Coddington Deborah: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Coddington Deborah: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12315] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 We now have moved on to the Committee stage and we are talking about Part 1—clauses 2 to 5. This part deals with the purpose of the bill. I would say that the purpose of this bill was to totally stuff up the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and as Georgina te Heuheu said turn it into a State-controlled orchestra. In the Minister’s haste to turn it into a State-controlled orchestra she is totally ignoring the importance of the duties of the board of the orchestra and she is ignoring the interests of the players in the orchestra—people who have spent a lifetime getting themselves to the stage where they can be chosen and have the honour to play in a symphony orchestra. I cannot help wondering that if this orchestra were the New Zealand hip-hop orchestra made up of hip-hop performers the Minister would give those performers a lot more regard and respect than she is giving the first violinists leading flautists and soloists with the Symphony Orchestra. We spent $26000 on sending a—[ 
Interruption 
] I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I ask that member to tone down her interjections. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: I do not mind interjections but I thought running commentaries were out of order. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Yes they are. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: I call on that member to take a call if she has got something constructive to say; she says she will—good. I ask the Minister to stand up in these times of cultural relativity and tell us why hip-hop performers are deemed to be more important than players in a symphony orchestra. The Minister laughs; well that is the respect she holds for players in the Symphony Orchestra. She has laughed them off the board. They are not allowed any representation on the board. It is the arrogant “We know best.” attitude that an artist or creative person cannot think and cannot be involved in the governance of the Symphony Orchestra. It is a shame. It is a disgrace that we are not going to allow creative people to be members of the board. 
I question the National Party’s wisdom. Its members have indicated they will vote with the Labour Government not to allow a member of the players’ committee to be represented on the board. I think the National Party should take another call and explain its reasons for not allowing that. ACT members do not support this bill—it will go through anyway—but we do support the amendments of two of my colleagues from United Future and the Greens that state that the Minister must appoint a players’ representative on to the board; otherwise we will end up with a Symphony Orchestra board made up of people who are great at running a company or very well versed in kaitiakitanga the tangata whenua or the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi—if they did know what the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi were they would probably be the only people in New Zealand who did—but have no knowledge about the creative direction and creative purposes of a symphony orchestra. 
I do worry about that because elsewhere in this bill the orchestra is required to play to an international standard required to promote New Zealand music and required to promote New Zealand musicians. There will be no one on the board who knows about all those things who knows about international standards who knows about New Zealand music who knows whether New Zealand music is good or rubbish. It is no use playing music just because it is New Zealand music; if it is not good music the audiences will simply stay away. The purpose of this bill is to turn the orchestra into a Crown-owned entity as opposed to a limited-liability company so it cannot go broke even though it does still have to be financially accountable. But if the audiences stay away what will the Minister do when she has no one on the board who knows about the actual musical creativity of the orchestra? The Minister still has not given us a reason why she is so averse to players being on the board and I ask her to do that.