Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill

I move, That the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill be now read a third time.

It is a privilege to present this bill for its third reading. The Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill represents another significant step in this Government’s commitment to creating more sustainable careers for visual artists. First, I would like to acknowledge some of the people who have contributed to getting the bill across the line. I want to acknowledge the input of all members of this House, the many members of the public who submitted during public consultation, including artists themselves, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and the work of the officials. I also want to, as I did in an earlier speech, acknowledge and thank the Social Services and Community Committee.

Through this process, I have heard directly from our artistic community, who are thrilled and excited for this legislation as it will make a measurable difference to the way they are remunerated and recognised for the work they do. While this piece of legislation may not seem significant to some, the benefits to New Zealand artists and their families are long-lasting. Getting to this stage has been a long work programme, and I extend my thanks to everyone involved for their input and the work that has gone into getting us here today.

At present, those who buy and sell visual artwork on the secondary market make money on artworks when an artist’s reputation grows. But, currently, none of this profit, which is a result of the hard work and success achieved by the artist, goes to the artists themselves. Under the Resale Right for Visual Artists bill, this will change. This bill will establish an artist resale right in New Zealand, meaning a 5 percent royalty payment will be collected each time an artist’s eligible work is resold. In contrast to copyright, this right is unable to be waivered or transferred away from the artists while they are living, and so the right remains with the artist for their whole life.

Beyond monetary compensation, this bill acknowledges visual artists for the important contribution they make to the social and cultural identity of Aotearoa New Zealand. Over 80 countries around the world, including Australia, the United Kingdom, and all European Union countries, already have an artist resale royalty scheme, and we know, looking at these countries, that the benefits of a resale scheme are far-reaching. For example, from the commencement of Australia’s scheme in June 2010 through to April 2022, A$11 million have been generated in royalties for visual artists. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists have benefited greatly, representing 65 percent of the artists receiving royalties and receiving 68 percent of the total value of royalties.

It is time that our talented artists receive these same rewards here in Aotearoa New Zealand. In designing the bill, we have drawn on the insights and experiences from countries who have similar schemes in place. However, Aotearoa New Zealand is a unique country with a diverse artistic community, including our very rich and vibrant Māori and Pacific arts communities. The bill has been drafted to reflect this unique context by including the cultural expressions of Māori and Pacific peoples in its definition of visual art and through a series of other design features which seek to ensure Māori and Pacific artists benefit equitably from this scheme. These include the ability for the right to be held jointly, which recognises the social structures within these communities and that Māori and Pacific artworks often have multiple creators, and the ability for private sales to opt in as artworks by Māori and Pacific artists are more commonly sold privately than through the secondary art market.

There’s a requirement on the collection agency to acknowledge and respect the role of Māori as tangata whenua and provide culturally appropriate support. As well as receiving royalties when their artwork is sold in New Zealand, visual artists will also be able to receive royalties when their eligible artworks are sold in countries which have reciprocating artist resale royalty schemes. For example, New Zealand artists will be able to receive a royalty when their eligible artworks are sold in the United Kingdom.

The scheme will also benefit others as well as the artists themselves. Under this bill, artists’ successors or beneficiaries can receive royalty payments for up to 50 years after the artist’s death. This provides an intergenerational benefit and will mean an artist’s successors, including their whānau and iwi, will be able to share in the artist’s creative success.

We have heard concerns that the introduction of a resale royalty scheme may negatively impact our secondary art market and that artworks may be sold overseas or on the black market to avoid paying a royalty. Similar concerns were raised when both the UK and Australian schemes were introduced. However, there is no evidence that people have elected to sell overseas or via private sales so that they can avoid paying the royalty. Instead, we have seen that in both the UK and Australia, artist resale royalty schemes have contributed towards an increased transparency within the secondary art market, and both these markets have grown while having an artist resale royalty scheme in place.

