Goudie Sandra: Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill — First Reading 
Goudie Sandra: Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:648;Page:17227] 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I am delighted to follow my most excellent colleague Christopher Finlayson. I so admire his breadth of intellect and his incredible understanding of the arts and the work he does so diligently as National’s spokesperson on the arts. 
National welcomes the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill even though the Minister put forward this legislation 8 years after a review was conducted in 2000. Is it not incredible that last year she was on a panel for the Society of Authors and said that section 61—which is only about five lines long—was absolutely adequate. She has changed her mind. It is a case of “Oh my goodness it’s election year. We had better hurry up and do something. Perhaps we should hurry up and make some sort of placatory gesture to the authors of New Zealand and to the Society of Authors and promote this bill to the House.” [ 
Interruption 
] Of course National will support the bill. 
National members think it is eminently suitable to support the authors of New Zealand not least because we want these books in our libraries and we want the public to be able to access them. But the moment I looked at this legislation and saw those regulations—all 10 of them—I thought that if Ian Wishart wanted to put a book into the library—maybe called  
Absolute Power 
—he would have to go through all these regulations. And what is that book about? It is about the current Prime Minister. If he wanted to know what the regulations said he would find out that books had to meet certain guidelines in terms of how they support the current Government—or not as the case may be. Members should look at  
Absolute Power 
 and the detail that it gives— 
Tim Groser 
: What about Nicky Hager? 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: Well would members accept his book? How under the regulations in clause 10 will people define which books will be accepted and which will not? Who will be in charge of that? Actually it will be the Prime Minister. Funny that is it not? Would we then learn about “paintergate” the motorcade incident and what really happened and why there was such a delay between the time of the police being notified that there was a civil case and the pictures being burnt? All sorts of really relevant facts are out there available to the public and hopefully available in our libraries. 
The regulations which are outlined in clause 10 are just amazing. I reiterate the concerns already expressed by my most excellent colleague Christopher Finlayson. The bill has a regulation for just about everything. Clause 10(8) states: “Regulations may specify who may enter his or her name in the register”. Oh my gosh! They have another register for goodness’ sake! An author who has spent a lot of his or her time and effort writing a book will probably have to fill out a book’s worth of regulations just to get that book into the public library and even to access the money that will be provided through the Authors’ Fund. I am so glad that National has a sensible member like Christopher Finlayson as our spokesperson on the arts here in New Zealand. He will contribute so much. 
One of the hallmarks of this current Government is that it introduces absolutely abysmal legislation into the House. The Government does not do enough homework. It does not identify the problems and it cannot sort out solutions. One has only to look at the regulations in this bill to understand that. This is appalling but quite frankly I do not think we have learnt to expect very much else from either the Government or the current Government spokesperson on the arts. One has only to look at the regulations to see that. The bill is short but it could have been shorter. If Government members had done their homework we might have been able to expedite this bill. But I can see it taking quite some time to work through each of the nine or 10 regulations that will be formulated and the sorts of hoops that the Government will make authors jump through just to be approved for this funding. That is an indictment. 
This bill will reinforce the concerns that my most excellent colleague Christopher Finlayson expressed earlier about the fact that authors will go along to Society of Authors meetings and resign in disgust. They will not waste their time jumping through hoops and going through what this Government expects them to go through. Let us face it: this Government has done nothing but grow bureaucracy in its nearly 9 years in power. We have gone from having 26000 to 36000 bureaucrats and what have they achieved? The Minister cannot even do the basic homework necessary for a piece of legislation despite all the people she has in her ministry—and other ministries to boot—and that fact is coming through loud and clear. What a hopeless Minister she is in terms of presenting something to the House that is robust enough even to go through the process. 
I will make a few other comments as well. This legislation is quite unlike the hopeless artists’ royalties scheme that again was introduced by this Government recently. It was absolutely hopeless. Again not enough homework was done. This Government does not do the job properly so all we end up with is lots and lots of problems. As has been said already this legislation really is an attempt to curry favour with the Society of Authors and with authors throughout New Zealand—and we have fantastic authors. 
In my electorate of Coromandel we have a plethora of wonderfully creative people. We have had Michael King and the author of  
Jane and the Dragon. 
 If I had known that I would be speaking on this legislation today I would have put together a list and we would have been here a lot longer than the time allotted. I also take the opportunity to mention  
Out in the Cold 
 by David Grant which is an excellent book. He has put out a rather interesting anecdotal history about horse racing in New Zealand as well—another very good author in New Zealand. I also recognise the poets in New Zealand and the works they produce that we are lucky enough to have access to in our libraries. 
I am a huge fan of libraries. I think they are incredibly important particularly so for a rural area. It is a wonderful opportunity for parents to take their children along once a week as a form of entertainment and to go to the local library and just spend some time among real books. It gets children away from computers PlayStations and things like that. We cannot understate the importance of books in our children’s lives and one of the delights I had in my early years was being able to go to the library every Friday night with my parents my brothers and my sister. We spent a lot of time in the library. It was a wonderful wonderful opportunity. We would take home about six books at a time; we really enjoyed those books. They were very important in our formative years and I am sure they will continue to be important in the formative years of many many children to come. 
Perhaps Government members could take a leaf of what everybody has said about the importance of books do a little bit of reading themselves and maybe come up with something a little better than nine pieces of regulation as part of the proposal for this bill. How is the public lending right for New Zealand authors in any way streamlined and supportive of authors if they have to jump through hoops to get access to that fund? We will look with interest to see how hard the current Government continues to make it for people just to access simple funding arrangements and we will look forward to being able to contemplate that and bring some sense to the legislation at the select committee.