Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill

I move, That the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill be now read a second time. As the member in charge of the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill, I welcome its second reading. The Arts Centre holds a really special place in the lives of Christchurch people. Everyone has a memory of spending time there, whether it was long ago when they were a student, whether it was more recently at the Court Theatre or the Southern Ballet Theatre, or whether they have been a residential or a commercial tenant, or perhaps a regular shopper, a cafe consumer, a movie-goer, or a bar-hopper.

Pre-earthquake, the Arts Centre of Christchurch was vibrant and welcoming. It was the place to meet, the place to work, and the place to play. It was the creative and cultural heartbeat of our city. The Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill is an important element in the ongoing protection and preservation of the Arts Centre for the future. Its purpose is to modernise the governance arrangements of the trust and to set out the charitable objects of the trust in legislation. It will provide greater certainty around the original intention of the trust deed and formally recognise the heritage and cultural significance of the Arts Centre.

The Arts Centre is a magnificent complex. It consists of 24 heritage buildings. The first date back to 1876 and go right through to 1923. During the earthquakes all but one of them were very badly damaged. That has resulted in a fantastic but huge restoration project, which will probably take about 7 years and cost near on $300 million. It is a programme that has been recognised as the biggest and the most high-tech in the world. It is going really well. I would like to pay tribute to André Lovatt, the chief executive officer of the Arts Centre, and everyone who is working on the site for the fact that they are hoping to be able to deliver it on budget and years earlier.

It was really good that the Local Government and Environment Committee could visit the site and see the work so that it could understand the importance of this bill. But the bill is only part of the change that is happening at the Arts Centre. At the same time, significant planning is under way to let the Arts Centre achieve a vision for the future of the whole complex. That vision, of course, is informed by the objects of the trust and recognises the need for the Arts Centre to be financially sustainable in the future.

The new governance structure proposed by the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Board follows a comprehensive review and consultation process. Before it drafted the bill, it carried on conversations with local stakeholders and it also worked with Crown Law and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage over a few years. The modernisation of the governance arrangements will bring the trust in line with currently accepted best practice. It is vitally important that the trust board has the skills and maintains a strong set of skills during the restoration phase over the next few years, and also that an enduring governance structure is in place for the repopulation phase and in the future.

Some helpful amendments were recommended by the select committee to improve the workability of the provisions. It recommended removing the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage from the list of parties to be notified in the event of a vacancy on the trust board, in order to eliminate any feeling of misperception of the Minister’s influence on the trust board’s governance. The trust board also considered it important to give certainty to the community that the objects of the trust would no longer be subject to ad hoc amendments, and that is recognised in the bill.

The reference to stone buildings is entirely appropriate, as it reflects the wording of the original trust deed and respects the intentions of the original trust. It was noted by the select committee, by majority, that it supports the view of the trust board and does not recommend deleting the reference to stone in the preamble to the bill or in the body of the bill. An amendment to the definition of “The Arts Centre” is instead proposed to clarify the meaning of that term.

The select committee also proposed an amendment to require the trust board to make the conservation plan of the Arts Centre available at annual meetings. This is absolutely supported by the trust board and is consistent with its intended future strategic direction of open and transparent governance of the Arts Centre. I am advised that the existing site conservation plan was produced back in 1992, so it has been around for a while and it is due for updating. The trust has committed to updating that plan for the site following the completion of the restoration project.

The bill as originally proposed provided for the site to be vested in the Crown on an interim basis should the trust ever be wound up. But it is recommended that this be amended for consistency with other charitable trusts, so now the provisions of the Charitable Trusts Act 1957 will apply. This is an improvement, I think, to the current trust deed arrangements and is fully supported by the trust board.

The bill will enable the trust board to continue to be able to recover from the impact of the earthquakes. It is an appropriate governance structure for the future. It will lay the foundations for an inspiring public place for the people of Christchurch, for Canterbury, and for visitors to our city now and for future generations. From the damaged buildings and the rubble there is a unique opportunity to create a new exciting and vibrant centre that will be a source of great pride for Christchurch and, I think, for New Zealand as a whole. In the past, the Arts Centre was one of the city’s most enjoyed tourist attractions. It was the place that all of us took our visiting friends and relatives to, and I look forward to being able to do that again very soon.

I would like to thank the Local Government and Environment Committee for its careful scrutiny of this bill. It is a better piece of legislation because of its work. I would also like to thank the House for its unanimous, cross-party support. I am extremely pleased that this bill is back in the House, and I look forward to it being enacted by the end of the year.

It is my pleasure to rise to give a speech on this piece of legislation. It is important legislation, and Labour is happy to support this bill. I would like to acknowledge the work of the member who has just taken her seat, the Hon Nicky Wagner, in sponsoring this bill as a local bill. I would also like to acknowledge the work of the chair of the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Board, the Hon Margaret Austin, and the work she has done to save this set of buildings.

I think that for most Cantabrians, after both the September and the February quakes, and after questioning whether their family and their friends were safe, their thoughts turned to what had happened to the Arts Centre buildings and whether or not they were a set of buildings that had survived the quakes. For Cantabrians and Christchurch people, as the previous speaker has just said, there is a deeply personal connection to this site. This was a site that was gifted to the city in 1973. The announcement was made in 1973—the year I was born.

I feel a personal connection with this site. Growing up in Christchurch in the 1980s, everything happened on this site. It was the place of the Dux de Lux, the place where everyone gathered to have a drink; it was the place where there was a market at the weekend, when there were no other markets in Christchurch; it was the place where as a young teenager in Christchurch, I received my first pamphlet about New Zealand becoming nuclear-free; it was the place of the Court Theatre; it was the place of the Southern Ballet Theatre; and it was the place of Le Café. This was a place where memories were made in Christchurch. It means so much to the people of Christchurch that we can save it and that we can have this legislation that enters on to the statute book the original trust deed, which will ensure that this set of buildings does endure.

The Arts Centre buildings and the trust deed being entered into legislation has personal significance for me. It was one of the predecessors in my seat—a predecessor I share with the Hon Ruth Dyson—the Rt Hon Norman Kirk, who announced the decision that the university centennial convocation was going to gift, it is said, the buildings on the Arts Centre site to the city of Christchurch to be used as a cultural centre. But according to Kirk family folklore—I spoke to members of the Kirk family today—actually, it was a deal done for a dollar because the university could not simply gift that land to the city; it needed to be sold to the city. I am informed by the son of the Rt Hon Norman Kirk—Bob Kirk, who went on to become a deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Canterbury—that the university administration, when talk of the university moving back into the city was raised, would often talk about just collecting the interest on that payment as payment for moving back on to the site.

For Norm Kirk there was a huge significance in this set of buildings being gifted to the city of Christchurch and becoming a cultural and educational centre for the city. When he announced it, he said that it was a great gift to the city, the province, and the nation. He expressed his hope that the bodies would use the buildings to draw the threads of all the cultures of New Zealand and attempt to produce something uniquely New Zealand in character. I would like to acknowledge the former member for Sydenham and the work he did in making sure that we have this unique set of buildings standing in the centre of our city, a set of buildings we can rebuild our city around.

Norman Kirk saw culture as vitally important to New Zealanders and the world in which they were living. Defending the appropriateness of a politician addressing a cultural conference in that same year—1973—Norman Kirk said: “Politics is the conscious projection of a country’s identity. The culture is that identity and not something removed or remote from everyday life.” I would like us to reflect on those words, which are as true today, in 2015, as they were when Norman Kirk said them in 1973. He said he saw the arts as having a very important part to play in our desire to foster regional cooperation. Again, I would like to endorse those words and say they have as much to offer us today as they did when Norman Kirk said them.

At the centennial convocation where Norman Kirk made the announcement that the Arts Centre was being gifted to the city of Christchurch, the gifting was the brainchild of Professor Neville Phillips from the University of Canterbury. As a PhD graduate from the history department at the University of Canterbury, I would like to acknowledge one of the greatest professors of history from that department, the contribution he and the others have made to the cultural life of Christchurch, and the foresight that people like Neville Phillips and Norman Kirk had about the value of these buildings to the city of Christchurch. Neville Phillips certainly saw that.

The gifting of a set of buildings this unique and this special spawned the need for special rules to be made. Those interested in issues of planning and zoning, and perhaps even resource management in today’s context, might like to reflect that the first cultural zone that New Zealand had was this set of buildings. A special part of town planning was needed to ensure that the heritage fabric of these buildings stayed intact and did not come under any threat. We in Labour hope that by enshrining the trust deed in legislation, as we are with this local bill, we are protecting the heritage value and the very rich heritage, both social and physical, that these buildings offer to the city of Christchurch. We want to be sure that these buildings stay.