Alongside this bill will sit supporting regulations which are needed to bring the bill into operation. These will set the threshold above which artworks become eligible for the scheme, detail how the collection agency will collect and distribute royalties, and set the percentage of each royalty the collection agency can deduct to administer the scheme. The regulations will also establish a cultural fund through which declined and unclaimed royalties can be used to benefit the wider artist community. Once the bill and regulations are in place, the collection agency will be appointed and the relevant systems and processes will be put in place to enable the scheme to begin operating. I expect this to take between six to 12 months following the commencement of this bill.

This bill has been a long time coming. The Copyright (Artists’ Resale Right) Amendment Bill was first introduced to the House in 2008 but was, unfortunately, not enacted. It was brought back to the political agenda in 2019 as part of our clear commitment to the scheme and to Aotearoa New Zealand’s visual artists.

We had mentioned a couple of times during the committee stage that this is something that we have to do as part of our commitment through our trade agreements. I want to add that it is not just that; it is something that we actually want to do. We value our artists. We value the contribution that they do make. We want to support them and their whānau with their artistic careers, so not only is this part of our commitment through free-trade agreements, it is the right thing to do.

I want to acknowledge the Hon Judith Tizard—I think it was the Hon Judith Tizard—who first attempted to do this back in 2008. I am sure she is watching now and cheering this piece of legislation on. What a privilege it is to stand before the House today some 15 years after the Hon Judith Tizard started this journey through Parliament. It is a privilege to be able to mark this milestone. I commend the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thanks, Mr Speaker. Look, it’s still no surprise to the Minister in the House that National supports the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill. Look, conceptually, too, as I’ve said a few times, we don’t by and large have a problem with the overall concept, it’s just been a slight debating point within some sitting on this side of the House whether in fact an artist resale scheme is appropriate or whether or not, you know, if you’re going to introduce the concept to visual art whether it should be expanded into the musical and other collectible areas, too. So for us it’s not so much an opposition to the concept it’s just a sense that there’s a much wider discussion that could be had.

But this has been, ultimately, precipitated by a free-trade agreement, which we do come back to because this is exactly how we’ve come to this space. Importantly, too, with the timeliness which the Government’s operated in I think this has to be in place by February next year. I could be wrong on that, but long and short—we’re bound by trade agreements to get this through, which actually raises a particularly interesting somewhat constitutional question. I raised this in the first reading speech and, again, it’s not opposing the bill, I just think it’s something we need to ponder: that, in effect, this Parliament has been bound, to a degree, to pass this legislation because of an act by the executive, in this case an international treaty. And I want to be really, really clear for the record: that’s not opposing what’s happening, but it’s just an interesting constitutional quirk.

To acknowledge the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, she has picked this ball up quickly and swiftly and brought it to the House and, in a few minutes time, will bring it to resolution. So to acknowledge the Hon Carmel Sepuloni for the work that she’s done as the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage. It would be remiss of me to not thank the officials; I think they’ve actually been outstanding. Their knowledge—if they’re still in the back room or wherever, just to acknowledge that what they knew was fantastic, and as we threw curveballs, various questions, or idiocies, they took it with grace. So to acknowledge them and all the submitters.

Look, fundamentally this is actually an important piece of legislation for the sector. It will take some time—particularly for the professional resellers to provide their processes. I do have a question—well, it’s not really a question. I think, ultimately, this is a classic piece of now modern legislation where we’re giving lots of regulatory powers—I think that’s something that the Minister and, into the future, the Parliament will want to look at, and that’s not disparaging those who will be making or operating said regulations. But again, the primary legislation sets a lot of power into regulation.

As I say, we support this bill, we look forward to it concluding, and we look forward to a continuing vibrant visual artistry in New Zealand.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, a real pleasure to speak on this bill, the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill. I’m going to take a short call but just want to reiterate the thanks for all who have been involved in this legislation. The Minister, who is wearing some fabulous earrings, by the way, from an arts collective—just noting—has really helped and supported us with this piece of legislation in enabling us to get this through fast.

