Fenton Darien: Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 10 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15417. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARIEN FENTON (Labour): I just wanted to speak to the title and commencement clauses of the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill. I want to put on record how grateful I am to my colleagues Grant Robertson and Rino Tirikatene for enlightening us about the commencement date. It has left me sitting here pondering what would have happened if in fact this bill had gone through—if the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage had not woken up and put in Supplementary Order Paper 258 which changes the commencement date. Clearly it is not going to be coming into force on 1 October 2011.I do note that the wording on the original bill would have sufficed. I am not really sure why the Government Administration Committee changed it although I am sure that there is an explanation somewhere. The original bill said in clause 2 that “This Act comes into force on a date to be appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council and 1 or more Orders in Council may be made appointing different dates for different provisions and different purposes.” That would have sufficed. That would have got the Minister off the hook. But the select committee made a recommendation that it commenced on 1 October 2011 and the Minister has had to wake his ideas up and bring in a Supplementary Order Paper to this House.I was also interested in the history of this bill and why we are debating such a bill on the second day before the House rises for Christmas—why we are in the Committee stage of such a bill when this bill has been around for a very long time. So I looked it up and the bill was introduced on 25 June 2010. That is 3½ years ago?Hon Maryan Street: Yes. Almost to the day.DARIEN FENTON: Almost to the day. It had its first reading on 18 August 2010. It was then referred to the select committee. What is interesting is that then there was a very short time given for submissions—well probably 4 to 5 weeks. But there was a big push and a rush on. The select committee did its job and reported back to the House on 29 November 2010. The second reading was on 25 May 2012. Now here we are as I said right on the border of 2014 and we have this bill going through with amendments from the Minister because the bill should have actually been starting 2 years ago and clearly has not.It sat on the Order Paper from 22 May 2012 right through another year and a quarter before the Committee of the whole House began this debate which was on 24 September 2013. Again it languished for another 3 months until 3/12/13 when the Committee stage started again. Today which is the—what is the date today?Grant Robertson: The 10th.DARIEN FENTON: The 10th yes—another 10 days before we manage to almost conclude the Committee stage of this bill. So it is bemusing that we have these bills brought to us. I think the next one the Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill will be the same and actually has the same kind of history and I will be happy to talk about that as well.It has the same kind of history where we have the sort of languid Government that introduces things in a great hurry and has to have them happen and then leaves an organisation like the Arts Council or Creative New Zealand in a void for 2 or 3 years not really knowing what is going to happen—funding is dependent on it people’s jobs are dependent on it. People who are representatives on Te Waka Toi and the Pacific Arts Committee also will have been languishing and wondering when this is going to happen and trying to carry on as best they can in the meantime. This is not to mention of course all the community arts organisations which will have known that this is hanging out there that this has been here since 2010 and that there is going to be a big change. They will have been wondering as they do already how their funding is going to work out whether they are going to get enough funding whether there are going to be more cuts—as there have indeed been under this Government—and whether the arts will continue to be the low priority that this Government has made it. Thank you.