The Minister in her speech addressed whether or not stone buildings would cover the whole site. Well, I think I speak for generations of not just Christchurch people but people around the country who have fond memories of times at the Dux de Lux or the student union, if they were students at the university when it was on the town site, and who would like to think that this building will survive the wrecking ball of Christchurch’s rebuild as well. This is a special building reflecting our character, and is something that needs to be preserved.

The departmental report that the Local Government and Environment Committee brought back made it clear that the purpose of the legislation was to enshrine the original purposes of the trust deed, which referred only to stone buildings. But I would like to place on the record, and I would like to implore everybody involved in that decision, that it needs to be more than that because the precinct of the Arts Centre encompasses more than that to us as Christchurch people. We are told that it would need special consent as a group 3 building in the Christchurch district plan to be demolished. But Christchurch people and Cantabrians are only too aware of section 38 of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act, which bypasses many of the protections we have had for our heritage buildings. We have had 1,240 demolitions within the four avenues in Christchurch, an area that falls under central government control. Compare that with the 292 rebuild consents that have been granted in the same space. Of those 1,240 demolitions, 20 percent of those buildings were heritage buildings.

On this side of the House we would like to make it strongly known that we have a desire to see the heritage fabric of our city retained because our rebuilt and recovered city needs to value its past. It needs to value the words that Norman Kirk spoke in 1973 when he talked about drawing the threads of all the cultures of our city together to show something truly unique about our city and our nation. I would like to honour the people who have fought for the retention of this site in the past and to thank those of today who have ensured it will last for many more years to come.

It is a delight to stand in support of the second reading of this Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill. As chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee, which considered the bill, I got a sense, as listeners and people observing in the gallery will have had from the two previous Christchurch-based members who have spoken on the bill, about the sense of passion, the sense of commitment, the sense of history, and the sense of ownership of these buildings that make up this remarkable Christchurch Arts Centre.

I am not a Cantabrian, I am not a person who has spent an awful lot of time in my life in Christchurch, but every time I visited Christchurch I have been much aware of the Arts Centre being there. In fact, I can remember 20 or more years ago visiting the Arts Centre for the first time and being completely overwhelmed by the design, the history, and the sense of presence of the buildings. So when the devastating earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 hit the Canterbury region in such a devastating way, it was a shock to all New Zealanders that the site of the Arts Centre should be so badly damaged in the way that it was. I think Megan Woods mentioned that there are 24 individual buildings that make up the Christchurch Arts Centre and that 23 of those 24 buildings were significantly and seriously damaged.

In the course of the select committee’s work on this bill the committee was privileged to actually visit Christchurch and to hear the four submitters in Christchurch who wanted to have their views made known to the committee. As a result of that, once we had finished hearing from submitters we took an opportunity to conduct a site visit. The site visit was extremely useful and worthwhile. I think members would be truly impressed if they have the opportunity to go and visit what is regarded as the largest heritage restoration project in the world currently under way, taking place in Christchurch right now. It is a 7-year project. It is well under way. There are craftsmen and stonemasons from around the world using traditional stonemasonry methods for the repair and rejuvenation and rebuild of those heritage buildings, using techniques that have probably not been used in New Zealand for maybe 40, 50, or 60 years, or even longer than that. These are truly unique buildings.

I was delighted to hear Megan Woods give the very full history of the site. I was interested also to note that not one of the submitters mentioned Norman Kirk once. However, it is clear from her recitation that he was the primary driver in the creation of the Arts Centre—not wanting to take anything away from other members of the Canterbury community who over the years have contributed to its success and its ongoing, enduring place in the hearts of all Canterbury people, and, indeed, probably all New Zealanders who have had an association with it. It is no doubt that the buildings hold a very special place in the hearts of Cantabrians, Christchurch people, and, indeed, many New Zealanders.

So it is important—as the trust chair, Jen Crawford, and the chief executive, André Lovatt, made clear when they made their submission to the committee—that the governance for the Arts Centre structure going forward should be a governance structure that reflects adequately the circumstances that the trust finds itself in today, 40 or more years after the trust was first constituted, and 40 or more years since the University of Canterbury exited the site. Now the trust finds itself with a massive restoration project under way—a project that is going to take a number of years to complete—and it needs an appropriate, modern, up-to-date, and relevant skills-based governance structure in order to see that project through to fruition and to completion. Secondly, once that project is complete in about another 6 years’ time, the trust is going to need a governance structure that will ensure the ongoing conservation and usefulness of the site for Cantabrians and for other visitors. To do that, the governance structure that was set in place originally needed modernising and that is really the purpose of this legislation.

This is a bill that has been sponsored by my colleague the Hon Nicky Wagner as the member of Parliament for Christchurch Central, but it is being promoted by the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Board itself. For the trust to actually have the foresight and wisdom and confidence to bring, promote, and encourage a bill like this gives the House an indication of the calibre of the current trustees and their recognition that they do have to be forward-looking and that they do have to look to the future and not just to the past, because, as with any heritage site, it is the future that is just as relevant as the past in terms of its care and preservation.

I am delighted that one of the recommendations that the select committee made was that conservation plans should become part of the annual meeting structure and agenda. Each year members of the trust and other associated people who have an interest in the Arts Centre will be able to get a sense of what the trust is doing in terms of preservation and conservation, and they will be able to have—as they should do as stakeholders of that city and that site—an opportunity to participate and be very much part of that. I want to just quote, if I may, from the submission from the Arts Centre itself, because I think it neatly sums up the objectives of this bill. The objectives of the trust had previously been separated from the powers of the trust, and so this bill changes that. It makes it such that the provisions will truly reflect the trust’s charitable intent, and in a way that was not previously the case. So those two provisions—which are actually quite technical and, on the face of them, quite minor—have a fundamental impact on the ongoing governance, management, and benefit of the whole Arts Centre complex.

There were a number of other changes that the select committee made, and I think it is worth noting that the select committee process for this bill was a classic example of a select committee working collaboratively, collegially, and in a cross-partisan way to ensure that the legislation that was presented to us at the first reading actually came out through the select committee process as a better piece of legislation. I am very pleased to acknowledge that the Hon Nicky Wagner has identified that, and I think all members of the committee would agree that the process was very good, the intentions were well-meaning and well-made, and the submitters—all four of them—were generally in support of the proposed legislative changes. We have made a number of changes. I am not going to go through them all, but they will, essentially, mean that the Arts Centre is able to be far more modern in its outlook than it has been in the past. The legal foundations of the new governance structure will provide a platform and stability for future trust members and governance officers of the trust to ensure that the very significant parts of the history of this site are maintained and protected.

The centre is one of the largest clusters of heritage buildings in the country. We are a young nation, with not much in the way of longstanding historic buildings. The nature of our architecture is largely wooden and timber-based, and so a lot of that stone-based work that was so prevalent and common in the English tradition was not seen in New Zealand. The Arts Centre in Christchurch actually provides a classic and wonderful example of what at the time was considered to be a mock little Britain and provides a university environment similar to that experienced at Cambridge and Oxford. Members who take the time to travel to the Arts Centre and have a look at it would immediately see that the areas where Lord Ernest Rutherford did his significant work were instrumental in the creation of the site. One of the interesting things that we discovered in our visit was that a whole lot of history had been uncovered as a result of the restoration work, and so I was delighted to see some of that.

This is a bill that is a good bill; it is a bill that the House will, hopefully, endorse unanimously across the Chamber. It is deserving of that kind of support because it is a significant piece of governance structure that will mean the Arts Centre will be able to be governed in a way that is meaningful, proper, and solid going forward. I commend the bill to the House.

It is a real pleasure for me to join the debate on the second reading of the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill. I want to begin by acknowledging the Hon Nicky Wagner, in whose name this bill is. It is a private bill, and I know that the Hon Nicky Wagner, who is MP for Christchurch Central, has had a lot of involvement with the Arts Centre and with the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Board, and she has done a good job of shepherding this bill through the House. I hope it gets unanimous support from Parliament. That would be a really nice message to send to Canterbury.

I want to acknowledge Scott Simpson, who I am pretty sure replaced the Hon Nicky Wagner as chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee. I think there was somebody in between the two—that is right, there was. I remember now. The Hon Nicky Wagner used to chair the committee and now Scott Simpson does, and he does a very good job. I have sat on that committee a number of times. He chairs it with common sense and rational behaviour, and with a great deal of respect, which I think is acknowledged by all members of the House. He gets a better outcome, actually, as a result of doing that. That is not why he does it; he does it because it is his personality, but it is a good attribute for a chair of a committee to have.

💬 Hon Member: What a lot of brown nosing.

