Robertson Grant: State Sector Management Bill — First Reading 
Robertson Grant: State Sector Management Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:13686] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I intend to move that all the words after “Education and Science Committee” be omitted from the motion to refer the bill to a select committee. The reason I do is that once again in this House we have the National Government creating a completely different kind of process for dealing with legislation which ignores the Standing Orders about people being able to participate in this House. Once again for a bill that the Minister himself has delivered to us in its first reading in a deadpan “there is nothing to see here; move along” kind of tone he has come to the House and said “But having said that we will ignore all of the processes of Parliament.” This is happening with bill after bill and it is simply not acceptable to members on this side of the House to see the Standing Orders overridden in that way by the Minister. 
While the Minister is still here I also note that participating in this debate is extremely difficult when he has chosen to withhold most of the information requested under the Official Information Act about the merger of the National Library and Archives New Zealand into the Department of Internal Affairs. That complaint is currently with the Ombudsman who is waiting to hear back from the Minister on the Ombudsman’s recommendation. It would have been interesting to know from the Minister what about these papers is so difficult and so controversial that he will not release them so that parties on this side of the House can participate with the full knowledge of what lay behind the Government’s thinking in putting this bill together. But we stand here today without that information; the Minister is withholding that information from us. 
Is it not ironic that in a bill that is all about access of New Zealanders to information in our public records the Minister is withholding all of the information that led him to put this bill before the House? We would like to see a little more openness and a little more transparency from the Minister—not so much colour in the ties but a little bit more transparency about this bill because it is an important bill. 
Before I return to the other aspects of the bill that I want to discuss I think that given that this is a State sector management bill it is timely to acknowledge the excellent work being done by State sector agencies in the Canterbury region at this time—in particular in terms of local government civil defence the Ministry of Social Development defence personnel the police and other State agencies that have gone above and beyond the call of duty in the last few days. I heard the Prime Minister even refer to Work and Income staff who have rung all the elderly people who live alone in Christchurch. That is why we need a strong Public Service in New Zealand. Those people are there in times of need and it has been great to see them step up in Christchurch. 
Labour will oppose this bill but I make clear at the outset that that does not particularly relate to the merger of the Ministry of Research Science and Technology and the Foundation for Research Science and Technology. We believe that there possibly is some value in that although as my colleague David Shearer will refer to at a later point in this debate we are not sure that it is the biggest and most crucial and important issue for research and development in New Zealand. However we do not take a position of opposition to that merger. 
I shall concentrate in my speech today on the merger of the National Library and Archives New Zealand into the Department of Internal Affairs. It is worth noting that it was only a decade ago that Archives New Zealand was separated from the Department of Internal Affairs and it is only 20 years ago since the National Library was separated from the Ministry of Education. There were important reasons and justifications for those separations and they were about the important constitutional democratic and historical roles those two institutions play in New Zealand and we should not understate the importance of those roles in our future. It is only through the work of the Alexander Turnbull Library the National Library and Archives New Zealand that we have information for Treaty claims for instance. It is only through those institutions that we know where the power cables are when people go to do developments. Those are the practical things that people get out of those kinds of institutions. But the sense of national identity given to us by these institutions and the importance of their independence cannot be overstated. That is why they were separated and that is why their re-merger into the Department of Internal Affairs for the flimsiest of reasons needs to be opposed. 
This legislation is unnecessary. The Cabinet paper that was put forward by Minister Ryall about this merger said that Archives New Zealand and the National Library were “well-regarded and successful institutions”. If it ain’t broke why fix it? These institutions are performing better than they ever have. If any stakeholders in the library and archives sector had actually been asked for their views—which they were not—they would have told the Minister that the two institutions were operating better than they ever had. Yet now we find them being merged into the Department of Internal Affairs where in the case of Archives New Zealand there were significant problems in the 1990s. A court case was taken to try to solve those problems because Archives New Zealand was not getting the attention it needed. It was being subsumed into a larger agency that did not have the concerns of our future archives our future records and the accountability of the Government at heart. 
This measure is unnecessary and it will not add anything to the way in which New Zealand’s constitutional framework fits together. The main justification that has been put forward in the Cabinet paper and also by the Minister today is about savings. Well let us be absolutely clear about that. The Cabinet paper shows that the potential savings from this exercise will be between $3 million and $9 million over 4 years. But we have to take out of that figure a $2 million set-up cost so we are talking about less than $150000 a year in savings—and 15 jobs are going. We will have less than $150000 a year in savings and 15 fewer jobs. That does not stack up on financial grounds let alone on constitutional or democratic grounds. 
The other justification that has been put forward—and it was put forward by the Minister in his speech moments ago—is about the importance of digitisation the information technology justification. But I caution the Minister that the record of government in large super-platform information technology projects is not great. We are seeing it right now in Housing New Zealand Corporation; we have seen it before with the INCIS system for the police. The vision that somehow or other we will get a super-platform of information that will bring together all of our Government records and all of our historic and civic information is in fact likely to be paved with difficulties. I do not believe that that justification is enough for upsetting the arrangements that have been in place for the last decade and that are working well. 
It is quite clear when we look at the Government’s philosophy here that it wants fewer Government agencies and that it wants fewer departments. The Government is not looking at what these agencies and departments are actually doing. On this side of the House we are all for an efficient and effective Public Service so let us find the savings and find the efficiencies. But why should we go looking at agencies that are actually doing a good job that are performing the role that has been asked of them and that have that important historical and constitutional significance? If we want to look for savings and if we want to look for efficiencies then by all means we should do that but I ask why we must upset the entire structure of these organisations. Reinventing the wheel seems to be the speciality of this Government. 
I will quote from one piece of correspondence that I received from someone about this bill. It begins: “Dear Mr Ryall I am now in my 90th year and I cannot believe that I have to write yet another letter to members of our Government because some of its inexperienced members are not able to grasp the significance of our national treasures.” The person goes on to say: “Does the British Parliament try to squeeze the governance of the British Library into some minor department or the US Senate do the same to the Library of Congress? The scale may be different in New Zealand but the significance to the respective nations is the same. These national repositories are unique.” That person is speaking for a lot of people across the library and archives community who do not want this merger to take place and who know that it is an ideological exercise in creating fewer Government departments rather than in preserving our heritage. 
In the brief time remaining I will refer to one or two of the specific clauses in this bill—which no doubt will pass its first reading in the House today—which we want to look at when the bill comes to a select committee. In particular I ask whether we can really be assured that there is independence for the Chief Archivist and National Librarian in this bill. We know there is some extension to that independence but in the end it is not for the functions and powers but for the person to exercise his or her professional judgment. That is a big difference. That person is no longer independent in terms of his or her functions and powers only in terms of his or her professional judgment. That is a limitation. 
The other thing I will draw to the House’s attention is that with the way the bill is worded these departments could be controlled by any large Government agency. The definition of “department” just states that it is the department that “is for the time being” in charge of these agencies. That means in future the Alexander Turnbull Library could be given to yet another department or agency and that whole collection will have to be moved again. I am not confident that this bill gives us the independent and high-quality constitutional facilities that Archives New Zealand and the National Library provide. I think the Government is going down a very dangerous path. At the select committee we will want adequate time to be given to all submitters to be able to raise their concerns because at this stage we are unconvinced that this is the way we should proceed.