The bill does three simple things, and I have talked about this in the previous speeches. It establishes the scheme and it authorises a ministerially appointed committee—non-government organisation—but the thing that we’re all delighted about here in this House is it ensures that those artists out there continue to make an income from their artwork. I think about what it must have been like, say, if I had created a piece of art in 2010, for example, when we would have had the scheme in place, had it not been removed from the legislative direction by the National Government, and what it would have been like for an artist who, perhaps created something, made a beautiful piece of artwork and it was sold once and then sold for maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars and onwards and onwards. I just imagine how that must feel as an artist to see their artwork appreciating and not to be able to benefit from that.

So, with that, I would like to commend this bill to the House and to thank all of those for their participation, particularly our officials sitting in the gallery for their wonderful work. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Just a short call from me. As our spokesperson on the issue, Simon O’Connor, has made clear: National continues to support the bill. I’ll join others in giving a shout-out to the local artists of the area that I’ve kindly been given the opportunity to represent; I think about the Art in August exhibition recently in Warkworth for the benefit of local Mahurangi College, markets in various places where great artists and craft workers produce, for example, in Matakana, and the Helensville Art Trail—which are all local institutions.

I think Simon O’Connor makes a very interesting point about the extent to which Parliament needs to respond to the executive treaty-making power. Although, again I emphasise, as he has done, that that’s not a criticism of the substance of the bill, nor even necessarily the process—just to note that agenda setting in the traditional way that local legislation is needed to give effect to or ratify such treaties.

My final comment is that there has been interesting discussion in the House at previous stages, and I understand at select committee as well, about how to define art. Obviously, famously subjective in terms of how one regards art, as good, bad, or even what has the status of art. Some might say that speeches in the House of Parliament attain the status of art, and to avoid ascribing too greater value to this that would put it outside the remit of the bill, I’ll conclude my remarks there, except only to join others in commending it to the House.

💬 Rachel Boyack: Mr Speaker?

Um—remind me—Rachel Boyack.

I can’t believe that you finally did that to me, Mr Speaker, but it’s an honour and a privilege, I think, for every member of the House! It is a pleasure to take a call on the Resale Rights for Visual Artists Bill. May I begin—I am a musician and have a music degree, and actually it’s unusual for me to talk about my actual area of expertise in this House, and it’s nice to be able to do so this morning.

I could give a full 10-minute call on the concept of patronage, but I won’t—but it’s a useful concept to speak about because actually, if we’re serious about this, artists and musicians very often live precarious lives. They have precarious incomes, precarious livelihoods; precarious work. I’ve experienced that myself, including working many, many times as a musician for free. And when compared with sports and with commerce, the arts are very much the poor cousins when it comes to funding, support, and certainty of income. Many of my friends, who I want to give a shout-out to, live precarious lives as artists. I just note the points Mr Simon O’Connor made earlier around music: actually, we have a royalties scheme for music already—unfortunately, it’s often not adhered to. There is so much undermining of artists and musicians in terms of the incomes that they rightly deserve.

This is an excellent bill. It ensures that artists can continue to receive income based on the value of their art that they’ve created, in perpetuity. It’s worked overseas and it will work here and I think it’s a timely reminder to the House that we all have a duty to uphold the lives and the livelihoods of artists. They add enormous value to our nation both here in New Zealand and globally. And I feel, as those of us with high incomes, working in this House, we have an obligation to always ensure that our artists and our musicians are supported so they don’t have to go down a pathway of precarious work. This is an excellent bill and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Like the previous speaker, Rachel Boyack, I myself am also a musician, but I don’t think anything I produce would quite make the cut on the low end of the threshold, so no personal gain from this, I suspect. ACT will continue to support this bill. We support free trade and the free-trade initiatives that the Government has explored and is exploring. We do also understand the frustrations of artists where they see their work, they sell it initially for a set price—it might be a low price, in context—and then in future seeing that being sold multiple times for much higher prices as value tends to appreciate, hopefully, and the frustration that, you know, where’s their slice and, you know, they actually created the work. So we do certainly understand that.

