then go back to its ratepayers and, of course, deal with that in one way or another, whether it be through debt or whether it be through the increasing of rates.

Other than that, in terms of Part 4 of this bill I think it is absolutely delightful that we in this Committee seem united around the recognition that there are such things as taonga, using the Māori word. The English word that I think is comparable to that is “treasures”. In fact, in the Samoan world it would be “measina”—things that are unique, things that are sacred, things that have a value beyond what is seen by the eyes. Thank you.

Like Su’a William Sio, I did not get the opportunity to serve on the Local Government and Environment Committee, which was reviewing the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill, so this is the first time I have come into contact with it, but I too am happy to have a say in this debate and share the very positive views that have been expressed by members so far in supporting a move to modernise, to streamline, and to strengthen the governance of the protection of historical places and our heritage in this country.

It seems very appropriate that in doing this, the bill should fully recognise the interests of tangata whenua in protecting and celebrating our heritage. That seems entirely appropriate.

With particular attention to Subpart 2 of Part 4, “National Historic Landmarks/Ngā Manawhenua o Aotearoa me ōna Kōrero Tūturu”, in terms of the establishment of a kind of a premier category of landmark sites, this seems to be a really good development. When I think about what kinds of sites might qualify for that special status and think about what kinds of places around the country they would be, the ones that spring to mind most immediately are sites that are—this is obviously my own personal perspective here, but I would imagine that things like, as the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage suggested, the site of the Battle of Ōrākau would be a prime candidate.

Again, I would have thought Parihaka would be the sort of place that is immensely significant, not only for Māori but for this country’s modern history in the last couple of hundred years. For a whole range of reasons it is enormously significant. Waitangi, of course, would be an obvious candidate, and, I would have thought, the primary site of the massacre on the Chatham Islands, or Rēkohu. The name of that site escapes me at the moment, but it is a specific place on the Chathams where probably the worst, most concentrated violence took place during the genocide on Rēkohu. Those sorts of places are enormously significant in the telling of the stories of this country. I am sure everybody will have their own ideas about what should qualify, but it seems to me that the innovation that Subpart 2—the list of national historic landmarks—brings to the heritage system, I think, is very, very welcome.

Just more broadly, in Part 4, in terms of establishing a system for historic sites, again, you start to think about what kinds of places might be worth recognising and protecting in this way. I thought about Port Craig, which is a really interesting settlement down on the Southland coast, where, in the early years of the 20th century, there was a thriving settlement, establishing a timber mill in the most hostile of conditions. You can actually visit the historic settlement today. Hundreds of people tried to scratch out a living at Port Craig, and there are still some buildings and some historical artefacts that are there today, and it is a pretty extraordinary part of our early settler history.

For me, personally, there would be things like the Blackball miners’ strike in 1908. That was a seminal point in the early 20th century development of labour relations in this country, and led to not only, of course, the formation of the New Zealand Labour Party but much of the legislation on welfare and labour issues in the 20th century. The first State house in Fife Lane in Miramar may well be worthy of recognition as a historic site.

As an Aucklander, when I think about the volcanoes that are all over the Auckland isthmus—the volcanoes that were quite intensively cultivated and inhabited in the hundreds of years prior to colonisation, and now are right in the middle of our country’s biggest city—they are worthy, as many people have proposed, not only of historic and heritage protection but as sublime natural features in our landscape. They would be worth protecting as well.

I just want to say that I think that this is really a bill that will do a lot of good in modernising and reforming this area. If the effect is to strengthen the protection of our heritage and to make it more effective and more efficient, then that will be a success, but I think also there is every indication that the reforms will also make it easier for the public to understand and engage with our heritage. That also would be of tremendous benefit.

I just want to make a brief contribution on Part 4 of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill. Obviously, from the Labour Party’s point of view, we do support this legislation. It does represent a modernisation around heritage in New Zealand. It is a bill with a fair bit of history and time that has gone into it.

At an earlier point in time when I had some portfolio responsibilities in this area, I spoke to a large number of local heritage and historic places committees around the country. They had mixed views, it would be fair to say, on their imminent going out of existence, but there was a lot of enthusiasm, even among those who were concerned about where the local branches might end up, about it being time for us to get our heritage and historic places governance and management into a form appropriate for the 21st century. So I welcome the bill at that level. It is on that question of local involvement that I want to make a couple of comments, and if the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage chose to, he could answer them. It is a question that is around clause 75 of the bill, around local authorities having to have particular regard to the recommendations around entries on the New Zealand Heritage List. As Mr Twyford just said, this is a great opportunity, actually, for New Zealand to recognise in a contemporary way the most important landmarks and the most important occasions in our history.

Inevitably, with historic places as we see now and with the heritage list in the future, the relationship between central government and local government is critical to helping protect and, when the occasion occurs, perhaps change a designation of something. It is actually very complicated. Right here now in Wellington we have a number of issues developing around heritage-listed buildings and what we can do with them at a local level in relation to things like earthquake strengthening and so on. That is causing some tension between national-level desires and local-level practicalities—if I can put it that way.