I am going to say some nice things about the Assistant Speaker any minute now. That will really bring the house down. Mr Assistant Speaker Mallard, I want to commend you on the extraordinarily competent way you chair the House. I also want to acknowledge Jen Crawford and André Lovatt—Jen is chair of the trust board—and the other members of the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Board, including a former colleague of ours, the Hon Margaret Austin, who has indeed put a lot of effort into this bill, as well.

She actually made an early arrangement to invite members of the select committee that I sit on—the Government Administration Committee—to have an early briefing on the bill. At that stage she had been told that the bill was going to be referred by Parliament to the Government Administration Committee. So we all took up the offer. We got an early briefing, we felt very confident in our preparation to receive the bill at our committee, and then when it came to the House it was referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee. We felt cheated, actually. We would have really enjoyed the opportunity to have had that bill, and I think the members of the trust board were a bit disappointed that they had to give a briefing to another committee.

More of us knew about the background of the bill. Members have spoken about that as well as about the history of the Arts Centre. It is quite an interesting position to have the administration of a centre such as the Arts Centre, and, indeed, the governance structures, determined by an act of Parliament. It is not all that common, and thank goodness it is not, because we would spend a lot of our time debating those issues, I am sure. But in this case I do believe that it is warranted. I do believe that the structures that we have put in place mean that we can have confidence in the governance arrangements and, indeed, in the future of the Arts Centre. It is one of the most valuable assets that we have ever had in our city, actually, but particularly now that we have lost so much.

Dr Megan Woods acknowledged her participation as a university student and the involvement of the Rt Hon Norman Kirk—as MP for Lyttelton, then Sydenham, and indeed as Prime Minister—in the transfer arrangement from the university to the city of Christchurch. Indeed, that was a pretty extraordinary gift and transfer. We also have Sir Ernest Rutherford, a former student on that very site—a great name for all of us to be proud of. I also want to acknowledge the early student engagement of the Rt Hon Sir Dr Michael Cullen—I am never quite sure in what order to put all those titles. Michael, a former colleague of ours in the House, was also a student when the Arts Centre of Christchurch was indeed the university.

Members have mentioned that there were only four submissions on this bill, and nobody in the House should imagine that that is because of lack of interest. It is actually because by the time the bill got here, there had been widespread discussion amongst all of the relevant parties, and people were confident in the content of the bill.

I do want to make mention of a concern that was raised, because the House needs to ensure that it is very clear about the response to the submission that the select committee gave—particularly as we go into the next stage, the Committee stage, because there may well be some calls from Canterbury for us to make sure that the legislation leaves no doubt of this one point of concern that was raised. That concern is that throughout the bill there are references to historic stone buildings. Of course, that is blindingly obvious to anyone who has been to the Arts Centre because that is what the overwhelming majority of the Arts Centre is. It is historic stone buildings, but it is not all historic stone buildings. There are some buildings that are brick and wood. I just want to put on record that we want those buildings saved, restored, repaired, and used for our city’s benefit in the future, as well. The legislation, although it refers in that way to historic stone buildings, does not exclude—as is the desire indicated to us from the trust board—the other buildings. Of course, that includes the former student union building as well, which many people will have very fond recollections of.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the reasons why we are very keen to ensure that the Arts Centre is part of our life in the future is that we have lost so much. Some people, particularly people from outside our city, say: “Well, of course you have lost so much. You had huge earthquakes and seismic events.”, and that is undoubtedly the case. We lost a lot as a result of the quakes, but, actually, in Christchurch we have lost a lot because of section 38 of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act. You might think that this is a bit of an anomaly—how could a part of the legislation designed to support recovery of a city post - a traumatic event be part of the destruction of it—but that is exactly what has happened.

We have had perfectly good buildings—you know, damaged but perfectly good and reparable buildings—destroyed by bulldozers and wrecking balls at the whim of the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery, the Hon Gerry Brownlee. In one instance, a magnificent theatre, the Majestic Theatre, which was loved by Cantabrians as much as the Arts Centre—and I know that the local MP, the Hon Nicky Wagner, would agree that the Majestic Theatre was an extraordinary and beautiful building—was bowled over, put in the back of a truck, and dumped. The reason for that was that the Minister has decided as part of his blueprint for the future that the street that it was on would be wider. So we lost this magnificent heritage building in order to make the street wider. I think that is just tragic, I think it is a shame, and I think it was the wrong decision. So that reinforces our desire to make sure, as far as we can, that similar things do not happen to as many of our buildings. We have lost too much. We do not need to lose anything else.

I just want to conclude by saying that I also want to acknowledge and thank the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee. Not only did they hear the small but important number of submissions with a great deal of interest—in fact, Scott Simpson, we could have you as a Cantabrian; you sounded really passionate about the Arts Centre—but they did take the time and trouble. They did not just fly into the city, have a meeting, and then leave. They took the time and trouble to go to the Arts Centre and to become part of the atmosphere, which you cannot help but feel. Mr Simpson, I am sure you went to the cheesemongers on the way out and got some of their magnificent cheese. I want to acknowledge all the members who made the effort to actually go through the Arts Centre and learn a little bit more about the history, about the damage that was incurred, and then, of course, about the amazing restoration work that is going on. The use of crafts that are not really part of our everyday life now—and this was acknowledged by Scott Simpson—is extraordinary. The work that those people are doing is truly wonderful. I would invite any member of this House to go to see it. It is absolutely inspirational.

I hope that through the next couple of stages of this bill—the Committee stage and the third reading—we can give a lot of confidence to the current trust board, the management, and, indeed, the people of Canterbury that this Parliament understands not only the importance of the history but also the importance of the future of the Arts Centre. This legislation will give us all the confidence that the Arts Centre has the backing of Parliament and that its future will be strong. Thank you.

It is with great pleasure that I stand and speak this afternoon on the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill. Can I perhaps start where the honourable member Ruth Dyson also began, by acknowledging you, Mr Assistant Speaker Mallard, and your guidance of this House. You might not recall it, but I have followed your political career with interest and, indeed, was involved in one of your earlier political meetings in Hamilton, when I was a student.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Primary school student?

No, not a primary school student.

💬 Phil Twyford: You don’t look old enough.

Exactly. It was at Waikato University. We went to a march against your then Government, and turned our backs whilst you were talking and chanted rude things. If I ever knew that one day you would be the Assistant Speaker and I would have to defer to your judgment, I am sure I would have possibly yelled louder. It was very good to—

💬 Chris Hipkins: There are many of us still coming to grips with that idea.

I am sure.

💬 Phil Twyford: It’s a difficult journey.

It is a difficult journey.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): And I think the member will now get on with his speech, rather than bring me into the debate.

I take your guidance, Mr Assistant Speaker. I do want to acknowledge the Hon Nicky Wagner. I think she clearly articulated her own passion for this project very well when she spoke earlier and, as people have said and as members have said, she has guided this through the process to date.

I also do want to add my voice to the chorus of approval that we have heard from the other side for the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, Mr Scott Simpson. I can only echo that. He is a tremendous chair and a tremendous local MP, but, in particular, he has shown real flair and élan in respect of the way he is approaching his chairmanship of this committee. It allowed us, of course, to spend a good time as a select committee reflecting on the issues that were in front of us in respect of the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill.

There has already been some commentary in respect of the extraordinary day we had in Christchurch a couple of months ago. The select committee obviously went down to hear the various submitters give their perspectives on this bill and, as has been noted, we then spent some time actually going and having a look at the Arts Centre precinct itself. I was hugely touched by that and moved by that experience. I had been there in a previous life, actually. In fact, I was feeling slightly concerned when I heard Megan Woods talk about all of her entertaining times at the Dux de Lux because I have had a few times there myself, as part of a visiting University of Waikato sports team, and I was wondering whether she might have even been at that bar at the very same time. I cannot recall it, but perhaps that did occur. But it was a fantastic place then, and obviously it is on quite an extraordinary journey of recovery.

The other point that has been made here this afternoon that I do want to acknowledge is the extraordinary passion that the local people of Christchurch express when they talk about the Arts Centre and the opportunity that is in front of the city to rebuild. I guess I reflect, as a local MP from the Bay of Plenty, that obviously we do not have anything like that in Tauranga. We have more natural icons. Mount Maunganui—Mauao—is an example. I recall, when that was devastated by fire a few years ago, the incredible emotional reaction that occurred in our local community. I guess I can put that in only a small way to that same reaction. The people of Christchurch are hugely passionate about what it represents, which is the heart of the city, and they are ensuring that that heritage value is protected and rebuilt.

As we have heard earlier from Scott Simpson, our chair, this is quite an investment that is being undertaken here. It is 7 years’ effort and $300 million of expenditure, and I do want to acknowledge Jen Crawford, the chair, and André Lovatt, the chief executive officer, for their tireless commitment to work for the vision of rebuilding what is clearly an extraordinary cultural heart. Their passion for and commitment to this is quite extraordinary.

