Chadwick Steve: State Sector Management Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Chadwick Steve: State Sector Management Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 09 December 2010. Volume:669;Page:16299. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
: 
 I will carry on from my colleague Grant Robertson who started the debate after lunch. The Minister in the chair the Minister of Internal Affairs made Part 3 which contains the delegations and functions of the Chief Archivist and administrative matters sound very prosaic boring and bureaucratic. But what the Government obviously fails to get is the cultural impact made by Archives New Zealand and the professionalism of the role of the Chief Archivist on both central government and local government. 
The Chief Archivist is tasked with creating and monitoring standards for both paper and digital records management in central government and local government. That includes deciding what may be disposed of and how records are made open to the public. It is a big power. We have already seen—with the Minister in the chair changing a Crown Law opinion with his twink pen before he was prepared for the Opposition to pick it up—how records can be dealt with by stealth. It is funny that we are now up to the public records part of the debate when we have just witnessed that activity by the Minister in the chair. We can see how important independence is for the role of the Chief Archivist. Public records should not be altered and the public has the right to access those records. 
I chaired the Health Committee inquiry into agent orange. The select committee asked for the Ministry of Defence papers on where agent orange was used in Viet Nam. We found with great alarm that huge chunks of that public record were simply missing. It was annotated and then there were big gaps. That is of huge concern especially if when future Governments scrutinise the activities of either the Crown or Crown entities they find that there has been obvious tampering or loss. That is not good professional record-keeping. That is a critical role of the Chief Archivist. 
That function was one of the reasons why in May 2000 the previous Labour Government lauded a new dawn for the National Archives. Marian Hobbs said: “Most people know that the Archives preserve historic documents fundamental to our existence as a nation such as the Treaty of Waitangi and the 1893 Women’s Suffrage Petition. … the work of the Archives is directed at ensuring that a full and accurate record is kept throughout Government.” That is a critical function of the Archives. 
In Part 3 we see that even though clause 41 states the Chief Archivist is to act independently the Chief Archivist will report to the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs for goodness’ sake! The chief executive is under great financial pressure. I ask how easy it will be for the chief executive to exert pressure on the Chief Archivist to cut corners and to not properly store and maintain the public record. That is the danger of having a lack of independence for the Chief Archivist through the restructuring that happened after the Minister received the Crown Law opinion. It is a real worry. 
It is also a real worry for members in the Chamber to see the Minister in the chair twinking away. I found that deeply disturbing. He now has the name “Twinkie” Guy and that will stick for ever. “I’ve been twinking” “Twink Big”—there will be talk about the Minister of Internal Affairs “twinking big”. You know it will not go away; we are determined that it will not go away. It becomes part of the legacy of this House’s storytelling now. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: He’s a big twinker. 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: He is a big twinker—he is. Members may think the Minister is very prosaic and a solid performer but the stealth with which he reached for that twink will go down in history as we engage in the debate on Part 3 of the State Sector Management Bill which is anything other than boring. That is why we are going to keep on with our pressure here right up to Christmas. Our colleague Grant Robertson has some very good amendments which I do hope the Minister listens to.