When I look at clause 75, I see that we are asking local authorities to bear in mind this list. I guess the question I would have for the Minister is the extent to which the local authorities are now being obligated to have particular regard to the recommendations that come through. What response do we have to local authorities that often say—and I am sure many other members of the Committee will have heard this—“Central government is constantly putting upon us more and more things that we have to do, more and more costs that we have to bear.”? What are we doing as a Government to say: “We believe in this heritage list, but hello, local authorities, you are the ones that are actually going to be bearing the cost of dealing with this.”? Clearly, it is a partnership and, clearly, we have to find a way of working together. But, as I read clause 75, I just think that if I were in a local government situation I would be wondering about the extent to which local government will be supported and enabled to do this and how that will develop over time.

I think that whenever in legislation we as a Parliament impose certain obligations upon somebody else outside central government, we need to consider what we are doing to support those obligations being fulfilled. I just believe, particularly when I look at clause 75, that it asks me what that support is. I would hate to think that this very useful and important idea of creating a heritage list would be undermined in some way by a lack of a relationship with local authorities to enable it to be implemented.

The other comment that I want to make in relation to this is more by way of reflection on how far we have come. Some time ago, when we were altering legislation in this area under the previous Government, there was a huge conflict around the concept of wāhi tapu. As a person in a ministerial office here, I spent a little bit of time defending the Government’s ability to recognise wāhi tapu against the onslaught of the then National Opposition, which thought that this was all PC madness, that this was something out of witchcraft or something like that, and that we as a Government that wanted to get out and protect our wāhi tapu were not able to do so because this was outside what normal people would do.

💬 Phil Twyford: Mr Finlayson?

Well, no. Mr Finlayson was perhaps—[Bell rung] Since I have come to talking about Mr Finlayson, I am sure he will not mind if I carry on with my call. Mr Finlayson was not so vocal about those issues and I suspect, in fact, much as it pains me to do this, that some credit might need to go to Mr Finlayson for the fact that—

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: Say it again.

—no, no, I am saying it only once; trust me—I believe there has been an evolution here in Parliament in terms of our acceptance of the broad nature of our heritage. It is the fact that our heritage is, yes, buildings that have been built in the era since we have been constructing buildings that have survived long enough to be here today, but it is more than that. It is actually about the places that New Zealanders feel have significance and, in the case of Māori, wāhi tapu are clearly those places. They are places that evoke ancestors, and are part of who Māori are today.

There is recognition of wāhi tapu within this bill. There is a specific subclause (2) in clause 75, providing that local councils have to make sure that they have taken appropriate measures to assist in the conservation and protection of those wāhi tapu. Notwithstanding the comment I made earlier about how the local authorities would do that, the fact that we have as a Parliament moved ourselves to a point where across the Parliament we are agreeing that this is something that is a core part of our heritage and is recognised as part of something that should be in legislation, I think, is actually a very good development. It is an evolution from the Don Brash - led National Party. There are still some things—

💬 Phil Twyford: They haven’t moved on everything.

I was going to say, there are still a number of things left over from that era that National could also move on from, perhaps taking this as an example, but Mr Finlayson’s influence in the National Party extends only so far beyond the sphere of the arts and culture sector, which is the sector he is involved in. They were the two points that I wanted to make around Part 4.

I believe that this rewritten Part 4 covers what we believe it should cover in terms of the heritage list. There will be competition for the 50 places on the heritage list, I am very sure, and that will be something that will be difficult to manage. It will be interesting to see whether we are back in Parliament at some time in the future relooking at that number, but at this stage I am certainly happy to support Part 4 of the bill.

There are just a couple of points. I very quickly want to say to Mr Robertson that clause 75 has gone.

💬 Grant Robertson: My apologies.

I accept your apology and, indeed, I formally record that he apologised. Can I also say that I thought Mr Twyford’s contribution was excellent. In fact, I do not think there was one site that he mentioned that I took issue with and I imagine all of those are going to be on the historic landmarks list. I will say, in relation to the volcanic cones in Auckland, that as part of the Tāmaki Collective settlement they were handed over to the local iwi to be administered jointly with the Auckland Council. The proposal is also—and I have talked to Unesco about it and there is a process under way; Mr Majurey for the collective has been working on it—that hopefully, they will get Unesco historic status as well.

The other point that was made, and is a very important one—both the member from Māngere and Mr Robertson raised it—was about how local authorities have all these burdens put on them and to ask what the Government is doing to help. In actual fact, there is quite considerable central government assistance at the present time with the regional museums and art galleries fund. The Lotteries Commission provides the Lottery Significant Projects Fund. I would have thought that if a building, for example, was put on this list, then that would really be an incentive and, if it came to looking for help for earthquake-strengthening and the like, that there are funds available that could be utilised.

The other point I would make, for example, in relation to a site like Ōrākau, not far from Te Awamutu—I was there a couple of months ago—was that if that site was put on the landmarks list, then we could get together with local authorities and with local iwi to see whether there was a way that the site could be recognised more appropriately than it is at the present time. But I am very conscious of local authorities, the need to support them, and the need for them to be involved in this, both in relation to buildings and to sites.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 444 in the name of the Hon Christopher Finlayson to Part 4 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 4 as amended agreed to.

Part 5 Offences and penalties, transitional provisions, and miscellaneous matters