As you walk around that site—speaking as somebody who is not from the area—you see the acute attention to detail. Every single one of those crumbled stone pieces is documented, it is put on a particular pallet, it is protected with wrap, and it is waiting for its opportunity to be either rebuilt or used as an example so that a copy of it can be rebuilt by the incredibly talented people who are there.

It was interesting to have just four submitters attending. I had thought that perhaps something with this degree of community interest in it might well have had more, but it was clear that the submitters spoke in large alignment with each other, and they certainly had a fair amount of support from the wider community.

I think it is a great bill to support. It is very good to see bills like this come to this Chamber with cross-party support. It is sensible legislation and there is an opportunity to progress something that is going to work for the community of Canterbury.

I do want to take a moment to reflect on one of the amendments that is required under this change, and that is a move from a stakeholder-representative board to a skill-based board. I think that is laudable. I think it is absolutely appropriate to be considered. I think it was very appropriate that the community ensured that that change had broad stakeholder support, and I note that the University of Canterbury, the Christchurch City Council, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, the Christchurch Civic Trust, and Papatipu Rūnanga of Canterbury are examples of the stakeholders that have been consulted.

I think it is very important, though, that that engagement with the stakeholders does not cease here. Clearly, there is now a significant power and influence that will be passed to this new trust governance group. It is appropriate that a different mix of skills is required to be able to take it forward for the next 10, 15, 20, or 30 years. But that trust board must never forget from whence it has come in terms of the broad community stakeholder engagement and the representation on the trust to date and in terms of what is important to have still influencing the perspectives of that new skills-based board.

I do hope that the nominations that come forward for that board are appropriately global in scope. I have no experience in arts council governance, but I have had some experience in governance and senior management in previous roles before entering here. We always, I think, have a bias to be very local, at times parochial, regional, and, at best, national only in terms of the perspectives we bring to the table. For me it is really important that the skill sets that are sought to represent the community and this trust board are as global as possible because, as we heard from some of the submitters, if you have an objective to be able to promote not only the acknowledgment of good heritage and phenomenal art and culture but also education, you need to make sure that the most modern approaches of engaging with communities and making them feel part of their history are adopted. Sometimes those best practices do not necessarily come from within. You need to have more global representatives sitting around the table.

I do think it was very positive that the change agreed was that we would have the conservation plan available at annual general meetings. I thought it was slightly surprising, but perhaps reflective of a more representative governance model, that that conservation plan had not been reviewed for a number of years. I think the idea now of having that available at every annual general meeting is going to drive a more frequent refreshment of that plan. I think it is in many ways the soul, if you like, of the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust to ensure that that continues to be available to the public, that it is updated as necessary, and that stakeholder engagement is part of it. I think it is very important that this legislation does lock those objectives into legislation. It provides, as the member Scott Simpson said, a security and stability for the community going forward.

This is a really positive bill. It reflects a wide community endeavour. It is a very, very expensive community endeavour, but I am very sure that at the end of this, when we finally get through to the third reading and we have the approval of this House, we will have a platform provided for the community of Canterbury that will see it into the future. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am very pleased to speak on behalf of the Green Party in support of the bill, and I join the chorus of approval for the bill, promoted by the Hon Nicky Wagner. It certainly is not a controversial bill. As others have noted, there were only four submissions and they were generally supportive of the bill’s intent to provide a legislative basis for the trust’s work, to update and modernise its governance, to consolidate its administration, and to enable the trust to do the work on recovering the Arts Centre from the Canterbury earthquakes.

I am enormously grateful for the vision of those who successfully advocated in the 1970s to protect the Arts Centre buildings against demolition. That would have been a travesty. I am also very grateful for the trust board because we have seen, as Ruth Dyson noted, wholesale destruction of heritage buildings in Christchurch post the quakes because of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority’s casualness about heritage and its keenness to use the section 38 notices under the emergency legislation to sign off on the demolition of Cranmer Court, the Majestic Theatre, and over 200 other significant heritage buildings in the central city. The work being done by the trust board on strengthening and repairing and restoring the Arts Centre is really significant because of how much we have lost.

It is also significant because of the importance of these buildings. There are 23 buildings on the Arts Centre site. All but one of them are listed as category 1 historic places by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. They are buildings with special or outstanding historical or cultural heritage significance and value.

Like others, I pay tribute to the current Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Board, to the leadership it is providing, to its chair Jen Crawford and the chief executive officer, André Lovatt, and to the skill and dedication of all of those who are working on the site, from the international team of stonemasons to the design engineers, the craftsman carpenters, the plasterers, and the builders. All but one of these 23 buildings have sustained significant damage, so we have a restoration project that is costing about $290 million and is going to take 7 years, and it is expected to be completed in 2019. When you go behind the safety fences and have a look at the work that is being done, it is easy to see that the challenges are immense. Buildings are being completely gutted. Floors are being lifted. Timber ceilings are being peeled back to enable concrete cap beams to be put in place. There is proper earthquake strengthening. A lot more attention to modern technology will ensure that these buildings stay warm. Having been a tenant of the Old Chemistry Building, which was freezing in winter, that is a very welcome addition.

This legislation is good legislation. The objects of the trust, in clause 5, are for the Arts Centre to be held in trust as an outstanding cultural centre for use by Christchurch residents and visitors. The vision of the trust board and its staff is for the Arts Centre to be a cultural hub of the city and region, a vibrant place of culture, art, and education. If this bill can help achieve that aim, it will be very worthwhile. The Arts Centre buildings, like the Canterbury Museum, and like Christchurch Cathedral, are neo-Gothic buildings, which were popular in the Victorian era. They revive the details and forms of the original Gothic style of the Middle Ages.

The Arts Centre was designed by using six different architectural practices. It was built over about 50 years, but it has cohesion and unity. The architects have respected the work of those who have gone before them. Two of the major architects for the Arts Centre were Benjamin Mountfort and Samuel Hurst-Seager. They were responsible for the grand design of the precinct and features like the quadrangles. Benjamin Mountfort also had a major role in the design of the Canterbury Museum and the Christchurch Cathedral. And, of course, these buildings are all linked by Worcester Street, now Worcester Boulevard.

But there has been a very different approach between what has happened at the Arts Centre and what is happening at the cathedral. The former Arts Centre trust board had the wisdom to ensure that the Arts Centre was very well insured. That meant that the restoration and strengthening work was able to start quickly, and it was assisted by some generous local and international donations. At the Arts Centre we are seeing the extraordinary challenges being responded to with inspiration and passion to develop creative solutions to those engineering challenges. We have a lot of energy, a can-do attitude, a pride in what is being done, and an obvious sign of progress with the rebuild. It is an inspiring project.

Christchurch Cathedral is the very opposite. Because of the obduracy of the Church Property Trustees and their failure to even protect the interior of the cathedral from the weather by closing the gaping wound of what was once the rose window and the spires, the whole cathedral has now become a symbol of failure. It is a symbol of having been defeated by the earthquakes, and yet it could be so very different.

I strongly encourage the Bishop of Christchurch, Rt Rev. Victoria Matthews, and the Church Property Trustees to do what the Local Government and Environment Committee did and take a visit to the Arts Centre and see what can be achieved if you have got passion, leadership, engineering skill, and commitment to restoring a place that is important to the people of Christchurch. Eighty percent of the cathedral structure still stands, the roof structure is entirely intact, and over 100 structural and seismic engineers have said that there is no need to demolish it. They have said that the cathedral could be restored and, with modern seismic strengthening, could comply with the highest code standards for public buildings.

The Great Christchurch Buildings Trust has estimated that the cost of restoring the cathedral would be around $67 million, substantially less than what it is costing to restore the Arts Centre, and that trust has offered to help the Church Property Trustees meet the $27 million shortfall between the church’s insurance payments and the cost of restoration.

The building of the Christchurch Cathedral was a huge undertaking for a small community; it took 40 years to complete. The Arts Centre restoration is taking 7 years and the cathedral restoration may take a similar time. But given that these buildings have been around for over a century and given that they will outlast us all, that is a very short time. So I would encourage Bishop Matthews and the Church Property Trustees to look at what real leadership, creative energy, and a respect for the craftsmanship and skill of the past is doing at the Arts Centre and to look at what strong vision to return and retain a cultural treasure is achieving, and then apply that to the cathedral. What has been achieved at the Arts Centre has many practical lessons for restoring the cathedral.

