Barnett Tim: New Zealand Geographic Board  (Nga Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill — Second Reading 
Barnett Tim: New Zealand Geographic Board  (Nga Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:646;Page:15471] 
TIM BARNETT (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I am very proud to speak in the second reading stage of the New Zealand Geographic Board (Nga Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill. I am just checking with my colleague Mr Flavell that my pronunciation is adequate for this moment. I would like to begin by acknowledging what in springtime would be like the appearance of the cuckoo: the appearance of Brian Connell in a rare and very important peroration. 
He provided a very useful service to the House by pointing out to Mr Hayes that not only was there an explanatory note to the bill but also something called a report of the Government Administration Committee. Mr Hayes in all of his wonderful 7 minutes of speaking on the bill did not make any reference to the arguments that his National colleagues put forward in the commentary. But anyway I shall ignore that just for a moment. 
It seems to me that the quality of any democracy is best measured by the effectiveness of the Opposition. I have to say that sitting here as somebody who has had up to this stage a casual interest in this legislation— 
Hon Rick Barker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Standing Orders make it very clear that a member is not entitled to shift his or her seat for the purpose of interjecting. There has been a stream of interjections from Mr Hayes. I am prepared to accept that maybe it is only the end of his interjections but I feel that if Mr Hayes is going to interject in this manner he should be required to go back to his designated seat. 
Brian Connell 
: This House is robust and I do not think that Mr Hayes’ interjections were over the top; I think they were reasonable. In fact I found them quite funny. I think it would be a shame if the House were to sit here in stony silence. I think he was making a significant contribution. I note that he has been sitting there all night. I have been watching the debate with some interest from my office and I can assure the House that he has not moved seats. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Thank you. I do not need any further assistance. It is my view that John Hayes did not move his seat for the purpose of interjecting. That should be obvious to anyone. 
TIM BARNETT 
: I was actually imagining that Mr Hayes’ involuntary shouts in the Chamber were just a reflection of the fact that since the beginning of this debate he now understands both what a commentary is and what an explanatory note is. Maybe we are moving on in the course of this matter this evening. 
As I was saying it seems to me that the quality of any democracy really is measured by the effectiveness of the Opposition. As someone who has had only a casual interest in this legislation up until now I listened very carefully to try to understand why the National Party is opposing this legislation. In doing that I listened most carefully to Sandra Goudie who seems to me to be the sharp end of the National Party’s opposition to this legislation. 
Sandra Goudie started by offering to explain how bills are introduced to Parliament which was very useful. She then offered the very useful reflection that we had to look at any bill to work out what was in the legislation. Then she suddenly said that the bill was innocuous. That is very strange because she said that the bill was innocuous in its first reading at the same time as her colleague Lindsay Tisch said it was very bureaucratic. We can explain that by saying it is a bit slippery. But let us move on from there. 
We have now heard from Shane Ardern that the bill is not bureaucratic enough. We have a bill that is innocuous not bureaucratic enough and too bureaucratic. That is fine. Then I listened to Sandra Goudie’s two particular issues around the legislation. One was that she said there was no definition of a problem. I will come to that afterwards but it seems to me that this legislation has a forward-looking and very important element at its core. Secondly she mentioned the problem with discretion over public notification which none of her colleagues even bothered to mention so I can really ignore that one. 
Then there was a fascinating little byway that Sandra Goudie took us on in talking about a place that she regards as having been called Simpsons Beach from the beginning of time. She called that the real name of the beach. But it was given its original Maori place name again and that according to Sandra Goudie is its colloquial name. So we go from having had a nation with a colloquial naming policy to real names—from Maori to English. That is an extraordinary statement about values the importance of language and as my colleague Mark Burton was saying the importance of naming and the importance of history. 
I realised at that point that whatever this legislation is about it is about something pretty important. When I started to look at it in more detail and to listen to the wise words of my colleagues here I thought to myself that the key part of this legislation which is so important is that it is extending the ability of the board to grant naming rights to an area 25 times the size of the current land area of New Zealand. 
This legislation recognises that one of the places in the world that contains wealth and that will be particularly important in our future is the seabed. This legislation is extending the area of the geographic board from the land area of our country to a sea area 25 times that size over which Sovereign rights can be exercised. New Zealand needs to show that it has an interest in naming it. As Mark Burton said that is fundamental to a nation expressing an interest in a place and is a recognition of the characteristics of that place. 
Asserting naming and mapping rights is at the heart of this legislation. That is recognising that the seabed in our extraordinary position as a developed nation in a massive expanse of sea is actually a strength for our nation and not a weakness. I commend both the Minister and the Labour members of the select committee for recognising the strengths of this legislation. I am very proud to commend it to the House.