Delahunty Catherine: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Delahunty Catherine: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:673;Page:19441] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 I will take a pretty short call but I was on the Education and Science Committee and had the privilege of hearing a number of the submitters. They were really fascinating people and the hearing was very different from hearings on other bills that I have participated in. There was a fierce eccentricity about the submitters that I found really interesting. I think that it was the science community debating the issue of humanities that made it such a fascinating experience. 
In terms of clause 7 of the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill even the issue of the functions of the society was controversial. It was very difficult to find out from the various submitters what they thought the society was and their idea of who was included and who was not. I had an overwhelming desire to get out a whiteboard and do a flow chart because it was really difficult to understand how the members the branches and the governing body defined themselves. I think that other parts of the bill are controversial and we will talk about that but even in talking about functions these people confused the select committee and vigorously debated—passionately debated—who the society was before we even got to the question of the function. Maybe the nature of academia and intellectual life is that every single word will be debated—a bit like parliamentarians do only the scientists were more interesting than we are somehow. 
I will just look at the functions of the society in terms of what came up at the select committee. It was a bit of a concern at the select committee—although the Greens support the bill—that there was such a dispute about whether consultation on these issues had been thoroughly carried out. Part of that was because nobody could really understand how the process worked—no one could really work out who was supposed to consult with whom on the functions of the Royal Society. So it was difficult for us to make an intelligent assessment of whether that had happened in a fair way. Of course the leading people submitting on behalf of the society’s governing body said it had been a fantastically rigorous consultation although some of the submitters on this issue said that it had not been. It was really difficult to know the truth. In the end we went back to the bill and the principles in it and that is why we supported it. 
If we look at clause 7 in terms of new section 6(a)(ii) “the advancement of science and technology education:” we see the omission of the word “humanities”. That is an issue but if we are talking about schools and the curriculum in primary schools I think we have to be even more concerned that since the introduction of national standards there has been a deliberate attack on the idea that science is actually a crucial part of the curriculum. I have had science teachers who might want to be guided by the Royal Society and have its input into the curriculum telling me they are losing professional development and they are losing opportunities to teach the curriculum in primary school because there is only literacy and numeracy. There is a narrow and very very limited way of looking at what learning is. 
On the one hand we have the Royal Society promoting the advancement of science technology and the humanities; on the other hand we have the Government saying that at primary school level science is not important. It seems to be conceptually beyond its grasp that young people will come to literacy and numeracy via science via the arts via the humanities and via a whole range of learnings. If the Government understood how education actually works—and clearly the Royal Society does because it is making this change—it would understand that people come to a basic understanding about literacy and numeracy through their passion for a particular discipline. Many children will come to literacy through science and through their absolute wonder and passion for how the physics of the world works rather than from actually doing maths on the board. It would be terrible if the capacity of the Royal Society to advise on the curriculum for science and technology was not applied in primary schools and it is a real concern that these are being narrowed and the whole area has been shut out. 
In terms of new section 6(a)(i) I am fascinated by the debate about science and technology versus the humanities because originally the science community and the Royal Society in Europe had a very elitist view of what was knowledge. It was a very patriarchal view of what was knowledge it was a very materially defined view of what was knowledge and it did not include the view that the essence of all knowledge is holism that knowledge is about the connections between disciplines and that a true knowledge of science requires an ability to understand what it is to be human. 
I would like to continue a little further on my dissertation on this because I am interested in the idea of humanity and science being connected and I am encouraged by this. I also would like to say that as someone touched on earlier the Rutherford Medal is part of recognising excellence. Tonight I was privileged to hear one of the medallists Paul Callaghan talking. He was talking about that very connection between science entrepreneurship and humanity in this country. His bottom line was that this must be a place where talented people would want to live. He is repeating this around the place and it is interesting when a Royal Society medallist talks like this because it actually manifests what this change in the law is all about: that we need a society that will attract the best minds hold the best minds and create the best business and scientific ideas. It must also have the capacity to maintain human relationships and human values including environmental values. He was very lucid on that subject. I think that is a good example of the Rutherford Medal and why we need to encourage and promote excellence. People like Paul Callaghan get those medals because of that absolutely deep and articulate capacity to make connections. That is what makes other people come with them when they are trying to promote science or business or an understanding of how society works. So it is good to see that in the bill. 
One of the other issues which I think Grant Robertson has already touched upon is the issue of expert advice on public issues. I lived for many years on the East Coast in Tai Rawhiti and even there members of the Royal Society and people working for the Royal Society were active on issues that affected our community mainly in terms of environmental science. But for those of us who did not know anything about the Royal Society it was heartening to see its members play a role in issues like GE and issues like water quality not only on the national stage but also on the local stage. In the long debates that we had over things like sewerage and water quality our community benefited from having people connected to the Royal Society participate and provide expert advice on important public issues. There is a real need in the public domain for debate around science and technology issues and around humanities issues to have some expert advice and to ensure our citizens actually know what they are talking about because that debate is accessible—and the Royal Society has shown its ability to be accessible. 
I would have liked to be here for the entire process of the Royal Society bill. I thought it was really interesting being at the Education and Science Committee. I would have liked to be at more of its deliberation although my primary responsibility is education and I believe that David Clendon was there for most of the Royal Society bill. But I will not forget those people and their passion. I think we owe them a debt as a society because they provide us with both understanding and public awareness of not only science and technology but also the humanities. As a former social science teacher myself I do not see a separation between these things. As a person committed to environmental issues I cannot see a separation between human values and the environment and the science that informs them. I commend these parts of the bill because this is interesting but I will never forget the debate at the select committee about who the members of the Royal Society actually were as well as what they actually stood for. Thank you.