The cathedral was designed by the same architect, Benjamin Mountfort. It has got some of the same materials—those big basalt and limestone blocks, the big timber supports and roof trusses, and the slate roof. The Christchurch Cathedral, like the Arts Centre, is one of Christchurch’s landmarks, it is a legacy of our history, and it can be a symbol of the city again, but there needs to be a major change in attitude by the Church Property Trustees and by the bishop. It needs them to be inspired by the same vision and sense of purpose that we are seeing in the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Board, which this bill is designed to encourage. Thank you. The Green Party is very pleased to support this bill.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to likewise endorse and signal that we will be supporting the passage of the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill, not just through this reading but through to the conclusion. I am going to pick up on some of the themes of some of the speeches before me. It is very hard when you get a bill that is quite simple, you come in as speaker No. 7, and pretty much everything that can be said about the Arts Centre has been said. So I am going to pick up on a couple of comments. I am going to pick up on something as a former Mayor of Carterton—the comments about the former Local Government and Environment Committee. I do need to say this: the previous select committee was not viewed on very well by local government in general. I am pleased that I am working—

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: Maybe it was that mayor.

—on a select committee—there is chipping in from some young man over there; I will get his name soon. It will come back to me.

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: Old age is setting in.

Oh, yap, yap, yap. Do I need to talk about Northland to shut that member up? I probably could, but I will move on. This select committee seems to have a very nice culture—and it is interesting that we are talking about arts and culture at this time—within it. I am pleased to be sitting on a committee that has a high degree of cohesion and collegiality about it. I have to say, though, that when I look back over my career in Parliament, some select committees have not had that air, that culture, about them. The previous Local Government and Environment Committee earned itself a reputation in local government for being pretty pigheaded and bloody-minded, particularly from the Government’s side. That was not evident today. It is not evident under the chairmanship of Scott Simpson—

💬 Hon Nicky Wagner: I would start being very worried about a strike.

—and I am happy to say that I am looking forward to continuing working in the same vein as we progress through. It is not hard. If you want to hear those messages, go talk to any mayor about the way in which the previous Local Government and Environment Committee heard their submissions on the amalgamation proposals and on the changes to the Local Government Act. They were quite disgusted and appalled by the body language and behaviour of some of the members, Nicky—quite disgusted, actually, but moving forward.

💬 Phil Twyford: Not by all parties, surely.

No, no, not by all parties. One party thought that that behaviour was quite appropriate and that was the National Party.

There were comments about Margaret Austin—and the Hon Margaret Austin has been the chair of the trust board—and it really does give me great pleasure to hear those comments about Margaret, because in her time both in Parliament and in Christchurch she has done sterling work across the community, and this is just another fine example of it.

Looking at the history of the trust, I note that the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Board was established in 1978. That was 4 years after I arrived in Christchurch from the North Island as a young soldier. I can say that from then, 1974, until when I left Christchurch in 2007, the transformation in the Arts Centre was absolutely astonishing. It went from being a place that had huge, obvious historic and cultural value to being a place that had all the signs of falling into disrepair and even dereliction. But because of the efforts of a lot of very talented and committed Cantabrians over those years from 1978 to 2007, I saw it transformed as it was renovated, revived, and energised into becoming a vibrant centre of entertainment, art, education, and trade. It became a centre of entertainment not just for Cantabrians but for people who visited Christchurch. I can say that as I grew and eventually became a family man with children, I absolutely adored any opportunity to take my kids into the Arts Centre and to enjoy the entertainment and enjoy the arts and the cultures that were exhibited there so often. I think 1.5 million people—the records state here—were going through, visiting there every year. Even those figures quite astonished me when I read them recently.

I have spoken to many people all over the South Island who have had the opportunity to visit the Arts Centre. It would be fair to say that their views and their experiences of the Arts Centre are pretty similar to those that have been expressed in the House here today. Of course, one could not get through this debate without mentioning the Dux de Lux. I see that the honourable member Megan Woods mentioned that, and Todd Muller. Obviously, a number of university students partook in that little place, and I can say that a number of soldiers from Burnham Military Camp who partook in there on the odd occasion have always enjoyed the Dux de Lux and have enjoyed that opportunity to mix with people whom we probably would not meet socially on a normal basis, particularly those of us in the military. Artistically, culturally, historically, the Christchurch Arts Centre epitomised Christchurch and Christchurch people. It epitomised, clearly, their heritage and their culture, but in many, many ways it also epitomised their innovation and their determination not to allow a taonga that was so important to them to fall into a state of disrepair or, even worse, disappear.

Of course, we all know that in 2010 and 2011 Christchurch was hit by those rather devastating earthquakes. Again, I am someone who considers himself to be a Cantabrian by 30 years’ occupation, even though I am from the Wairarapa, and my family were down there. I was fortunate—and unfortunate—in having family members who were in the Fire Service, family members who were in urban search and rescue, and family members who were in the police. I was fortunate to get a very unique opportunity to visit the red zone and view the devastation in places like the Arts Centre firsthand at a very early stage when most other New Zealanders were locked out of the place. It was a privilege that I still treasure, and I know it was not one that was afforded to other people.

Looking at the level of damage and having an engineering background myself, I could only shake my head and wonder how the heck some of this work was ever going to be completed, and whether there was ever going to be a full restoration. I understand the angst and the heartache from people who lament the decisions made around the cathedral. Anyone who has lived in Christchurch for 30 years on and off understands how important the English heritage and the English culture—and particularly the cathedral—is to Cantabrians. This particular project was always going to be extremely demanding for those who were entrusted with the responsibility of rebuilding, restoring, and conserving the Arts Centre going forward.

This bill, brought in by Nicky Wagner—and I congratulate the honourable member—seeks to address some of the impediments that were inherent in the former governance model. Having returned to Parliament and seen this bill, which came in last year, I can, and New Zealand First can, understand and concur with the honourable member Nicky Wagner that change was necessary if the good people of Christchurch were to do the task that was confronting them. Modernising the governance structure, affirming the responsibility of ownership and duty to it, removing the political influence that comes with ministerial and political party - influenced appointments—and it does not matter whether it is a red-dominated Government or a blue-dominated Government—are never actually going to deliver to you all of the skill sets that one requires in this task ahead.

💬 Hon Jo Goodhew: What about yourself?

I know. I brought wonderful skill sets and your former Minister Tony Ryall absolutely acknowledged it, and I am grateful for that recognition. But the member herself knows from her time in Opposition that one can look at some ministerial appointments and think that, given the challenges of a $290 million project to be conducted over 7 years, the skill sets in this case need to be very defined. So the amendments here to address that are very good amendments, and we support them wholeheartedly.

We would say, I guess, that culture is something that some of us look at with different eyes. I look at some of the things that were lost in Christchurch, and we lament those losses. Let us just hope that looking back at the Christchurch Arts Centre in 7 or 8 years from now—and at the new board of trustees as they have undertaken their full restoration and rebuild work, working and focusing on conservation—we will be proud that we supported that effort here this afternoon. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā. I rise to speak on behalf of the Government in the second reading debate on the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill. Far be it from me to correct the honourable member Dr Megan Woods, but I did just want to raise one small issue. In her speech she described this bill as a local bill. Of course, it is important to recognise that this is in fact a private bill.

A private bill is something that, although not abhorrent to this House, is relatively rare because, in general, as a constitutional principle, we prefer to pass general legislation that has equal effect for all. However, I actually agree with previous speakers in this debate that such is the value of the Christchurch Arts Centre, not only to Christchurch but to New Zealand, and even in a global context, that this bill is appropriate. It is appropriate that we put in place specific, enabling legislation to enshrine the objects and powers of the trust and its board, and to protect this asset, which is of enormous value to the people of Canterbury and to the citizens of New Zealand.

I had, I suppose, the pleasure of training as an archaeologist at the University of Otago. I bring this up for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I am not entirely unaware of some of the issues around heritage management and rehabilitating dilapidated old ruins, having spent several years during my university time with a trowel, brush, and shovel in such sites. Secondly, because the University of Otago, like the Arts Centre, is in that wonderful neo-Gothic style—in fact, the Christchurch Arts Centre is described as collegiate, or collegial, Gothic it is, as the very distinguished and discerning member Scott Simpson pointed out, built to emulate the mores of Victorian Britain. But it is actually unique in the world as a consolidated example of that style of architecture in a precinct—not just in individual buildings but consistent across entire city blocks—and it is something that is very precious to us. In fact, prior to the devastating earthquakes, the Arts Centre precinct, along with the Christchurch Cathedral, was being considered for recognition and for World Heritage status to be inscribed to it on the World Heritage List by Unesco because of its unique nature and its value, not only for New Zealand but globally. So this is a timely bill.

