Shearer David: State Sector Management Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Shearer David: State Sector Management Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 09 December 2010. Volume:669;Page:16250. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 The State Sector Management Bill is a drive but it goes in no particular direction it seems to me. It is a drive towards basically showing people that doing something is better than not doing something. But doing something for absolutely no real reason does not seem to be a particularly good use of our time here on a Saturday morning. 
One thing that brings us together as parliamentarians on a Saturday morning is the feeling that we could have done this better and that the Leader of the House could have organised this a bit better so that instead of being here in Parliament on a Saturday morning we might have actually been spending our time with our constituents. As we all know in our electorates there are many things we could be doing this morning. We do not have very much time before Christmas comes along. 
Firstly I will touch on what has already been mentioned in terms of the Archives and the National Library. The Education and Science Committee sat through 31 submissions of evidence and—Louise Upston will know this as well—every single one of them without exception opposed the bill. The submissions were some of the best I think I have ever heard while sitting on a select committee in my short career here in Parliament. 
Submissions were made by people who had worked under the 1990s regime and had seen the mess that occurred as a result of putting the Archives in particular inside the Department of Internal Affairs. They pleaded for us to keep it separate. They showed us that in almost every other country in the world best practice was to keep archives outside the Department of Internal Affairs. From there it could serve as an independent watchdog and a repository of information that benefited the whole of New Zealand—the whole of New Zealand. 
Instead we are burying both the Archives and the National Library inside the Department of Internal Affairs which will make the heads of both of those departments third-tier positions. That means that they will not despite what we were told in the select committee have access to the responsible Minister. It seems like the Minister would not necessarily be doing anything even if they did have access to the Minister so perhaps that is a pointless point to bring up. 
This measure has been done under the auspices of making something more efficient and more effective. It saves about $160000 a year. We could probably do an internal reshuffle and save more than that if that were able to done. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: One day in Parliament in urgency. 
DAVID SHEARER 
: We would probably save as much as that if we had a Leader of the House who actually organised himself. I have to say that 2 weeks ago we had made plans right through this weekend to get out in the electorate and do things before the Christmas break. Those plans seem to have been shot down. 
Let us move to the research and science provisions in the bill which present less of a problem to this side of the House. In fact I congratulate Minister Mapp on coming up with a good name: the Ministry of Science and Innovation [ 
Interruption 
] That is true. I was reflecting on what would have happened if Wayne Mapp by some remarkable feat had won the 1981 Mt Roskill selection and had come in as the member for Mt Roskill. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: As a Labour member? 
DAVID SHEARER 
: As a Labour member for Mount Roskill—that is right. I was thinking about how he would have risen through the Labour Party as a result of being in Mt Roskill. It is an interesting thought; I did not spend too long thinking about it. 
Dr Mapp came up with a great name: the Ministry of Science and Innovation. We may ask what is in a name. Well the answer is not a whole lot. If we dig below the name we see the same old same old approach coming out yet again. 
I will give members two examples. First of all putting two departments together will not save any money for at least 7 years according to the Auditor-General’s report. That report supposes that no extra people have been taken on board as a result of new things that the new ministry comes up with. It will be 7 years. 
The other thing that was interesting when the select committee looked at this bill was that I expected perhaps in the preamble something slightly more inspirational about what this bill is trying to do. It is bringing together two pieces of Government bureaucracy. The officials said that they had not had time to think about that and that they had been too busy trying to merge the Ministry of Research Science and Technology and the Foundation of Research Science and Technology. In a sense that says it all about this legislation. It starts off aspiring to be something that really tries to take us forward but it does not. It falls at the first hurdle; it really does not move us forward any more. 
I will give the House a second example which is in respect of appointing the head of this new ministry. From the very beginning I have had no issues or problems with the person who was chosen for this job. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Was it Christine Rankin? 
DAVID SHEARER 
: No in this case it was not Christine Rankin. But I ask members this: if we were going to start a brand new ministry that really looked to be inspirational and aspirational about what we want to do as the Minister has spoken about in every speech he has come out with what would we do? I will tell the House what I would do. I would advertise across the world and try to get the best person for the job from perhaps the other side of the world perhaps from Finland or Denmark which the Minister keeps mentioning as the example of where we want to be in the world. Maybe we should go to Denmark and see whether we can attract anybody from Denmark to New Zealand who can show us what happened there. We could have looked at Sweden or Singapore. 
What happened in this case? Again this is no reflection on the person who was eventually appointed. What happened? We opened that recruitment process for 2½ weeks. I know from talking to a lot of people around town that the recruitment agency did not have the resources to go further abroad and make an international search. There is absolutely no way that we can say with our hand on our heart that we have trawled the world for the best possible person and got the best possible person. If we had done that and the current head of the Ministry of Research Science and Technology had been selected I would have said that it is fantastic to have a Kiwi a New Zealander who is able to do the job. But we have not. 
This is another example that permeates right through the Government of where we have sold ourselves short. We have lacked the vision we have lacked the plan and we have lacked the aspiration even though this is one of the main areas where the Government wants to pick up New Zealand’s economic performance. We have lacked the drive to drive this ministry forward to the place it should be. 
Here we are on a Saturday morning looking at a bill that puts the Archives and the National Library back into the Department of Internal Affairs despite the best advice from just about everybody who has ever worked in both of those areas. In the research science and technology area we could have made a real difference and really lived up to the great name that the Minister has come up with but instead we have fallen sadly short.