Wagner Nicky: Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWagner Nicky: Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 05 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13362. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central): This Heritage New ZealandPouhere Taonga Bill replaces the old Historic Places Act of 1993. It updates and better equips the New Zealand Historic Places Trust to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Together with Supplementary Order Paper 135 it responds to the challenges for heritage management highlighted by the Canterbury earthquakes—and I was pleased to hear the Hon Maryan Street talking about the need for this kind of legislation with these earthquakes that we are having at the moment.I want to touch quickly on the main provisions. First of all it reforms the New Zealand Historic Places Trust’s governance structure—and I want to make a few comments on that later. It modernises the archaeological authority consents processes and aligns them with the Resource Management Act. I would like to thank the groups that came and gave us really detailed submissions on this archaeological area and also on how the Resource Management Act consents fitted in because it is complicated and we wanted to know that it worked on the ground.It also clarifies the purposes and changes the name of the register of historical and cultural heritage and introduces statutory recognition forwāhitūpuna. It also establishes the National Historic Landmarks List. This list is designed to set national priorities for historic conservation and that includes details about managing the risk of natural disasters.Finally it establishes a separate emergency authority process in the event of natural disasters. There are quite a lot of other minor changes there to improve the proposed Act’s workability in line with modern legislative drafting processes.Most of the changes were non-controversial and aimed at improving the processes of the trust. The most debated issue was the change in the structure and the new roles for members. In the past there was a combination of statutory responsibilities with active branch committees and elected board members. That meant that there were times when there was actually a conflict of interests within the organisation and those tensions compromised the New Zealand Historic Places Trust’s ability to perform its statutory functions. So to resolve these tensions the bill disestablishes the branch committees itremoves the three positions for elected board members and it creates new positions for board members appointed by the responsible Minister. It does still contain theMāori Heritage Council.There are members who want to actively advocate for heritage issues and they have been encouraged to join Historic Places Aotearoa. That is a very active group that is already set up and some funding has been provided to help with that process. As a Crown entity Heritage New Zealand can continue to offer membership if it wishes although those members will play no part in the governance of the organisation and that is the real difference.Just having a look at heritage buildings from my experience of what has happened in Christchurch after the earthquakes I am particularly interested in the National Historic Landmarks List. It is really important that we have a robust debate in our communities and right across the country to make sure that the country really knows which buildings we value because after all there are over a thousand category I historic places. We need to know which ones we value which ones we are prepared to heavily protect and which ones we can deal with if there is a disaster. We also need to have plans for when or if there is a disaster.Originally that list was to have only 50 places although those places did include clusters such as perhaps Parliament Buildings or the Auckland volcanic cones. So it was a larger mandate; it was not just 50 individual items. But after listening to the submitters the Local Government and Environment Committee removed the absolute number. We decided that it was hard to know which was in and which was out. What we decided was that it was far better for Heritage New Zealand to consult with the public as it develops its policy on the administration of the landmarks list. During that consultation it will provide further guidance on the eligibility for inclusion. So there will be about 50 places including clusters but it is a little bit more flexible.I am really pleased to see this bill come to the House. It is timely and it will help us protect our heritage for the future so I commend this bill to the House.