It is important that after 30 or 40 years of operation, we modernise some provisions that govern the original trust. I think we should also note the excellent work that is being done by the existing trust board and the good management of the staff, led by André Lovatt as chief executive officer of the Arts Centre. They are in a strong position due to that good management. After the devastating first earthquake in 2010, which did a lot of physical damage—a lot less human damage, death, and destruction was wreaked—the Christchurch Arts Centre very sensibly reinsured. It settled quickly and reinsured.

So the reason we now have one of the largest—in fact, the largest, as Scott Simpson said—heritage restoration projects currently under way in the world is that the Arts Centre was sensible in its approach to insurance and managed to secure a nearly $300 million payout from insurers to enable it to undertake that 7-year restoration process. The additional funding, of course, being applied by the Government does help, but in a situation where we are inevitably forced to prioritise and juggle between hospitals, schools, arts precincts, and other buildings it is useful to have significant money coming in from insurance providers.

I do not have the connections to Canterbury that some other members have, but I do have a fondness for the Arts Centre building. I enjoyed David McPhail’s play Muldoon, performed in the Court Theatre. It would have been about 10 years ago, in the early 2000s. Having visited, along with colleagues from the Local Government and Environment Committee, to have a look at the work that is being done there, it was very, very clear not only that is there high quality in terms of the management of the organisation but that it really is a “United Nations of restoration”. You hear Irish accents. You see people from the Czech Republic, those from the UK, those from Europe, those from Asia—from all around the world—contributing to maintaining some of these crafts and trades that have been lost over the years, but are now being re-inculcated and retaught. So we have not only plasterers and stonemasons but also people who work in wood and people who are experts in the electrical wiring of heritage buildings, to avoid the unfortunate risk of fire, which you get when you have these buildings where certain fundaments cannot be changed.

This is a good piece of legislation. The objects of this legislation are not for the Government to step in and determine on behalf of the people of Canterbury how the centre should be managed. In fact, it is quite the opposite. This bill enshrines a role for the trust board that includes holding the trust property for the objects that have been laid out. These objects are to hold and develop the Arts Centre as a unique and outstanding cultural centre for use by the people of Christchurch, and—equally important in my view—to foster, promote, and facilitate an interest and involvement in the arts, culture, creativity, the creative industries, and educational purposes.

We saw this in play when we visited the Arts Centre site and it was explained to us that in previous incarnations the buildings were used for such features as cafes and art galleries. Of course, there will be those facilities in the restored Arts Centre. But we were also shown the fact that they will have state-of-the-art laboratories, including 3D printing—this new technology that allows something to be designed on a computer and then realised in plastic or polymer form almost instantaneously. This is very expensive equipment, but it will take the arts that are developed there to a new level. It is very appropriate for this modern age in which we live.

The powers of the trust board as enshrined in this bill are fairly far-reaching. In fact, they have the full capacity to carry on or undertake any activity that advances the objects of the Arts Centre. That includes the acquisition of further real or personal property of any nature that may be useful for the maintenance of the Arts Centre, and being able to let, or lease, the lands and buildings so that the buildings can be let out and put to use, because, as we know, when heritage buildings are engaged in a useful purpose, they are more likely to be valued and respected but also maintained. The trust board is allowed to construct, re-erect, improve, maintain, and provide further buildings, and, of course, that is important in a situation where we are in the middle of a major restoration project.

The trust board will be empowered to employ staff—an important factor also in terms of managing such a significant site. It will be able to borrow money. It will have the ability to make a business decision as to whether it needs to seek a mortgage or debenture or some sort of injection of capital to enable the board to achieve its aims—although, of course, as I have mentioned, that $300 million insurance payment does help significantly towards the reconstruction—and it is able to generate public subscriptions and donations. So it is able to do a wide range of things. This is not a bill that is about the Government putting more power in its own hands. In fact, this is a bill that modernises the settings for the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Board and actually empowers it to deliver.

I do want to raise a few other points. I congratulate the Minister, the Hon Nicky Wagner, who has demonstrated, I think, with the excellent majority with which she held the seat of Christchurch Central at the last election that she is an incredibly hard-working MP and that she has been a passionate and tireless advocate for this project in particular.

I would like to acknowledge the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee and all of our colleagues. Given the comments from Mr Mark I would have to agree with his description of the committee as being a group of people who have an interest in working together collegially—which is appropriate when we are dealing with collegial Gothic buildings—and who take a sophisticated and, I think, quite enlightened approach to dealing with this issue and making sure that the right things are done.

The committee did suggest a number of amendments to the bill. There probably is not time to go through each and every one of those today. But I think, in a general sense, that it is important that we achieve a position where people are on the trust board due to the skill set they bring rather than because they represent specific interest groups in society. We need people who have accounting knowledge, legal knowledge, Government expertise, and, importantly, heritage management expertise on the governance body for the Arts Centre so that it can be run well into the future. Thank you very much.

The next call is a split call. Jan Logie—5 minutes.

It is with pleasure that I rise to speak on this, the second reading of the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill, a private bill brought to this House by the Hon Nicky Wagner. I would like to commend the Associate Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery on the smooth progress of this bill so far through the House, and also for the demonstration that is within this bill of a connection to community and a valuing of heritage, and the importance that that plays within Christchurch. We do see that evident in this bill. I guess it is just a shame that that connection to community and that valuing of heritage have run up against the immovable force of the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery and the wider National caucus. This has meant we have not seen those same values being able to be applied in a wider sense in Christchurch.

The Arts Centre building—it has been interesting listening in the House tonight to how many people from Christchurch have spoken so passionately about this place. I too have a link to Christchurch in that my mother was very proud to have adopted Canterbury for herself. She has the Crusaders theme song on her phone and is very passionate about this city now. I have visited her there many times and spent time at the Arts Centre. We have been to plays there. We have seen movies there. We have been to the art gallery there. We have had coffee there. We have been shopping there. I think it just speaks to what a hub this place is in its essence as well as in carrying so many stories, which we have heard mentioned in other members’ speeches tonight, around the famous people—Rutherford—who were there, the meaning that is held within those buildings, and the traditions as well as just everyday experiences of locals on a daily basis that are held in those buildings. They are very special for the people of Christchurch and for those of us who are not Cantabrians but have links to that place.

The Arts Centre is a massive drawcard for so many foreign visitors. You see the tourists walking up and down those avenues, just being drawn to that place because it is such a special place. It is wonderful to have the opportunity to speak on behalf of the preservation of that and the protection of those values and that tradition within Christchurch, particularly—and I do have to mention it again—in the face of so much devastation within the central city of Christchurch. Enabled by section 38 of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act, there have been 1,240 demolitions within those four avenues, and 20 percent of those were heritage buildings.

The Majestic Centre—again, there are the things I have been to there and the stories that those walls have held for the generations of people who settled in Christchurch. There is also Cranmer Court. These heritage buildings are not just old dungers, as described by the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery. They are holders of love, tradition, and meaning for the people of Christchurch, and it has been such a loss to see so much of that taken away for wider roads—for some enforced vision created in the head of a Minister sitting most of his time in Wellington. So it is so welcome to have the opportunity to be part of something that protects a section of what was—to enable those traditions and those memories to carry on into the future and into the future well beyond us in this House.

Jacinda Ardern—5 minutes.

I think it has been quite uplifting to hear members across the House talk with such passion about the importance of protecting important historic and heritage buildings in New Zealand and specifically within the Christchurch context. I think that is incredibly important, given the loss that that city and that region have experienced in terms of their heritage buildings. I do want to come back to that in a little bit.

Speaking directly to the Arts Centre though, I too, like many other members across this House, visited the centre both before and post - the quakes. Post - the quakes I was left with absolutely no doubt about the passion that is held by those who are working on this project for doing the very best job they can on behalf of the people of Canterbury to preserve such an important cluster of buildings. There are, however, a few issues that relate to the Arts Centre. Obviously, it was the home of the University of Canterbury for more than a century. It comprises 23 heritage buildings. They are collectively registered as category I historic places under the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act, and, of course, with such a significant number of buildings it is a large project—it is 7 years and it is $290 million.

The definition around the buildings that has been used struck a little bit of controversy, though, at the select committee. To be fair, very few things, I think, did raise any question marks. But two of the submissions did raise concerns about references in the bill to “historic stone buildings”, which, of course, is the majority of the buildings, I understand, but that does leave out, as currently drafted, protections for the former student union building, which would be known to many as Dux de Lux, and it has been referred to in a number of speeches in this House. Although I understand that the issue over the protections not relating to that building has been raised with those who are members of the Arts Centre trust, they have said that the plans are not really locked in for that building, as I understand it, as has been reported, and that there is still a longer-term plan around that building that needs to be developed.

