te Heuheu Georgina: Historic Places Amendment Bill — In Committee 
te Heuheu Georgina: Historic Places Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:631;Page:3529] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 In relation to the tirade that Brian Donnelly subjected the House to I want to quote a past colleague of his Jim Peters who I think was a very worthy member of this House and who said during the first reading of this bill: “The Associate Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage who introduced the bill spoke about the excellent work done by the chairperson of the board. Furthermore the previous member told us about the numbers of volunteers out there who are doing excellent work. All of that would presuppose that the Historic Places Trust Act passed by the National Party Government in 1993 which includes all these issues”—and there are others he referred to—“had no need of amendment.” Then he asks: “So why is there an amendment bill before us with a few little issues for us to look at?”. 
So I just want to try to cover what I thought was a tirade by Brian Donnelly—a lot of which was totally off this bill. National is very clear as to why we oppose it. Brian Donnelly represents a party that supposedly sits in the middle—although of course since its coalition with the Labour Government it probably sits more on the left now. National is very clear about the value of having people from the community contributing to this very important area of our history. Our opposition in relation to the membership of the board is about the undue weight that will now be given to those members who are appointed by the Government. 
That was never the case before. Now the membership of the board will reduce and the majority of the members will be appointed by the Government. That smacks of typical socialist interference and nothing that has happened to date since the original bill was enacted would suggest that that is a necessary amendment. I would have thought that Brian Donnelly whose party supposedly sits in the middle and is supposedly the people’s party—that is how their leader likes to represent it—would have seen the error of this Government’s amendment in this way. There will be a reduction in members and the majority will now be appointed by the Government. It will put its cronies on. I would have thought that Brian Donnelly would not want that but clearly he has totally sold out to the left because it suits them at this point. But it is a disappointment nonetheless. 
He has tried to misrepresent National’s position. Our position is purely that we recognise that the Act as it stands worked well. It had a majority of people not appointed by the Government. It worked well. The Minister even recognised that in her first reading speech yet here we have typical socialist Labour Government beefing up the membership by their own appointments. There is no call for it. Nothing that has happened in the last decade has shown that that was necessary. We oppose the bill steadfastly on that point and we will not be moved from that. There is no need for it. 
The other reason of course which my colleagues have already referred to relate to the issues around wahi tapu. I just want to refer to the contribution given by the Green member Sue Kedgley. They seek to have the current position in the Act retained by which the members must be Maori. Brian Donnelly can demean or rubbish the suggestion that ethnicity is not necessarily important but if one looks at the provisions in the Act that talk about wahi tapu and the need for the trust to make judgments around wahi tapu one can see that it would be very difficult indeed—and National is still open on this matter—if one did not have Maori blood whakapapa because so many of the issues surrounding wahi tapu do depend in my view on an understanding of those genealogical links.