Groser Tim: Historic Places Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Groser Tim: Historic Places Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:632;Page:3883] 
TIM GROSER (National) 
:  
National is opposed to Part 2 the transitional provisions because they are related to the appointments procedures. We have generally had the view throughout this whole process that this amendment bill tries to fix a problem that does not exist and does not fix a very real problem that exists. I will come to that later. Let me deal first with the non-existent problem—the appointments procedures. 
Let me recap the arithmetic although the fundamental point should be well known to members. The Historic Places Trust currently has 11 members three of whom are appointed by the Government. So the ratio of Government to non-Government people on the trust is a fraction under one to four. This amendment bill proposes to reduce the total number of trust members from 11 to nine and to double the number of Government appointments thereby shifting the ratio of Government to non-Government people from fractionally under one to four to two to three. 
One does not need a PhD in mathematics to predict the consequences this will have for the future operations of the trust if this amendment bill is passed. It will move from a situation where we have essentially volunteers in partnership with the Government which we consider to be an appropriate model to a completely Government-dominated trust. It will change the nature of the trust in a very fundamental way. National members keep on asking why. We ask what the rationale is for doing this. All we hear are the words “better governance” but the real issue is what is behind this formulaic explanation. Who has messed up and over what issues? What is the linkage between these alleged mistakes or shortcomings the number of Government-appointed members and the actual operations of the trust itself? 
We know that there are already quite adequate tools to deal with mismanagement. The trust is considered to be a Crown entity under the Crown Entities Act 2004 and all the tools are there and available for the Crown to intervene in cases of mismanagement or cases of bad governance so why are we moving to a Government-dominated trust in the future? There is no explanation just the formulaic responses that have been given to us to date. 
So in the absence of any credible explanation I ask what the real reason is for making this change. Is this just cronyism? Is it simply a Government that wants to have more baubles to pass along to its mates? Is that what it is about—or is it really about the underlying mentality of this Government which is about control? We meet this in every facet of the political debates in this House. We meet it on this issue which is not a central issue facing New Zealand but we also meet it on issues of tax versus personal responsibility or on welfare. We meet it on every single issue. 
The Government has this fascination this idea that the Government knows best that it can control affairs and that it will make the decisions for us. The Government does not trust people to make their own rational decisions. National opposes the transitional provisions because nobody has given us a halfway credible and plausible reason why we should move towards a Government-dominated trust.