Given that this particular part of the centre’s grounds has not been included in the definition, I think it would be helpful if the trust were able to give words of comfort, particularly to those from Historic Places Canterbury who have spoken out about this issue and are really seeking assurances that it is part of the wider plan. Even though it is not included in the definition, by virtue of being a brick and wood building as opposed to being a stone building, I think there is room for the trust to work collaboratively with those advocates who are trying to ensure that that building is looked after too. That is just one of the points that I wanted to make.

I do also want to just touch on the fact that provision has been made in the bill for legacy around the trust. If the trust is wound up, the trust property would be vested in the Crown. I think that is a really important part of the bill. Of course we would hope that we would not have a set of circumstances that would allow that, but I have seen cases in the past where there has not been proper provision for that, and it has led to disastrous results.

Speaking of disastrous results, I want to spend only a quick part of my contribution on the wider issues around heritage buildings in Canterbury. There have been 1,240 demolitions as of February 2015 within the four avenues, compared with 292 rebuild consents, and 20 percent of those demolitions have been of heritage buildings. The centre of Christchurch has lost 50 percent of its heritage buildings, and often that happened with great haste and, in some cases, without it being necessary. The Majestic Theatre is a prime example of that. Labour, almost a year ago to the day, called for section 38 of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act to no longer be applied to heritage buildings, to give proper Resource Management Act process to the removal of heritage buildings. Yes, safety was a very necessary concern in the beginning, but that moment has moved on and we were seeing, time and time again, decisions of expediency at the cost of heritage. I would hope that there is an end to that process now in Christchurch.

Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā. I am pleased to stand to speak on the second reading of the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill, but before I get going I just want to give some clarification. This Government is—is—concerned about the rebuild of Christchurch, and $15 billion - plus is not exactly a little drop in the bucket. We are caring about what is happening with the Christchurch rebuild; it is one of our major priority areas. I just wanted to put that out there in response to what was said by a previous speaker from the Green Party. I also want to say that I moved to Christchurch East just before the by-election—it would have been about June of last year—and found my whakapapa roots there. I am one of the mokopuna of Tahu Pōtiki, whose older brother is Porourangi. Porourangi is my direct ancestor, through my father and Ngati Porou. I just wanted to put that there.

As I move into my speech, I want to thank the Hon Nicky Wagner for bringing this bill to the House. It is a very good bill, and I am really pleased that it has cross-party support. The Arts Centre is one of the most significant clusters of heritage buildings in New Zealand. It is a cultural asset, not only just locally but nationally and internationally as well. I know that the people of Christchurch love their Arts Centre. Maybe I was too young to go to the Dux de Lux—I do not know. I did not know much about that place, but anyway, from all accounts, I can see that many people did enjoy what the Dux de Lux offered up. Again, I am carrying on with thanking Nicky for bringing this bill to the House. I am also going to thank Scott Simpson, as the chair of our Local Government and Environment Committee. I was one of the members of the Justice and Electoral Committee last year, and being a new MP it was really good to be under his chairmanship. He chairs the meetings very well and collegially. The Local Government and Environment Committee is not the only one he has chaired; he has also chaired the Justice and Electoral Committee, and I thank you, Scott, for your wise counsel and for your leadership in that select committee.

As I move on to the Arts Centre, as I said, the Arts Centre is a historic building. As Eugenie Sage said, it reflects the distinct architectural designs of Benjamin Woolfield Mountfort, and it also, as I said, reflects the history of local education, with a strong connection, obviously, to arts and science. Its main pupil, or student, was Ernest, Lord Rutherford. He completed his undergraduate degree there, at Canterbury College, as well as most of his breakthrough research. So it has got a special place in the hearts of everybody who has used it.

The Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Board, which is the group that governs the Arts Centre, was established in December 1978 and incorporated under the Charitable Trusts Act of 1957. My colleagues have already outlined the devastating 2010 and 2011 earthquakes that hit Christchurch, leaving 22 of the 23 buildings in dire need of repair. That repair is going to be a 7-year and a near-on $300 million restoration programme, which is currently under way. As many have heard, the Local Government and Environment Committee met there a few months ago. We were privileged to go through the Arts Centre. I was unable to go there—I had worn the wrong shoes—so I will enjoy heading back to Christchurch to have a bit of a look through the building and see its progress thus far. As I said before, it is the largest heritage restoration building, not only here, but currently in the world. It is a significant milestone for New Zealand to have that project ongoing. Not only does it provide back to the people of Christchurch their beloved Arts Centre but it also sits within the world records, and because it is there, it is basically a flagstone for international visitors to come and visit this wonderful centre once it is completed.

I just want to talk a little bit about the trust board and some of the impacts that the earthquakes have had on it. With the impact of the earthquakes, there have to be some changes or some adaptations within the trust board. Some of my colleagues have already talked about the skills-based board appointments. They have an appointments committee with which to do that. I want to acknowledge André Lovatt, the chief executive officer, and Jen Crawford, the chair of the trust board, for the work that they have been doing—and the work that lies ahead of them, based on some of the clauses within this bill.

I want to move to some of the new provisions, some of the key changes set out in schedule 2, which looks at the constitution of the trust board with some of the key changes. Some of the areas that I want to talk about are the new provisions in clauses 1 to 4 of schedule 2. These deal with trust board membership and look at the number of board appointments. Seven to nine members can be appointed to the board. As I mentioned earlier, there is an appointments committee that has been set up. Some of my colleagues have also discussed vacancies on the board, which may arise from time to time. Some of the key stakeholders such as the University of Canterbury, the Christchurch City Council, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, the Christchurch Civic Trust, the Papatipu Rūnanga of Canterbury—which I am sure my colleague Nuk will talk a little bit more in depth about—other such local businesses and community organisations, and the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage will have an interest in vacancies and in the Arts Centre as it progresses. This area of clauses 1 to 4 also talks about how vacancies will be made available. That will be done through the chief executive officer publicly advertising the vacancies in the local newspapers and various other areas.

I want to talk a little bit now about the revised provisions relating to the proceedings of the trust board, which is in clause 5 of schedule 2. This looks at a new requirement for the board to hold an annual public meeting where the conservation plan will be placed for input and all viewing, and, as amended, it also talks about what the quorum will be, as well about voting.

We have talked a little about the revised provisions dealing with the accounts of the trust board and other areas. I just want to talk a little bit about clause 10(a) of schedule 2, which deals with the protection of board members from liability. That is really key, because when you ask people to come on to boards and help to govern particular organisations, especially this one—it is a very key one for the community—we want to be able to protect them, and so clause 10(a) puts in the ability for board members to be protected from liability for loss to the trust.

Finally, clauses 10(b) and (c) look at indemnity. I am going to read this. New clause 10(b) provides that “Each board member [may] be indemnified by the trust against all actions, proceedings, claims, damages, losses, demands, costs (including legal costs), and expenses suffered by or incurred by that member in connection with the trust.” That is really key, because when you start advertising for new board members, those are some of the things that they will be looking at—especially those from a skills-based background, because they are professionals. They bring in their professional backgrounds or their community links, and they want to know that they are going to be safe within the board where they are representing their community.

In closing, we are going to pay them. Clause 11 of schedule 2 looks at providing for the remuneration of board members, and it is nice to be able to give them something in recognition of the skills that they bring to their role as trust board members of the Christchurch Arts Centre. Again, I am very proud to be standing and speaking on behalf of the Government supporting the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill. Kia ora.

Meitaki maata, Mr Assistant Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill. Firstly, my acknowledgments go to the Hon Nicky Wagner for guiding this bill in its passage through the House. There is widespread support for what this bill aims to do. I also need to acknowledge Jen Crawford and André Lovatt from the trust board itself. Further, I want to acknowledge the Hon Margaret Austin, who is a former Labour member and someone whom the Christchurch community owes a great debt of gratitude for her desire to ensure that our city and our province recovers well.

The trust board has worked tirelessly, and it is an extraordinary piece of legislation in that the board’s trust deeds and objects, the powers under which it will work, and all the provisions that provide for the trust board are enshrined in legislation. It is not the normal way you would do things, but it is a very significant and important step to ensure that the work that is done to restore the buildings on that site goes ahead. So I acknowledge and support the aims of the trust board.

This legislation has three main aims: to create the legal framework in which the work can be conducted, to amend the governance structure to ensure that the right people with the right skills at the right time are in a position to ensure that this work is carried out, and—the last aim—to enable and to respond to the recovery work that is required post the earthquakes. The legislation is significant. We have heard other members in this House speak this evening about what the centre means to them, and not just the centre but the general precinct and the area that suffered significant damage. We are talking not just about buildings and land; we are talking about areas where people and families congregated and shared time together. Each one of those stones within the Arts Centre building, each piece of wood, each window, and each area of courtyard and pavement has a memory. The memories are of times that were spent there by students—happy times; perhaps stressful times too, if you were a student and trying to get through exams. There is more to this precinct than just the bricks and the stone. It is significant that we acknowledge that that is part of the recovery and restoration process.

