Robertson Grant: Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 13 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17771. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I rise to support the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill as other speakers from the Labour Party have done as well. I do support the notion previous speakers have mentioned that this is a bill that has gained widespread support from around Parliament and indeed in the community. That is actually a tribute to the Local Government and Environment Committee to those who have submitted to the select committee and to the Government and the Opposition politicians who have been part of that. It is not an area where today in contemporary New Zealand there should be I believe any particular dispute about the importance of having an organisation within the system of government that does protect enhance and advocate for our heritage.It was not always so. As I commented during the Committee stage of this bill it is great to see within this bill the strong support for for example the importance of the protection of wāhi tapu wāhi tūpuna and historic places and historic areas of interest to Māori. The National Party in the Don Brash era during the political correctness eradicator times—Dr Wayne Mapp that was Mr Goldsmith if you were wondering whatever happened—Darien Fenton: The MP for North Shore.GRANT ROBERTSON: —that is right the MP for North Shore—to the political correctness eradicator. During that period the National Opposition as it was then was not all that keen on recognising things like wāhi tapu and sacred sites for Māori. So I think it is a good advance that this piece of legislation does that very clearly and very specifically. I point particularly to clause 7 which gives a special acknowledgment to the way in which this legislation gives effect to the Crown’s responsibilities under the Treaty of Waitangi. I welcome that change of heart from the National Government and the fact that we can now have a piece of legislation that gives good recognition to those matters.Ultimately what this bill does in addition to some of the specific points that have been raised by the previous speaker Maggie Barry is create a new entity. It creates a governance arrangement for historic places in New Zealand that changes from the model that many New Zealanders have known well: a Historic Places Trust where there are local branch committees that played an important role in the actions of the trust which fed through to a national body which in turn played an advocacy role at the national level in terms of historic places and heritage. The recognition is that by changing this to what is effectively a Crown entity—what is effectively a Crown agency—it makes the local branch committees inappropriate. It is not really possible for there to be voluntary branch committees that would feed into a Government entity in that way. So despite some reluctance on this side of the House I would say in seeing branch committees disestablished we understand that the changed governance arrangements do make them inappropriate. I too want to place on record my thanks to all of those New Zealanders going back many decades who have contributed to the branch committees of the Historic Places Trust.Many cities and towns in New Zealand would not be the places they are today were it not for those committee members. As I think I said in the Committee stage debate I grew up in Dunedin and anyone who visits the city of Dunedin can look around on a day-to-day basis and see what an amazing impact local people had on the cityscape and on the fact that those buildings have been preserved. I was actually in the city of Dunedin on the weekend and I walked past one of the great historic buildings there theold National Bank on Princes Street. In the building beside it someone had put a sign up that said: “Sustainability begins with preservation”. I thought that was a very very good statement of the kinds of values that lie behind the protection of heritage in our historic places. We will not be a sustainable community if we do not preserve what is around us and that counts for historic buildings as much as it counts for our natural heritage as well.So I do want to thank those branch committees. However I do not think that we are here to pronounce the end of local advocacy and representation on heritage issues—far from it in fact. I note that right around the country historic places trust branches have been re-establishing themselves as part of—I think the organisation is called—Historic Places Aotearoa which is bringing together groups from right across the country. There is one in Napier there is one in New Plymouth and there is a very active one in Christchurch given the issues that that city is facing. It is fantastic that those individuals and communities can come together and still be advocates for their local heritage even though they are not officially members of the trust any longer. So I look forward to seeing the advocacy and support for heritage from those local committees when they are re-established as they are now.When we look at the bill it is important to look at the purposes and functions of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. In particular I do want to note the fact that it still has an advocacy role and that it is not just a body there to monitor and receive applications and to make reports. Under clause 11(1)(b) of the bill one of the purposes and functions of Heritage New Zealand is to advocate the conservation and protection of historic places historic areas wāhi tūpuna wāhi tapu and wāhi tapu areas. So I want to make sure that we do not suddenly believe that advocacy is over by creating this Crown entity.One of the criticisms that this side of the House has had of the National Government when it comes to the Department of Conservation is that the Government does not want to hear from the Department of Conservation about its advocacy role. It would rather that it went away—need anyone mention the Ruataniwha Dam if they want an example of that. I want to put on the record of this House that the Labour Party recognises that part of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga’s role will be to advocate and we support that role. It may mean that when we are in Government we may have some disagreements but we welcome that. We welcome the fact that there is an organisation that has got a specific responsibility to advocate for conservation of historic areas. That is important in our society.I want to refer to a couple of other areas. We have already had a reference by Jacinda Ardern to I guess in many senses the relationship between this organisation and the legislation that sets it up and the Resource Management Act. There was a lot of discussion at the select committee process as I understand it—I was not on the Local Government and Environment Committee—about aligning those two regimes. In fact a chunk of the Minister’s very large Supplementary Order Paper 444 is about exactly that. That is important. We have seen too many examples in this House of legislation where alignment with the Resource Management Act has been forgotten about and here I am thinking about the exclusive economic zone legislation. That is a very good example of that. So it is important that we align them.But I think that what it draws out and there were submissions—and I remember Federated Farmers getting quite upset about this bill at one stage although it ultimately supported it I think—in which there was concern that there was not enough of a partnership approach in how we support historic places and sites. I guess representing farmers that organisation was concerned about where those historic sites may be on particular farms. I welcome the idea of a collaborative and partnership approach butthere need to be clear rules and guidelines around that. I do support the idea of some kind of national policy statement around heritage so that local authorities and those in the community who have to work in these areas understand the expectations at a central government level about the protection of heritage. I think it would be useful to do that.One of the problems with the implementation of the Resource Management Act over many years is the absence of national level guidance in terms of national policy statements and national environment standards. In the absence of those it has been up to local authorities to come up with decisions. That is where some inconsistencies have grown up. That if anything is what needs to change about the Resource Management Act not the fundamentals of it and not tearing down the fact that it is about sustainable management as this Government would do but rather actually giving the national level guidance that allows local organisations to make their decisions. That applies as much to heritage as it does to any other topic.So I think that is a conversation that we need to have but this bill at least gives us an organisation that is now well founded within Government to provide support and protection for our heritage going forward and therefore the Labour Party can support this legislation.