Hodgson Pete: Estimates Debate —  Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Hodgson Pete: Estimates Debate —  Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7265] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister for Crown Research Institutes) 
: 
 This is my 13th year in this House and I do not think that in 13 years I have heard a speech from anyone as disgraceful as the one that has just been uttered by the Hon Ken Shirley. I do not believe I have heard a speech as disgraceful—actually I think “despicable” is a better word. I want to lay out why. I will come later to the issue of how long the member spoke agreements and so on. I want to talk about science science models and whether the member has the faintest idea about a philosophy of science—the idea that science is nestled in the culture in which it finds itself; that science is informed by the culture in which it finds itself. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: So Galileo should have been persecuted? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: No Galileo should not have been persecuted. Galileo suffered from a different problem—that of a lack of academic freedom. That is the issue. There is academic freedom— 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Absolutely that is the issue. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I did not interrupt the member at all during his address his most provocative address. I uttered not one syllable agin him. But I am doing it now and I suggest that he sits and takes it as well as he can give it. 
I say to the member that that despicable address was based on the idea that there is only one culture not only in New Zealand but in the world. Chinese science is different from Western science. The Western medical model is different from the Chinese medical model. It is vastly different. There is Chinese medicine in this country and there is Western medicine in this country. What needs to be said about this country—New Zealand Aotearoa—is that there are two cultures predominant. One of them is Maori and the Maori way of thinking about science is different. Eliciting Maori knowledge through that cultural lens if you will will give a different insight. What is truth then is that which is discerned by the society in which the science finds itself. So we do not believe a lot of Chinese medicine but the Chinese do and they do not believe a lot of ours. As those cultures come together—which in my hometown of Dunedin they are doing wonderfully well—we end up with some very very interesting synergies and explosions of understanding. 
That is a possibility in New Zealand with Maori science and European science. What is more it can only happen here because this is the only country in the world in which Anglo-Saxon thinking and Polynesian thinking collide and the collision continues. I say to the member that if he wants to be so unilateral monocultural and linear in his thinking he is the worse for it. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: What about Taupo? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I will talk about Lake Taupo in a minute. The member should not worry; I will get to that no trouble at all! I am currently giving the member a towelling for being stupid. He ought to try not to be. He has a good head on his shoulders; he just has a linearity that as he gets older gets worse. 
That member should remember that he comes as I do from a culture that not only has leprechauns in it as he mentioned but also Santa Claus the Easter bunny the Loch Ness monster and on it goes. All of us are informed by the culture in which we find ourselves. 
Let us go to Lake Taupo. The story the member told is almost certainly wrong and quite possibly libellous. I was the Minister at the time I did have discussions with the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences at the time and actually I did speak with the paramount chief at the time. As far as I am aware and it may be that I do not know everything it is my understanding that there was no requirement for quarter of a million dollars or any other sum. I am not aware of that. So that accusation of extortion made freely in this Chamber by that member is probably to the best of my knowledge wrong. Actually the sister-in-law of the paramount chief has just spoken to me about this. She is a member of this House; she is from the National Party. She came over to me and said she is unaware of any extortion. I have to ask the member who has resumed his seat why he made that claim. The Crown Company Monitoring Advisory Unit the board of the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences the scientists who were involved the paramount chief and the sister-in-law of the paramount chief who is an honourable member of this House did not tell me that that was going on so why should the member take it upon himself to make an accusation of that ilk? I think that is a very very disgraceful thing to do. 
I will say something else. The really important thing about this story is that the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences and Tuwharetoa have a hugely improved relationship because of the learning of one another’s positions that has been derived from it. I say to the member that next time a submarine wants to go to Lake Taupo everybody will know how to make it happen. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: So there was a problem. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Absolutely a problem. But the problem was not to do with money. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: It was politics. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: It was not politics; it was serious cultural misunderstanding. Because the member himself has serious cultural misunderstanding he will be the last to get it. It is just not going to happen to him. I think he is going to die before he gets there. 
Another issue needs to be addressed and I want to address it here and now. The reason that a mistake occurred in the time allotted to the ACT party is that nobody could shut up the ACT member from Otago who wanted to talk about methane emissions. Mr Gerry Eckhoff went on for two 5-minute speeches. That was where it happened. The Labour Party courtesy of the acting Leader of the House Mark Burton donated time to the ACT party in order to progress harmony in the House. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I just say to the Minister that we are supposed to be speaking about the spending plans not what formal agreements were made between whips or otherwise. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: And in one sentence I will return to them. In taking that extra time and using the Standing Orders to his fullest advantage the member has done the ACT party very serious damage not just with the Labour Party but with all other parties. The member’s arrogance is compounded not by what he said but the circumstances in which he said it. 
The last thing I want to say about science is this. The Government holds science as one of the cornerstones of our progress. The role of Maori in science is improving significantly not just in terms of Maori knowledge not just in terms of taking what is often narrow caste knowledge and codifying it and broadcasting it which is difficult in Maori culture; what else is happening is that young Maori are stepping up to PhDs in rapidly increasing numbers and some of them are just eye-wateringly good. I say to the member Ken Shirley that a bit of change is going on. The future of this country is browner than it is now. The contribution that Maori will make to science both through a Maori ethos and through a Western ethos will be remarkable indeed. 
Voteagreed to.