Peachey Allan: Carter Observatory Act Repeal Bill — First Reading 
Peachey Allan: Carter Observatory Act Repeal Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:658;Page:7399] 
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 I am thrilled and delighted to be able to take a call and support the first reading of the Carter Observatory Act Repeal Bill. I want to express great pleasure and satisfaction that the future of the Carter Observatory is assured and I acknowledge the role that the previous Government played in ensuring that fact. I hope future Labour speakers will speak in that spirit; this is not an opportunity to take a crack at the Government. In 1938 the original Act was passed. It has been amended several times. It aimed to deal with a request by Mr Charles Carter and I will take a few minutes in the House this afternoon to reflect on the contribution that Mr Carter made; I doubt that he ever quite appreciated the significance of what he did. 
The great significance of the Carter Observatory has not been as a national centre of scientific excellence or astronomical study; it has been education. I wonder how many thousands of Wellington youngsters in particular got their first introduction to astronomy and their first introduction to any form of science through being taken up to the Carter Observatory by their parents. Certainly our four children all had to the opportunity; they were taken up by their parents. I still remember with a great deal of pleasure taking one of my sons up to a lecture one evening. He was probably barely in primary school. I remember being riveted as I watched this young lad absolutely absorbed by the mysteries of the universe space the stars and the moon. That was the role that the Carter Observatory played so well. It is the role that the observatory will continue to play. I commend Wellington City Council for the arrangement it has entered into with the Crown to take over responsibility for keeping the observatory going. 
Some of us have been around a bit longer than others. I reflect back to 1962. I was in standard 6 and it was called standard 6. For younger members opposite that is form 2 or year— 
Hon Member 
: Year 8. 
ALLAN PEACHEY 
: Year 8; standard 6 does for me. At Waiouru Primary School we had the most marvellous schoolteacher Mr Kensington. He was a hard man but he was fair. He taught us to read write and do maths. He taught us about interesting things which we as 12-year-olds needed to know. I remember two things in particular. Firstly we read Thor Heyerdahl’s book on his travels over the Pacific that year. We read that as 12-year-olds. Secondly the teacher taught us astronomy. From that I am convinced that several of my classmates developed their interest in science. In the phys ed store we used to have old rubber balls varying in size. The teacher got a collection of those—and I still remember 47 years on—and made a model to explain to us the Earth the moon the stars and the planets. Most important of all in a distant rural community that was nothing more than an army base he would have loved the opportunity to take his young students to Wellington to the Carter Observatory to let us have a look. 
That opportunity did not exist. Those were the days when we kicked a footy around on the top field until it was dark went home and had tea and then went off to the army boxing club or the basketball club. There was no TV. One Monday night our teacher took us up to the top field of Waiouru Primary School. On a good day from this field one can see what we called Mount Egmont but is now called Mount Taranaki Ruapehu Ngauruhoe and Tongariro. Somewhere he found a telescope and he spent his evening as so many good schoolteachers do showing us how to identify the stars and the moon and letting us be inspired by the thought that there was another world of planets out there. I am very grateful for that knowledge. I would have loved as a young lad to have the chance to visit something like the Carter Observatory. The opportunity was denied to me but I take pleasure in the fact that thousands of young New Zealanders particularly those living in Wellington have had that opportunity. The city of Wellington is to be congratulated on the way it has embraced the Carter Observatory over all the years and over all its changes. It was the Wellington City Council that made land available up in the Botanic Gardens for the observatory. 
I count it as one of the great good fortunes of my life—and looking around the House I suspect there are not too many of us who could claim this—to have been alive when man first walked on the moon. What a significant achievement! I appreciated that occasion probably more than a lot of people do today because of the knowledge I had of astronomy and the way the solar system works and because of the things that I was taught as a youngster at school. You see something else is important about astronomy and I reflect on my previous life in saying this. For so many youngsters it is their first introduction to science. It is their first opportunity to get involved in something that is a bit different but that is very very intrinsically interesting. Once one has caught a child’s interest in something one is halfway there—probably more than halfway there. It is one of those subjects that one could use to teach a youngster to read to write and to do mathematical calculations. What is more youngsters ask questions. Teachers parents and observers and people who work at the observatory suddenly find themselves not just talking about the moon the stars the planets and all the rest of it but also introducing youngsters to chemistry to physics and to mathematical principles. That is one of the great things about astronomy. It has been a pleasure to speak on this bill. 
Grant Robertson 
: Well we’ve all enjoyed it. 
ALLAN PEACHEY 
: I hope so because it is a change not to have Labour members shouting me down from over the other side there. It is difficult to argue with what I have said of course. I want to reaffirm that the Minister of Civil Defence Mr John Carter very very clearly outlined the purpose of the bill and its reasons. There is no point going back over that. But I do want to reiterate my great pleasure in seeing this bill introduced into the House. I am really excited at the prospect of being the chair of the Education and Science Committee that will report it back. I commend it to the House and urge its speedy passage. Thank you.