Collins Judith: Auckland War Memorial Museum Site Empowering Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Collins Judith: Auckland War Memorial Museum Site Empowering Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:611;Page:8363] 
JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon) 
: 
 It was my pleasure to be a member of the Government Administration Committee for this bill. I have to state that I love the Auckland War Memorial Museum. It is what a museum should be. It looks like a museum; it acts like a museum; it is a museum. It is also a war memorial and that is so important today 3 September which from my calculation is the 64th anniversary of the declaration of World War II when New Zealand was the first country as I understand it to declare war. It is very important. It is also one day off being the anniversary of the death of my father who was a veteran of World War II so I am particularly pleased to be able to speak in support of this bill. 
I fully support the war memorial museum. I take my son there frequently and I love to go there. When the select committee went there to have a meeting and to have a look at the plans and the site I was thrilled to find out that after all my years of going to the war memorial museum and even as a little girl being brought up from the Waikato— 
Rodney Hide 
: Still a little girl. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I say “thank you” to Mr Hide. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I was advising the House before the dinner break that when I was a little girl from the Waikato I was brought by my father and mother in the back of a car with no seat belts—we did not have them in those days; I am that old—to Auckland occasionally to visit the extended family and we would go to the Auckland War Memorial Museum. We would go to the floor where the war memorial is with the names of the soldiers—including my great-uncle Norman Fraei—from the Auckland province who died in World War I. In those days the Auckland province extended all the way down the top half of the North Island. After paying homage looking around the museum and looking again at the magnificent waka and the many treasures and taonga in the museum we would then trot off to the Auckland Zoo. I have to say it is still a wonderful zoo and is supremely better than it used to be in my days as a child. It is another of those Auckland icons that I have to say is a world leader. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: I think so too. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I thank the Minister Judith Tizard very much for her support. When the Government Administration Committee went to visit the Auckland War Memorial Museum I was amazed to find a public library there. I thought I knew a lot about that museum and I thought that I had been everywhere in it. However I did not realise that the museum has a public library open to people to go and have a look at some of the magnificent books kept there. It is a huge research facility that I did not know about. So after all those years of going to the museum and feeling that it was utterly part of my New Zealand culture—part of who I am as a New Zealander and part of where my family has been and are—I felt that I had learnt something stunningly new. One thing I shall do during the next adjournment is go and have another good look in that library. 
A lot of people have said to me they are concerned about the extension to the museum. Everybody who goes to that museum looks at the site and the building and says that they hope no one will add any little bits on its side. But this will be the second major redevelopment of the museum. The first was back in 1960 when the back part of the museum—the round part which makes it a bit like half a cake tin at the back—was added on by an architect called Mr Draffin. He was involved in all sorts of buildings at the time such as the Bledisloe building in Wellesley Street and some that were not quite as well known as the War Memorial Museum. As someone who is interested in buildings I was interested to find that he was the architect of that extension. That is why the back part of the museum is much plainer in many ways than the front part. The front part was built in the 1920s specifically for what it is—a war memorial—but the back part had really more to do with the housing of the staff and collections in the museum and that is why it has different things on it. It is also the part of the museum that holds of course the war memorial for World War II veterans which is at the southern side of the museum. As has been explained by my colleague Pansy Wong that part houses a lot of the collections not on public display. 
The War Memorial Museum holds not only many Maori taonga but also a tremendous amount of Pacific treasures. Having been many times to Samoa the birthplace of my husband and also a part of my family I know that there are just not the facilities in the Pacific Islands to hold the sorts of treasures held by the museum on behalf of the Pasifika people. That is one of the other main attributes of that particular museum. All New Zealanders can be proud of this museum and certainly Aucklanders can be in particular. 
I will discuss again the extensions to the museum. People worry about them. They do not want extensions to be coming out the side with anything glitzy or dare I say Auckland-like. As an Aucklander of course I can say that. What will be built there will be inside the inner part of the extension from the 1960s in the vacant area with just a couple of ramshackle buildings including a smoking room for the staff. That will have to go if the Government gets its way! That area is the size of about seven tennis courts and is unused apart from those ramshackle buildings. The only other thing of note is that the area holds a piece of One Tree Hill’s pine which was cut down by the activist Mike Smith. That is really all it holds. One great thing is that the very extensive extensions to be made will not impede or in any way compromise the look of the museum and that is so important. After all it is a war memorial and a sacred part of New Zealand. 
What is also great about the extensions is that the underground car-park will be just that—underground. It will be at the back of the museum in the southern part— 
David Benson-Pope 
: Unusual for an underground park to be underground. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Mr Benson-Pope might think that is terribly funny but it is a culturally sacred site and he should have a little bit of common sense and sensitivity to those of us who feel we have a cultural New Zealand even if he does not. Unfortunately he is a bad product of a very bad education system— 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: In particular that car-park has been designed so that it is not visually offensive to the grass area at all. We found that the part underneath the ground is part of the reservoir so that means there is an ability at some stage to extend out. It is just marvellous that that is being done in such a way that the integrity of the property and of that cultural icon—that absolute monument to those people who gave their lives so that people could come to this House and have democracy despite some of the behaviour that occurs occasionally—will be— 
David Benson-Pope 
: Running round telling porkies. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: It will be kept and that is absolutely amazing. 
I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I do not think it is all right for a member of this House to accuse another member of dishonesty. David Benson-Pope just accused me of telling porkies to the electorate. 
David Benson-Pope 
: No I did not. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member says that he did not. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: The work that has been done by the trust board of the museum is just wonderful. The people we met during the committee hearing were absolutely great and I congratulate them very much.