Swain Paul: Protected Objects Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Swain Paul: Protected Objects Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:633;Page:4648] 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I rise to speak in support of the bill. Firstly I want to congratulate the Minister who while giving an impassioned speech almost lost some of his own protected objects during the course of it but he managed to get back on track. So I say to him: “Good work.” As the previous speaker has just said this legislation has been around for a while. Obviously it has needed the attention of the House but more specifically the bill tries to define and describe precisely the types of protected New Zealand objects that are subject to export regulation. It prohibits the permanent export and wilful damage of such objects. So I looked at the bill very very carefully. I wondered particularly when I looked at some of the schedules whether this bill was perhaps some code for the Leader of the Opposition and the National Party because we know that both are relatively close to extinction and both need some form of protection. 
When I look at new schedule 4 to be inserted into the principal Act by clause 30 on which very good work has been done by the Government Administration Committee I see that it defines “fossil”. It is very important that fossils are protected from export— 
Shane Ardern 
: Have a look around you Paul. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Ah well this is the point. I see that “fossil” has been defined in this way: “ ‘fossil’ irrespective of how it is preserved means an object constituting the remains or traces of a non-human organism that lived in New Zealand prior to human habitation; including (but not limited to) the whole organism or parts of it or trace evidence of its behaviour”. Actually it sounded very much like Don Brash to me when I thought about that definition. Obviously at some stage—and probably it will be sooner rather than later; although I think to be fair and honest from Labour’s perspective we would prefer later rather than sooner—Don Brash will be leaving the National Party leadership and obviously there may well be an attempt to try to export him. But I think that he could well be protected under the definition of “fossil” in the Protected Objects Amendment Bill. 
Darren Hughes 
: Not from self-harm. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: That is right. So I think it is incredibly important that National members realise that while they might try to get rid of him he could well be around in New Zealand for a very long time because he could well come under the provisions of clause 5 of schedule 4. 
Then we go on to look at some of the other things in schedule 4. I found the Protected Objects Amendment Bill very interesting when I was reading it. Clause 3(2) in schedule 4 talks about documentary heritage objects and states: “(2) Objects in this category include … (c) photographs and negatives: …” so I wondered whether we might have a couple of photographs that are protected from being exported. Two sprang to mind. The first one was of the Leader of the Opposition climbing into the stock car. 
Darren Hughes 
: Oh that was a good one. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: That was a great photo and I am certain no one would want to export that because it is certainly now a part of the wonderful campaign heritage of the previous election. 
Darren Hughes 
: A taonga. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: It is absolutely a taonga and one that people should be referring back to. No one should be allowed to export that photo because it certainly belongs in New Zealand. 
The other photo that came to mind was the walking the plank photo. I thought that was a photo that once again should be protected. It should be preserved in New Zealand. Clearly the National Party should make sure that photo is not able to be exported. The Government has come to the party and is now passing legislation to ensure that that particular photo—the wonderful photo of Dr Brash walking the plank—will remain in New Zealand and not be able to be exported. There will be serious fines for people who try to do that. So if National members were trying to clear the decks of their past history and to sneak those photos into an envelope—the walking the plank and the climbing into the stock car photos—and send them away there will be quite serious fines for doing that. I cannot quite remember but I think they might be up to $10000 or something like that. I wonder whether that is GST-inclusive or GST-exclusive. 
Darren Hughes 
: They wouldn’t know that. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: No those members do not know because they had some problems with their returns as I recall around that matter. 
Anyway I continued looking at schedule 4 because I actually thought deep down that this legislation was code for the National Party and the Leader of the Opposition. Further on in schedule 4 clause 5 talks about natural science objects and I found in that clause a definition of “taxon”. A taxon—I was not sure about this I must say; we learn something every day—means “a taxonomic grouping of extant or extinct organisms such as a genus species or sub-species”. However in my mind all we really need to do is to say: “Taxon equals the National Party.” That is what it is. The National Party is certainly an extinct organism. 
Darren Hughes 
: How did they slip that amendment through? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I do not know. I suppose the problem is that some people are wondering whether it would be possible at some stage to export the National Party holus-bolus overseas. I think that under this particular provision in schedule 4 the definition of “taxon” clearly applies to the National Party—it being an extinct organism genus species or subspecies—and someone would be prevented from doing that. There may be a lot of people in New Zealand who would think that exporting the National Party would be a good thing. I am not sure what that person would get for it overseas; maybe someone was thinking of putting it on TradeMe. But I think that under this legislation no one would be allowed to export the National Party for fear of incurring some sort of fine. 
The final thing I looked at when I looked further through schedule 4 was a list of cultural issues I think they were called or some such thing. That list came up with all sorts of things that should be protected such as “social and political issues”. I looked down the list and I expected to find “bedrock values” in there because we would think that in New Zealand bedrock values should not be able to be exported. So I thought the Leader of the Opposition would have at least tried to put an amendment into the bill by looking at New Zealand bedrock values mentioning them in the schedule and attempting to define the term. Of course the problem is that when asked what those bedrock values are Dr Brash had some difficulty in defining them. I think he talked about the idea of things that all New Zealanders share. He said that there are some issues around the values of some people who come in from overseas—for example men’s treatment of women I think he said. 
The next question was whether this issue was a bit of a problem with the Exclusive Brethren and whether the Exclusive Brethren shared those bedrock values. The problem that Dr Brash got into was that he did not think forward to the next question. 
Darren Hughes 
: Never does. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: He always gets himself into that problem. I think there was an issue previous to that one was there not? I cannot remember what it was about. It was not bedrock values it was something else. 
Darren Hughes 
: Mainstream! 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: That is what it was—it was about who was mainstream. Basically in the end defining who was mainstream came down to it being everybody who voted National. People who were in the mainstream were people who supported National and those who were not in the mainstream were everybody else in New Zealand. So that led to some hilarity and in the end what do we hear about mainstream now? Not one skerrick not one sausage and not one razoo do we hear about mainstream. Now the topic is “bedrock”—and I bet people that “bedrock” goes the same way. It will be one of those things that the National Party never mentions again because the leader of the National Party is somebody who simply cannot think those things forward. Of course basically that is why he is no good at the job. The problem is that he has not got it because either one has it or one has not. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The member needs to come back to the bill. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I support the bill. It is good and I think by and large it is doing a good thing for the National Party.