Other members have talked about the trust being set up in 1978, and my colleague Dr Megan Woods talked about how that came to pass in the early 1970s. I want to talk a little bit about the objects of the trust because this piece of legislation enshrines those. The objects really are ensuring that we hold and develop the Arts Centre—the site, the buildings—in trust as a unique and outstanding cultural centre for use by the people of Christchurch and its visitors. I know that before moving to Christchurch to live, when I was visiting family in Christchurch, it would always be one of the places we went to because it always had the best coffee, and the market at the weekend was a great place to pick up knick-knacks. It was extraordinary to be able to watch the artisans at work there using crafts from a past time.

One of the other objects is fostering, promoting, and facilitating interest and involvement in art, culture, creativity, the creative industries, and education. There was no cooler place to go than the Arts Centre if you were going to see a play, to hear music, or to really just generally share in culture.

This bill also enshrines the powers of the trust, which include having the capacity to ensure that any activity that the trust board deems necessary is able to be carried out and that at any time that it needs to acquire property, even to demolish buildings, or make changes or employ staff, all of those activities are within this legislation. The legislation is unable to be changed except so that the work of the trust board can go on as it needs to through the period—through to 2019.

Further, there are two main parts to the bill. The first sets out its purpose and its definitions around the committee and the trust deed. Those provisions describe the schedules, which provide the detail of the land and the buildings within the bill. Part 2 sets out the objects of the trust, and the bill concludes with the schedules, which describe the land and the constitution of the trust board.

Any discussion regarding heritage buildings in Christchurch cannot be held without thinking about section 38 of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act 2011 and the loss of heritage to the city. The reason I refer to that in the context of other comments is that I know that over the last few summers, as the fences have started to come down in the central city, as people have been able to go back into the city, and as some of the rebuilding work has been carried out, many people were reluctant to return because they did not want to see the devastation that was there. It has been a re-traumatising of our population, I guess, in a sense, to go back into the city and see just what needs to be done and just what has been lost. I ask the Government to think long and hard about whether we properly used section 38 when we were considering the demolition of many of those heritage buildings.

My colleague Eugenie Sage also referred to the cathedral. When I talk about the cathedral and when I talk about the significant heritage buildings in Christchurch, I liken them to when we discuss our whakapapa and our pepeha. The maunga within it—for those of us who do not have a connection to that part of the world in terms of our cultural heritage—that we can refer to are those buildings, the cathedral and the Arts Centre, and the significant beauty that our heritage buildings brought to the area.

Many of my colleagues have talked about the number of buildings that were lost within the four avenues area. Twenty percent were our heritage buildings. That is significant. In order for recovery to occur to the fullest extent, we must acknowledge what we have lost and what has passed and ensure that we do not lose any more. So I commend this bill to the House, and I encourage the Government to consider carefully the recovery of Christchurch. The recovery has not been completed. There are still many areas where people are wanting this Government to step up. I cannot go past the eastern suburbs in that comment, of course, where we are still to have our horizontal infrastructure completed so we can be fully recovered. So thank you to the Hon Nicky Wagner. It is a great bill. Thank you.

Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. I stand to take the final call for the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill in its second reading. I am not going to go over a lot of the history behind this bill and what has happened to date, but I do want to just mention a couple of things, particularly—I see that my friend on the other side, New Zealand First’s Ron Mark, has actually left the House—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! You cannot refer to members who are not present in the House.

My friend from New Zealand First has—

💬 Scott Simpson: Spoken.

—spoken, and I just reiterate the fact that he really commended the Local Government and Environment Committee for its collegiality and the way it works very, very closely together. Again, we call that kotahitaka. It is a collective thing. I would like to invite him to come to the Māori Affairs Committee, actually, because we also work in a very, very close, collegial way. To date in the 51st Parliament we actually have not needed to take a vote. We do everything by consensus.

💬 Scott Simpson: And better kai.

And better kai. So just to make that first point.

The next one is, indeed, to acknowledge the Hon Nicky Wagner. I do that as a colleague in Parliament but also as a member of the Ngāi Tahu iwi, because we hold Nicky in very, very high regard, particularly because of a lot of the excellent work that Nicky does within Christchurch and particularly in regard to her relationship with tangata whenua and mana whenua. I also want to acknowledge Margaret Austin—her leadership in this, and also when you think of the great things that Margaret has done, particularly working on the World Heritage site in Tekapō. So, again, I acknowledge her and also André Lovatt—he has been mentioned before—and Jen Crawford.

The reflection of this bill here, and particularly the way that everyone has worked very, very closely together, epitomises a thing whereby out of the rubble of the rū whenua o Ōtautahi a phoenix is rising. This is a very, very important reflection on what is happening, and also on the fact that if we do things like this together, in a collective way, then we get these very, very important solutions and things moving forward.

The important thing too is to acknowledge my other colleagues, our MPs from the Green Party—not just them, actually, but across the House—particularly around heritage buildings. Heritage buildings—absolutely, in Christchurch, there has been a lot of suffering. But what I also want to say is that if you go beyond that, if you go beyond the colonial days, the colonialism, and if you think for just one moment about the effect that this had on tangata whenua—I am not talking about just the earthquake, because we all suffered there. If we go back before that, with the arrival of the Europeans, what is interesting with this building is that when we were young kids coming to Christchurch from Tuahuriri in the northern part of the city, this particular building we saw as an edifice to colonialism, so we never visited it much. We were on our way as schoolkids to the museum to see our wonderful Māori artefacts that were inside there.

What I am saying here is that this particular building, when you look at the history of the city and all of that, it really does actually now strike a chord with us in the fact that it is part of us because of the fact of what went on during the earthquake, the rū whenua, particularly in 2011.

What I am saying here, with this particular building, with everything that has gone on, again, is that reflection that we are working together, particularly when you look at the trust deed. The idea behind the resurrection of this building is pretty much when we talk about a phoenix rising from the rubble. We have great opportunities during the rebuild to not only rebuild our buildings but also to put in new ideas and to instil new parts of the way we actually manage and govern these buildings.

This, again, is a reflection of the fact that we have re-established a legal foundation for the Arts Centre in Christchurch in statute but also the reforms here that this bill is doing. It reforms the governance arrangements by establishing a higher skills base. The important thing there too is the fact of why we actually now believe—the member of Parliament for Christchurch East referred to these buildings as taonga maunga, or mauka. I would not go that far. I think that when you look at that, when you relate to your mauka, it is Maukatere in North Canterbury, and when you look at your awa, it is the Ōtākaro or the Ōpāwaho.

If you come down from that esoteric look at the spirituality and all of that, it is very much around the natural landscape. But I do concur with the member about the fact of the mana that this building does instil in all of us now, more so because it survived, in some ways, the Christchurch earthquake. And we are all working together now to be able to rebuild it back to a more significant and a more well-managed building.

When looking at the make-up of the new governance board, I think the important thing is to look at the representation of the iwi, particularly because of the fact that we have got the Ngāi Tahu papatipu rūnanga actually involved in that, so there is a representative there. And if we look at the way that it is governed, it is a fact that we can actually instil—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Tēnā koe e te Whare. Tēnā koutou te whānau o te Pāremata. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Members, when we broke for the dinner break, we were—

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: Ross Robertson used to use Samoan and Tongan as well.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: —that will come, cousin—debating the second reading of the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill, and matua Nuk Korako had 2 minutes remaining. So, without a bell, he has 2 minutes available to him, should he wish to avail himself of that opportunity.

Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. A ka pai te kōrero Te Reo. Kia ora. Just to reiterate very quickly the fact that this bill was very much a collective across both sides of the House. This is particularly reflected in the very, very close working relationship that we have with the Local Government and Environment Committee, under the chairmanship of Scott Simpson.

Just to finish off, I was just finishing around the tangata whenua and also the relationship that tangata whenua have, particularly now with the new governance board. They always have in some ways, but it is just an acknowledgment again, as within the bill it states that it is Papatipu Rūnanga of Waitaha, or Canterbury. But we know that when you look at papatipu, you are talking about tangata whenua, but then it is understanding the faces of the iwi. Particularly when you talk about mana whenua, it is actually about those people of the land, particularly where the Arts Centre is, which is Ngāi Tuahuriri. That does not have to be specific because iwi will actually take care of that themselves. So just to acknowledge that and also the fact that within this bill it does actually allow the factors where cultural considerations are taken into account. That is really part of the role of that tangata whenua and mana whenua representative.

Finally, from the damaged buildings and rubble is this unique opportunity to create a vibrant centre that will be the source of great pride for Christchurch and New Zealand. On that note, I would like to commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

Bill read a second time.