We do also hope this does provide proper remuneration in the sense that it does actually have an impact for those artists, because that has been another one of the core purposes of this bill, to make sure that that funding is there, that they are supported, but I do suspect, with the bureaucracy, which could cause some financial impacts, but also with the infrequency of creating art, that the individual impact, the benefit on artists, may not be as grand as we hope. None the less, the framework is there, so we’ll see how it goes. The Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage herself stated that compared to the European Union and the UK, sale prices here are not as high, typically.

I do query the impact on galleries themselves, because this is an incentive to sell privately. Galleries are already quite an expensive way to sell artwork. Some of them take cuts of around 30 percent, give or take, and so this is an additional fee on top of that. So you can kind of see that this may actually have an incentive to not use galleries and therefore more artwork is exchanged—not under the table, not in the grey market; it’s still official, but, none the less, less tracked.

The bill, as we’ve just discussed in the committee stage, does go a bit above and beyond, and I appreciate the Minister explaining the thinking behind that. It’s not purely identical to the schemes in the UK or the European Union, but none the less appreciate that New Zealand has had the opportunity to do something a little bit differently.

One concern, I guess, is the ongoing accountability of this fund, particularly when artists cannot be found or their descendants cannot be found. We’ve got a committee that has almost an—and I wouldn’t want to make any accusations, but an incentive to almost not find the artists, because if they don’t find the artists, then they’ve got the option of keeping that money and putting it in the fund and using it for, you know, wider community work in the arts sector, whatever it may be, which is another issue of accountability. But, none the less, you know, the proof will be in the pudding on that to see just how well that’s administered, how well they go about seeking and finding artists to make sure that money’s passed on. If they cannot find someone, does the person who paid that fee have the option of a clawback? Yes, I know that option is in the legislation, but is it up to them or is it up to the committee? It seems like it’s up to the committee, so will there be some sort of fairness or monitoring of that?

Although I wasn’t in the Social Services and Community Committee, I don’t believe there was extensive discussion on some of the unlikely but none the less possible issues around income tax and tax across jurisdictions—also, the issue of money-laundering, which can come, unfortunately, into the art space now and then. As I raised just then in committee stage, the issue of making someone ineligible based on conduct—that’s not an option in this, and I just, you know, urge future Governments to have a think about that.

With that, ACT will continue to support this. We do have concerns; I’ve laid a few of them out. It is a bit of bureaucracy, but we do get it and we do support free trade, so, with that, I commend it to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I just wanted to start my contribution on behalf of the Greens, obviously, in support of this piece of legislation by acknowledging the Minister, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni. I know that she has a particular interest and passion for this and I also want to acknowledge her with her other hat as a Minister for Auckland. Because we’ve seen the intersection of those passions most recently with the likes of the announcement around the St James. So I am very privileged to be working with her on those kaupapa.

As many before me have said, this has been a really long time coming, at least 15 years since we saw similar legislation introduced into the House, unfortunately befuddled and obfuscated and ultimately just got rid of by the former Government. But here we are today with full consensus of the House, and I think that that is something worth celebrating. As others have also put on the record, there are at least 80 other countries across the world who have forms of schemes like this. And it does need to be noted that there are going to be challenges and there will need to be ongoing monitoring with regard to the likes of the private sales which others have put on the record as well, as that administration of this scheme.

The Greens would also like to point out that it shouldn’t need a free-trade agreement for the likes of this to be progressing. Once again, the Greens’ position on that free-trade agreement is incredibly well-canvassed, especially from the likes of our spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman on this issue. There’s not a whole lot more to say on this, beyond how fundamentally important it is that we pay the artists who keep the world going around, who colour our lives with so much meaning and offer a mirror up to society to reflect on who we are, who we might want to be, and to offer that critic and that conscience.

