Woods Megan: Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 03 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4276. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my great pleasure to speak in this third reading of this bill. I think that this bill is an incredibly important and symbolic piece of legislation in terms of the recovery of Christchurch and part of that recovery needs to be our cultural recovery.I too want to pay tribute to the work of a number of people. The member who has just taken her seat the member for Christchurch Central the Hon Nicky Wagner has worked hard on this bill and I would like to commend her for that work. I would also like to pay tribute to the chairwoman of the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Board Jen Crawford and to the chief executive officer André Lovatt who are here for the work that they have put in and to other members of that board who have done the work. Also I pay tribute to my fellow members of the Local Government and Environment Committee one of the most productive committees in this Parliament who work very well together to find good solutions. The Minister who has just taken her seat has talked of some of the changes that we were able to achieve at that select committee which I think has led to the strengthened piece of legislation that we are now seeing here today for its final reading.I think what this bill has done besides modernising the governance arrangements and setting in place the future of our Arts Centre in Christchurch which are incredibly important is that it has given many members of this House also the opportunity to reminisce about the site of the Arts Centre through the course of its readings and what it meant to them. I think it is clear from all stages of the bill what an important cultural symbolic and emotional heart of Christchurch the Arts Centre has become since—well it was the university—it was transferred from the university to the city in 1973. I think a reading and consulting of Hansard will be a very important record of just how important this set of buildings has been.I think it is incredibly important that we do have the proper provisions to ensure that we can preserve these buildings because heritage and the heritage fabric of our city have been one of the victims of the Christchurch earthquakes. We have lost far too much of our built heritage and I think that is something that we in Christchurch all feel strongly. As of February 2015 there have been 1240 demolitions within the four avenues. That is compared with 292 building consents by the by. But 20 percent of those 1240 buildings have been heritage buildings that have been demolished. I think it is with great sadness that all Cantabrians look on at the loss of this built history of their city. It was in the aftermath of the quakes of course when the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority through section 38 of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act was given the power to demolish damaged heritage buildings without consultation. I think it is an important time to put on record while we are talking about the way in which we are going to preserve an incredibly important set of heritage buildings in Christchurch that we on this side of the House believe that the time for that has passed. We believe that we do need to return to a proper discussion about our heritage in our city.At previous readings of this bill I have spoken about the part that one of my predecessors the Rt Hon Norman Kirk the member for Sydenham—a very fine seat—played in the preservation. [Interruption] Yes the Hon Ruth Dyson is also claiming the Rt Hon Norman Kirk—quite rightly so—and the Hon Clayton Cosgrove can claim him as a Mayor of Kaiapoi as well. It was the Rt Hon Norman Kirk who had a dream about the Arts Centre buildings becoming the cultural and educational centre for Christchurch. It was he in 1973 at the university centennial convocation who made the announcement that these buildings were to be gifted to the city. When Norman Kirk made this announcement about the buildings being gifted to the city he made the point that it was about drawing together the various strands of culture in New Zealand to produce something that was uniquely New Zealand. I think these are the words that we need to hold dear to because Norman Kirk did have a very firm grasp of the importance of culture and our history in the place of the making of a modern identity in 1970s New Zealand.In 1973 that same year the Rt Hon Norman Kirk said that “Politics is the conscious projection of a country’s identity … and not something removed or remote from everyday life.” I think they are important words for me to leave the final passage of this bill on because I think the passing of this legislation and the preservation of these buildings are not something removed or remote from the everyday life of Cantabrians. Thank you.