Finlayson Christopher: Historic Places Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Finlayson Christopher: Historic Places Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:631;Page:3524] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 As the National minority report on the Historic Places Amendment Bill states National opposes this bill. We have two primary concerns with it. The first relates to the board membership which results in a predominance of ministerial appointments—increased from three out of 11 to six out of nine. I submit that is completely contrary to the scheme of all the legislation that has dealt with historic places in this country from the time of the establishment of the Historic Places Trust in 1954. 
Perhaps a little bit of legislative history is required to show just exactly what I am talking about. On 20 July 1954 the then Acting Minister of Internal Affairs Mr Holyoake moved the second reading of the Historic Places Bill. In  
Hansard 
 Volume 303 at page 554 he discussed the membership of what was then to be called the National Historic Places Trust. It was to be a very carefully constructed membership of 11 members. The two departments directly concerned were to be represented by the Secretary for Internal Affairs and the Director-General of Lands then a number of other persons were to represent the various interest groups around the country. 
Mr Duncan Rae the then member for Parnell—a good National member who was responsible for that legislation—in his second reading speech at page 557 emphasised the importance of a good mix when it came to the membership of the trust. He said that the chairman of the trust should be elected by the trust and not be a Government officer or an officer of a department. Further on he stated: “We strongly feel that the Trust should be seen to be not just another branch of a busy Department for in such a situation there will not be the financial nor material support coming forward that we hope the Trust will have.” That is the reason why there were 11 members on the board which was made up of representatives of various interest groups and above all was not dominated by ministerial appointments. 
The same theme emerged in 1992 when the Historic Places Bill was the subject of debate. I refer to what the Hon Denis Marshall said in  
Hansard 
 
Volume 524 at page 7859. He said that the trust board was to be reduced from 15 to 10 members and that the positions representing Government departments were to be abolished as were to be a number of other nominated provisions. He emphasised the voluntary nature of the Historic Places Trust and the huge contribution made to the preservation of historic sites and historic buildings by enormous numbers of people throughout the country. He said: “the trust is not merely a statutory quango. It has more than 23000 fee-paying members and an effective body of voluntary workers who form a network of district committees.” That is why section 42 of the Historic Places Act 1993 sets out the board membership that it does: a person who is to be appointed chairperson two persons who are Maori and have skills or knowledge appropriate to the functions of the trust three persons who are to be elected by the trust’s members and five persons who have various other skills. 
But what we have in the proposed amendment to section 42 is the creation of a statutory quango—one that is dominated by the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage. National says that is thoroughly undesirable. Six members should not be appointed by the Minister with three elected by members of the trust. If anything it should be the other way round. The volunteerism and the contribution made by huge numbers of volunteers throughout the country need to be recognised. What we are saying traces back to the very foundations of the then National Historic Places Trust in the mid-1950s. That is one of the primary reasons why National is totally opposed to this part of the bill. It undermines the principle of volunteerism. It more or less discards the huge contribution of volunteers to the preservation of our historic sites and historic buildings over the last 50 years and simply puts in its place a statutory quango. That is totally unsatisfactory.