Robertson Grant: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Robertson Grant: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:674;Page:20272] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 Clause 14 of the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill to remind those who have been focusing on this bill in some detail over recent weeks deals with the election of councillors to the Royal Society. Clause 14 is in fact an amendment to section 22 of the Royal Society of New Zealand Act. Section 22 of that Act deals with the election of councillors. In particular it deals with the electoral college system that makes up part of the Council of the Royal Society. 
To clarify this for the benefit of members the Royal Society of New Zealand’s council should be constituted according to the rules of the society by a president and six elected vice-presidents covering a range of areas of interest for the council and up to three co-opted members. The Royal Society councillors covering those particular areas are elected via an electoral college system. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Are you sure? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: I am and I am able to enlighten members that the establishment of the electoral colleges is done under the rules of the Royal Society. As I say they are discipline-based electoral colleges. There is a vice-president for biological and life sciences a vice-president for physical sciences mathematics engineering and technology and a vice-president for social sciences. Each of the discipline-based electoral colleges will be managed according to the rules by the council to consist of a grouping of members with similar interests. This is to ensure that the Royal Society council has a wide spread of membership that covers the bases of what the Royal Society stands for. 
The electoral colleges themselves are able to review how they operate from time to time but they are governed by the rules and these are the rules being amended in clause 14. In particular the rule being amended within clause 14 is about the length of time that a councillor can hold office. Colleagues will recall from earlier stages of this debate that although this bill is largely about the incorporation of the humanities into the Royal Society when representatives of the Royal Society came to me and then to the House they also said there were a number of minor technical changes. 
Jo Goodhew 
: Such a long time ago. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: It was some time ago; that is true. But they are very pleased I am sure with the progress that we are making on this legislation. They came and said there were some other technical matters beyond the issue of— 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Do you suppose he rehearses these speeches? 
Jo Goodhew 
: Oh I think so. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: No. No I can assure Mr Auchinvole that I do not. I can assure him they just come straight out—they come straight out. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: There’s a touch of spontaneity. 
Jo Goodhew 
: There’s some evidence of that. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: I think we have seen evidence of that; that is true. The elected councillors from the electoral colleges are an example of the technical changes that the Royal Society wanted. This change would remove the notion that no person may hold office as an elected councillor for more than 4 consecutive years and replace that with the statement: “No person may hold office as an elected Councillor for more than 6 consecutive years.” 
I think members of the Royal Society Council have found that although a 4-year term was useful actually for the long-term governance interests of the Royal Society a 6-year term was their preference. So that is what clause 14 does in amending section 22: it changes that notion that elected councillors can serve for no more than 4 consecutive years. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: How many councillors? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: What was that? 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: How many councillors? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: How many councillors? We can return to that; I did say that before. We have the discipline-based electoral college of the three vice-presidents who are the elected vice-presidents of the council. 
At the moment I can tell members of the Committee that the current elected vice-presidents are Dr Stephen Goldson representing the biological and life sciences areas and Professor Richard Le Heron who is the vice-president of social sciences and humanities. A very important point to note is that the Royal Society as part of the process of adopting the humanities has as part of the social sciences electoral college a vice-president for social sciences and humanities. This is another example of how the Royal Society is happily getting along with its business as Parliament goes through and debates these important changes. The other elected vice-president is Professor Geoff Austin who is the vice-president of physical sciences mathematics engineering and technology. They are the three elected vice-presidents of the council. 
Other members may be interested to know that the council is currently chaired by Dr Garth Carnaby—somebody whom people in the Chamber I am sure have had a lot of contact with and who is a very respected person. There is also Professor Michael Corballis and then there are representatives of the regional constituent organisations. These organisations have been discussed before in this debate. The regional constituent organisations are an important part of the Royal Society. In fact as we know one of those the Wellington organisation submitted against some of the changes in this bill so they do play an important role in the way that the council operates and it is obviously the composition of the council that is being amended in this particular clause. It is useful to know that those elected vice-presidents are there. 
In addition to the elected vice-presidents three elected councillors are on the council as well. Those three elected councillors currently are some eminent people: Professor Caroline Saunders Emeritus Professor Ken Strongman and as I mentioned before Professor Michael Corballis. They are the three elected at-large councillors along with the electoral college councillors. Those are the positions that are now able to be held under the change that we are proposing to a term of no more than 6 consecutive years rather than 4 consecutive years. 
I have to say that this is not a clause that was the subject of a lot of submission within the process. But it is an important change because the council— 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Not a lot. Were there any? Were there any submissions? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: There were a number of submissions— 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Were there any submissions on this clause? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: On this clause? I am not aware of any I say to Mr Auchinvole. I was not on the Education and Science Committee. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: You weren’t on the committee? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: No no but I am reliably informed that there were no submissions on this clause. However there were submissions on this bill as Mr Auchinvole will know. I thank him for interjecting and allowing me to talk a little about the submissions that came into the committee. The fact that these technical matters did not get a lot of analysis in the select committee is I believe an invitation for this Committee to study them in more depth. 
Sue Moroney 
: Are you criticising the members of the committee? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: No I am not criticising the committee because the committee had a lot to deal with in other clauses of this bill. But this is one clause that did not perhaps get much attention. So I think it is worthy of debate that a governance body such as the Council of the Royal Society would want to change from a 4-year term to effectively a 6-year term. That will reduce obviously the turnover in elected councillors but the balancing consideration is that it will improve the continuity of work of the Royal Society council. 
Obviously the Council of the Royal Society is the body as we have noted before that is involved in the governance; the academy executive committee which was formerly known as the academy council deals with more of the direct scientific-based work—the decisions about who gets prizes and so on. But the council has that important governance role and by this change under clause 14 we will be enabling people to stay on the council as elected members for up to 6 years. I regard that as a change that is positive. On balance I am sure there may be members of the Committee who do not. There may be members of the Committee who feel that it should not go that way and I would be happy to entertain the views of those members. But on balance I believe that the work of the Royal Society council is such that it is an important governing body and having people able to serve for up to 6 years will allow them to represent the concerns of members. 
I will end this contribution by just making note of the fact that the area of responsibility of one of the electoral college representatives the representative of the social sciences electoral college now includes the humanities. That shows that the Royal Society is getting on and doing its work of incorporating the humanities into the highest level of its organisation.