Robertson Grant: Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17706. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I just want to make a brief contribution on Part 4 of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill. Obviously from the Labour Party’s point of view we do support this legislation. It does represent a modernisation around heritage in New Zealand. It is a bill with a fair bit of history and time that has gone into it.At an earlier point in time when I had some portfolio responsibilities in this area I spoke to a large number of local heritage and historic places committees around the country. They had mixed views it would be fair to say on their imminent going out of existence but there was a lot of enthusiasm even among those who were concerned about where the local branches might end up about it being time for us to get our heritage and historic places governance and management into a form appropriate for the 21st century. So I welcome the bill at that level. It is on that question of local involvement that I want to make a couple of comments and if the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage chose to he could answer them. It is a question that is around clause 75 of the bill around local authorities having to have particular regard to the recommendations around entries on the New Zealand Heritage List. As Mr Twyford just said this is a great opportunity actually for New Zealand to recognise in a contemporary way the most important landmarks and the most important occasions in our history.Inevitably with historic places as we see now and with the heritage list in the future the relationship between central government and local government is critical to helping protect and when the occasion occurs perhaps change a designation of something. It is actually very complicated. Right here now in Wellington we have a number of issues developing around heritage-listed buildings and what we can do with them at a local level in relation to things like earthquake strengthening and so on. That is causing sometension between national-level desires and local-level practicalities—if I can put it that way.When I look at clause 75 I see that we are asking local authorities to bear in mind this list. I guess the question I would have for the Minister is the extent to which the local authorities are now being obligated to have particular regard to the recommendations that come through. What response do we have to local authorities that often say—and I am sure many other members of the Committee will have heard this—“Central government is constantly putting upon us more and more things that we have to do more and more costs that we have to bear.”? What are we doing as a Government to say: “We believe in this heritage list but hello local authorities you are the ones that are actually going to be bearing the cost of dealing with this.”? Clearly it is a partnership and clearly we have to find a way of working together. But as I read clause 75 I just think that if I were in a local government situation I would be wondering about the extent to which local government will be supported and enabled to do this and how that will develop over time.I think that whenever in legislation we as a Parliament impose certain obligations upon somebody else outside central government we need to consider what we are doing to support those obligations being fulfilled. I just believe particularly when I look at clause 75 that it asks me what that support is. I would hate to think that this very useful and important idea of creating a heritage list would be undermined in some way by a lack of a relationship with local authorities to enable it to be implemented.The other comment that I want to make in relation to this is more by way of reflection on how far we have come. Some time ago when we were altering legislation in this area under the previous Government there was a huge conflict around the concept ofwāhi tapu. As a person in a ministerial office here I spent a little bit of time defending the Government’s ability to recognisewāhi tapu against the onslaught of the then National Opposition which thought that this was all PC madness that this was something out of witchcraft or something like that and that we as a Government that wanted to get out and protect ourwāhi tapu were not able to do so because this was outside what normal people would do.Phil Twyford: Mr Finlayson?GRANT ROBERTSON: Well no. Mr Finlayson was perhaps—[Bell rung] Since I have come to talking about Mr Finlayson I am sure he will not mind if I carry on with my call. Mr Finlayson was not so vocal about those issues and I suspect in fact much as it pains me to do this that some credit might need to go to Mr Finlayson for the fact that—Hon Christopher Finlayson: Say it again.GRANT ROBERTSON: —no no I am saying it only once; trust me—I believe there has been an evolution here in Parliament in terms of our acceptance of the broad nature of our heritage. It is the fact that our heritage is yes buildings that have been built in the era since we have been constructing buildings that have survived long enough to be here today but it is more than that. It is actually about the places that New Zealanders feel have significance and in the case of Māoriwāhi tapu are clearly those places. They are places that evoke ancestors and are part of who Māori are today.There is recognition ofwāhi tapu within this bill. There is a specific subclause (2) in clause 75 providing that local councils have to make sure that they have taken appropriate measures to assist in the conservation and protection of thosewāhi tapu. Notwithstanding the comment I made earlier about how the local authorities would do that the fact that we have as a Parliament moved ourselves to a point where across the Parliament we are agreeing that this is something that is a core part of our heritage and is recognised as part of something that should be in legislation I think is actually a verygood development. It is an evolution from the Don Brash - led National Party. There are still some things—Phil Twyford: They haven’t moved on everything.GRANT ROBERTSON: I was going to say there are still a number of things left over from that era that National could also move on from perhaps taking this as an example but Mr Finlayson’s influence in the National Party extends only so far beyond the sphere of the arts and culture sector which is the sector he is involved in. They were the two points that I wanted to make around Part 4.I believe that this rewritten Part 4 covers what we believe it should cover in terms of the heritage list. There will be competition for the 50 places on the heritage list I am very sure and that will be something that will be difficult to manage. It will be interesting to see whether we are back in Parliament at some time in the future relooking at that number but at this stage I am certainly happy to support Part 4 of the bill.