I also wanted to acknowledge those who have been engaged in advocating, organising, and working towards seeing this occur for a really long time; particularly here, I know that Equity for Artists is an organisation—Judy Darragh, who I ran into just the other week on Karangahape Road—who have long been talking about the likes of an artist wage; perhaps another issue to put on the table, Minister—as well as Reuben Paterson and Dane Mitchell. There’s a number of other small organisations, grassroots organisations, that are also starting to crop up to organise for better outcomes for artists across the board. To that effect, in my patch, as others have acknowledged in theirs, I’d like to acknowledge Dignity and Money Now, aptly named D.A.M.N., who are organising the likes of Basement Theatre, to see that we continue to value this ecosystem of artists, the techies, and the community who ensure that all of us see the best of ourselves and live our good lives.

There were points made by other speakers throughout this debate, including in the committee of the whole House, that artists’ works tend to increase in value over time and with their reputation growing. Of course, that’s kind of the point of this resale rights scheme, but it does raise the question, I think, of how we support artists at the beginning of their career when they first are starting to flesh out their craft. Because if we are not providing those equitable opportunities to everyone in this country from all walks of life, particularly those from lower income communities, then what we’re doing is suppressing talent, and that talent is everywhere. So, once again, the Greens need to put it on the table that there are far wider discussions to be had, and I was actually really encouraged to hear that from Simon O’Connor from the National Party, that they may be interested in opening the box on how we can support the artists and creative ecosystem in this country. Rachel Boyack from Nelson just also put on the record about the inequities in how we support, for example, sports in this country versus our creative industries.

I was just looking at my phone where in the top left, where usually it would say my mobile provider we have “Up the Wahs!” in there. I don’t know how many other members of Parliament will be joining me at Mt Smart, to cheer on the Wahs against the Dragons on Friday. But it really does draw home the fact that we don’t yet have that national narrative conversation celebration of our artists on that same platform, and we should and we deserve to. And we should reflect on the fact that we had one of the largest sporting events in the world in the form of the FIFA Women’s World Cup here most recently, with all of the eyes on this nation across the world. We can do and achieve those same things in that creative and artist space if we support that broader ecosystem.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Let’s have a conversation about the bill, though, too.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Yes, Mr Speaker, and to that effect, this bill goes some way to ensuring that we have greater outcomes for our visual artists in particular. But there’s still so much more to do for those visual artists, for our musicians, for our theatre practitioners, and for all of the talents and the skills that exist in towns and communities, urban and rural, across this country.

I am proud to commend this bill to the House, and I am looking forward to all the more mahi in supporting this ecosystem in the future.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Happy to take a short call on this. I laugh constantly about the kind of political amnesia that sometimes happens in this House. It’s always good to have a little refresher. Because sadly, as our Minister alluded to, this was actually on the cards back in 2008. We were talking about this all the way back then. Sadly, there was a change of Government. Although we congratulate the National Party for supporting this today, it was actually the National Party that dumped it all the way back then, and it’s made Kiwi artists worse off for more than a decade before our Government—that’s right: Labour Government—have picked this up again and actually brushed it off—forgive the pun—and brought it back to the fore.

Let’s just do a little comparison to Australia. In Australia, from the commencement of their scheme in June 2010 to April 2022, A$11 million has been generated in royalties for visual artists. That’s right, we still have this image of the poor, struggling artists here in New Zealand—and part of that reason is because we missed this opportunity back in the day, where we could have grabbed it with both hands and made our artists better off for it. Instead, the National Government dumped it. We’ve picked it back up; we applaud them for getting back on the bus all these years later, but it’s our artists who are front and centre of this conversation. We need to make sure, in this digital age, that actually our artists are getting as much benefit of their original art as possible.

