Shearer David: Carter Observatory Act Repeal Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Shearer David: Carter Observatory Act Repeal Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
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DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 It is very good that we are able to move so quickly tonight to get the Carter Observatory Act Repeal Bill through the House. I think that a number of people from the Carter Observatory are possibly watching this debate wondering why we use this arcane method of getting something as simple and bipartisan as this bill through the House and wondering why it is taking such a long time. I am beginning to learn the way of Parliament. 
The Carter Observatory opened in 1938 as the Minister has just said. In 1977 it was made a national observatory. In many ways many of the scientists of the time believed that the observatory was already the national observatory even before it was formalised. It has had a pretty mixed time since then. There have been some disagreements within the management of the observatory. There were some problems in respect of the funding of the observatory and I want to come back to that. It was something that Sue Kedgley raised and it has led us to believe today that the Carter Observatory serves best as a visitor and tourist asset to the city of Wellington rather than as a national observatory. 
Many of the scientific functions have moved the Mount John Observatory which is administered largely by Canterbury University but as the Minister said in collaboration with a number of other universities throughout the world—in particular a number of US universities. It is very heartening to see that New Zealand is continuing that. I think that this is part of the bipartisan nature of science in this country and it is reflected in the Square Kilometre Array. We are putting forward a bid to take that project on with Australia. The New Zealand astronomical community will certainly get a real boost if we find we have won that when the announcement is made in 2012. 
When we look back on the Carter Observatory I think we can learn a few lessons about the way it has proceeded over time. One of the lessons is about funding and Sue Kedgley spoke up about that before. We cannot do science without funding. The Government needed to put $2 million into the Carter Observatory. The Wellington City Council put $1.4 million in and is looking to put in another $300000 a year to ensure the upkeep. That is quite an expensive commitment to take on yet the observatory is a real treasure. As an aside I mention one part of the treasure which is the fantastic library that the Carter Observatory has. That has not come up in the discussion but is an asset to the Wellington City Council. 
The funding issue is a real and pertinent one and the Minister just mentioned the amount of funding the Government is putting forward as part of its science package in the Budget. It was the third-largest commitment after health and education in terms of new money—$56 million. Nobody will scoff at that but it is a lot less than would have happened if the 15 percent tax credit had been left in place. But let us look at that $56 million because in a sense about 7 and a bit percent of the actual science budget is new money. If we take into account the inflation rate of 5.9 percent suddenly that 7 percent starts to look a little bit weak. 
If we talk to any scientist in this country any scientist at all about the amount of money that is being put in he or she will tell us that the inflation rate for science is actually quite a lot higher than our domestic inflation rate for the simple reason that we have to import most of our equipment from overseas. Suddenly that third-largest amount of money that is being poured into the science community through the Budget is starting to look rather pathetic. It is certainly pathetic in terms of the amount of money that would have gone in as part of the tax credits and the amount of money that would have stimulated businesses as an incentive—an incentive rather than a handout a grant—to increase their own commitment to research and development. 
Let us talk about another issue in terms of funding. Today we had a remarkable announcement which we have been waiting for for a long time. It was that the Primary Growth Partnership finally has agreed to fund three projects—finally. The Minister of Agriculture the Hon David Carter who happens to be in the House at the moment said he makes no apology for the delay in the delivery of the Primary Growth Partnership. My feeling is that he should apologise. He should apologise to the scientists who have been sitting there for 18 months unfunded waiting for money to be able to fund science. 
Hon David Carter 
: We announced it in September last year—6 months. The member doesn’t know what he’s talking about. 
DAVID SHEARER 
: Not only that but the business community was waiting for the Government to make its announcement so it could pledge its half of the deal as well. They have been sitting around wasting time. I say to Mr Carter that it is actually about 18 months because if we look at when the Fast Forward fund was demolished at the end of 2008 and at where we are now—I think it is May 2010—we see that we will not get any money out of the door before June or July. So it is probably closer to 20 months that have been wasted. 
Members should think about that happening in any other sector. What would have happened in the health sector or in policing? What if suddenly the police were left bereft of $60 million that they were not able to use for 18 months? Members can imagine the outcry if that had happened. But the science sector can be quietly pushed aside and discarded simply because the Minister of Research Science and Technology has not been able to push the thing through as fast as he said he could. 
The Fast Forward fund was already in place. It was already set up; the money was already in the account— 
Hon David Carter 
: Recklessly spraying money around. 
DAVID SHEARER 
: The money was in the account I say to Mr Carter; I have seen the books. The money was there and it was hauled out and put into some other trite scheme that this Government is trying to run through with the last Budget. 
We could have had $1 billion in place with that amount matched by business—that is $2 billion worth of funding going into our primary produce. Instead we allowed that to fall over. That is a real shame. I think that in 2011 when we have a change of Government we will look at making sure that continuity is maintained. I believe as I said when I opened this discussion on the Carter Observatory that bipartisanship is an important aspect of science. 
I raise one other issue in terms of science. One of the things that Labour did during its 9 years in Government was support the science sector in schools. The Carter Observatory as many people have quite rightly noted is now part of the science curriculum of many Wellington schools. What this National Government has done with its national standards is focus its attention on maths and English and discard science. Science advisers have been half-funded compared with what they were before. If members ask secondary teachers—Mr Peachey for example was a teacher and I was a secondary teacher for some time—they will say that having science support backing them up is an incredibly important means of keeping them up to date and giving them the enthusiasm to ensure that science is well taught and to ensure that the enthusiasm of students is carried forward. 
That has now gone. So what have we got? We have a Carter Observatory one of whose failings we know was the fact that it did not have enough money. Yet the Government has underfunded science in comparison with what was there—half of what it promised in 2008 and half of what the Labour Government already had in place. It has crashed the Fast Forward fund and put in the Primary Growth Partnership which has yet to deliver. Not one dollar has gone out yet. We have approved three projects and they are good projects I admit. They are very good projects. That Primary Growth Partnership is only now starting to work 20 months afterwards. We have seen science teaching being left out in the cold.