Ardern Shane: New Zealand Geographic Board  (Nga Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill — Second Reading 
Ardern Shane: New Zealand Geographic Board  (Nga Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:646;Page:15459] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I respect your sound judgment in giving me the call Mr Assistant Speaker. I acknowledge some of the work that the Minister of Land Information David Parker spoke of that went on in the Government Administration Committee. I think that to some extent his Supplementary Order Paper covers some of the issues that were described in the submission process and also by the officials in discussion. But having said that I point out that the National members could not come to the conclusion that this legislation was of benefit to New Zealand. Therefore I rise in opposition to this bill. 
I shall outline to the House a number of reasons why the National members on the select committee came to that conclusion. Probably the most important one was concern about the impact that clauses 32 and 33 may have on private entities—that is the changing of the terminology around an official document and an official place name. For example any tourism operators who may be using a place name as part of their promotional material could find themselves in a completely compromised position and potentially unable to continue that commercial activity. We saw that as not only a risk to one of our largest industries but also an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy when it came to amending the New Zealand Geographic Board Act 1946. 
The Act itself has worked absolutely fine for all of that time—62 years I say to the Hon David Parker—and no evidence to the contrary was brought to the Government Administration Committee. There seemed to be no real urgency to this amendment. The overall approach taken by the select committee was to look at how the bill will enhance the grand scheme of things going forward in terms of place names. I gave the example of the coast of Taranaki where one can start in South Taranaki at Manaia or Hawera then go along the road to Oeo Pihama Opunake Rahotu Warea Okato and Oakura. Every single one of those names is a Maori name. We used to have a mountain called Mount Egmont because Captain Cook had sailed past and said it looked like Egmont. There was enough local concern about that for the mountain now to be officially known as Mount Taranaki which of course it was traditionally known as by the local Taranaki iwi. Based on all of the evidence presented to us there was no conclusion that the 1946 Act would benefit from these moves. 
I think that the Minister does make a point in regard to the continental shelf and given that the Minister has the numbers for this bill to pass that issue could be a potential advantage. I wonder why the rest of the provisions had to be included in the bill at the same time. In fact if that were the purpose of the bill then cluttering it up with the other areas of concern was in our view unnecessary and outweighed any advantage that may come from the proposal the Minister outlined earlier on. That is equally so with the Ross Dependency and Antarctic naming rights which New Zealand has always enjoyed. I understand that those types of decisions are made by consensus through an international forum and that has been happening. New Zealand has had the ability to influence those decisions up till now. There is no issue in regard to New Zealand being overruled or not having a fair say in those issues. So even in that regard where there may have been some select committee sympathy for the amendments there was nothing to suggest to us that the amendments are necessary. 
I am sure there are other speakers who want to elaborate on some of the comments I have made. The National Party found that it could not support the passage of this legislation.