I want to use the example from the Copyright Licensing New Zealand website. On there—for those people that don’t understand what this is all about—they give a really good, clear, crisp example. Here’s the example they give. They say: “[Imagine] you’ve created a series of sketches. Eva buys one from you. A few years later she takes it to an auction house to sell it. Ricky buys it and pays three times the amount that Eva did. The resale royalty scheme, when it comes in, will mean that you, the artist, will be paid 5 percent of the price that Ricky pays Eva.” It’s a stamp on you, as an artist, on your ability to be able to put art out into the world and know that every time it gets reproduced or resold, you’ll get a cut of that art.

I think about all of our struggling artists and I think this is a really good piece of legislation. I wish we had got this off the blocks all those years ago back in 2008, but we are here now. It’s good to remember the past. I commend it to the House.

This is a five-minute call—Barbara Kuriger.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’ll be a very short call. I haven’t been involved at all in the preparation of this bill but I commend those who have; neither am I any form of an artist. But I am very pleased to say that, today, National is supporting this bill, and I commend it to the House.

I want to talk about something we haven’t discussed yet, which is the use of this by groups that are disabled, or what we would call outsider art. I went to a studio last week called Māpura Studios. I also visited Tui Ora studios—both are in the Mt Albert electorate. It’s incredibly work that they’re doing there. They’re studios where people come, often with a disabled relative, or they come as a person who is disabled intellectually or they have had a stroke, and then Tui Ora is dealing with people who’ve had mental illness, and they’re coming to these places and they’re creating beautiful artwork. And they’re often collaborating with their family to create the art, and the works are utterly beautiful. If you go to my Facebook, you’ll see some from Māpura Studios. There’s one that they created when I was there, and were working on, and there’s also ones that they created for a Matariki celebration that they held at Alberton. This work is stunning, and it isn’t really something that they get any income from in this situation.

Imagine if our intellectually disabled people creating this beautiful work, and their whānau creating it with them, were able to have a secure income for the rest of their lives because of the cumulative effect of something like this. And this little bill deals with that. It allows them a stream of income and, in fact, deals with joint ownership. I met a mother and son when I was at Māpura the other day, and the mother was telling me about the work that was being done by her and her son. Her son had actually won a big award—actually, alongside Carmel Sepuloni’s husband. It was an incredible thing for his status that that had happened, and for his self-confidence, and she was telling me about how her family was going through a healing process by doing that art—that it gave her so much healing herself as the mother of that boy to be able to do that work with him, and to see her child happy in that situation was a pretty stunning thing.

So I hope that that kind of art isn’t really treated as outsider art but is seen much more as a legitimate part of the creative process across our community, and I hope that this bill helps create a dignified income stream, an independent income stream, that recognises the value of these people in our community creating this beautiful art, and I commend this bill to the House.

It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call. I just want to reassure some members on the other side of the House who seem to think the reason we’re doing this is because we have to—some trade agreement. We’re doing this because it’s the right thing to do, very, very clearly. It’s the right thing to do and it’s a good thing to do. I’ve referred to our living standards framework, which really guides Treasury’s decision making about how we ensure improvement in living standards for people, and it talks about the wealth of our society and individual and collective wellbeing and the role that leisure and play and social cohesion and the arts play in that. So it is a good thing to do. It helps the arts, of course, when we support them; they help us to thrive. It is good for our souls when we support these people. There were concerns raised, and I’m reassured when I hear about the 80 other jurisdictions where this has successfully run—the sky hasn’t fallen—including Australia, the UK, and the EU. I feel very reassured that this scheme is built on solid ground and experience.

Finally, when I was the head of arts at a small rural secondary school, I taught students who took what their families often thought was the hard road and went out into the world intending to make a living as an artist. I can remember my own mother saying to me, when I thought I was going to drama school, “There is nothing romantic about starving in a garret.” This legislation helps us to make sure that if they write it, you know that, for our visual artists like our playwrights and our songwriters, they will actually have some additional access to their rightly deserved income. And it is because of that that I thank the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage for making sure that this happens, and commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to make a short call on the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill. This is a bill that the National Party supports. As has been, I think, mentioned in a few other speeches, this is required by our free-trade agreements and we support it. I would say our artists in New Zealand are actually quite phenomenal and we’ve got some incredible art in this country and it’s great to be able to support them. It certainly has been a challenging few years for many of our artists—among others—in this country. So it’s great that we’re able to do something that can help them. There has been some differences in views about how resale schemes should be established in New Zealand, but this—we do support this.

I’m just going to take the opportunity very briefly, just to do a shout-out to some of the great art in my area of responsibility. In the great electorate of Southland we have Te Atamira, which was founded only last year as a multipurpose arts and cultural space. This was a vision that Carroll Joynes and Abby McCormick O’Neill helped to drive forward, people who have a deep experience in this field in Chicago and the United States and had a vision for that in our region, which very much was supported by our region. Incredibly, 130,000 visits have happened since that was opened only last year, and in fact there’s an exhibition at the moment that’s attracting a very broad—its locals and visitors who are interested in, I think, it’s 11 different artists who are doing some quite fantastic work.

Down in Gore we have the Eastern Southland Gallery incredibly led by a chap by the name of Jim Geddes who’s a living legend. I’ll just say that has an internationally significant exhibitions of the John Money wing and the Ralph Hotere gallery—one of the largest collections of Ralph Hotere in the country. It has had people from around the world and people who are very well-known around the world who have just quietly dropped in and had a look at it. So it’s not always well-known in New Zealand, but it’s very well-known around the world about what an incredible collection it is. The gallery also is responsible for the development and care of the district art collection which focuses on early New Zealand, Southland, and contemporary New Zealand artists.

Just finally, I’ll just mention, also, the Central Stories Museum and Gallery in Alexandra, Central Otago, which is also my electorate. This is responsible for the main public museum and art gallery for the Central Otago region, and currently, as we speak has an exhibition of Winterstellar 2023, which is an astrophotography exhibition which is their biggest and best yet. If anyone doesn’t know, the Southern hemisphere is the best place to see the galactic core, the heart of our galaxy, the Milky Way, and we’re close enough to the pole to see the Aurora Australis, otherwise known as the Southern Lights. Central Otago is one of the best places in the country to see that incredible galaxy that we’ve got out there. It’s great to have artists who reflect on that and bring that vision closer to us.

I think what artists do is help reflect us back to ourselves, and help us reflect on who we are as a people and a nation. So they do a fantastic thing. So, with that, we support this bill.

I’m pleased to take a short call on the third reading of the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill. I mentioned, earlier on, an example of an artist seeking action for their imagery, which is covered by other legislation—that is, the copyright and intellectual property. We did hear, earlier on, mentioned by my colleague Tāmati Coffey, a perfect example of actually how this works and can work for our artists. Nevertheless, I am delighted that our creative artists and communities have another tool or a lever in which they can stand on. This is significant in terms of sustainable career opportunities for them. It’s significant in terms of the future of our artistic communities and their families and their long-term future.

I want to emphasise the words of the Minister the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, and that was her statement, which I think is very important, that it’s not just for the trade agreement that we do this; it is what we want to do. It is the right thing to do for our artists, for our people, for Aotearoa. A tremendous amount of work has gone into this bill. I want to thank all those involved—in particular, those artistic communities across the motu that have worked with the Social Services and Community Committee, that have worked with the staff, to get us to where we are today. I want to also acknowledge Judith Tizard, who was earlier mentioned, who had introduced a similar bill in the past, which, sadly, got voted out. I also want to acknowledge the artists in Whanganui, where I come from, and across Te Tai Hauāuru. I know and have seen some of the struggles that they experience trying to sustain a career and be creative at the same time. I think that this is an absolutely fantastic piece of legislation. I commend this to the House. Kia ora.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.