Shearer David: Research Science and Technology Bill National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa) Amendment Bill Public Records Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Shearer David: Research Science and Technology Bill National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa) Amendment Bill Public Records Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 09 December 2010. Volume:669;Page:16319. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 I will take a relatively brief call on the third readings. First I say right from the outset that over the course of the last 6½ hours that we have been debating this legislation we are still waiting for any good reason why Archives New Zealand and the National Library have to be pushed into the Department of Internal Affairs. We listened to Nathan Guy talk about all sorts of things but there was no solid rationale and no coherent argument for why we are here today debating this ridiculous legislation until Tony Ryall rose at the very end and mentioned the word “digitalisation”. Digitalisation seems to be the key that brings us to the House today to try to bring Archives New Zealand and the National Library into the Department of Internal Affairs. It is a software solution to a much more complex set of issues than I think Tony Ryall realises. The situation with Archives New Zealand and the National Library is that “it ain’t broke” and we should not be trying to fix it. They are very good institutions they have shown themselves to be much better as independent organisations and we should not be trying to push them into the Department of Internal Affairs. 
But the other part of this legislation deals with research science and technology. Dr Wayne Mapp went to some lengths to explain how this part of the legislation will bring about a huge step change in the way that the economic progress and fortunes of this country will proceed. The name of the new Ministry of Science and Innovation is good but if we look beyond the name we see that there is not much more to it. Let us face it. The new ministry has a new leader who was recruited within New Zealand. That is fine but the Minister did not even bother to look more widely internationally. 
The Minister has spoken about the vouchers and the grants that this Government brought in under the Government’s Budget earlier this year. What do those grants and vouchers do? He said that they are superior to the 15 percent tax credit that this Government abolished when it came into power. I can tell Dr Mapp that they are certainly not better. It is half the value of what National promised when in Opposition. National promised twice the value that the Government delivered in the Budget. The Government has done away with the 15 percent tax credits. If we went around any private companies in this country and ask them whether they would prefer a bunch of grants that they would have to apply to a Government department for—so that whether they get some money to do research and development would depend on the good feelings and the warm feelings of a bureaucrat—or whether they would want a 15 percent tax credit I can tell Dr Mapp that we would find they would prefer the 15 percent tax credit all up all of the time. But it is not only that. 
The third thing I point out about the tax credit is that it has taken 2 years for money to be paid out on these grants and vouchers. In those 2 years we could have had decent innovation amongst our companies out there—decent innovation. Instead tax credits were stopped and it has taken 2 years for us to construct this new wonderful scheme that the Minister has brought out whereby basically companies have to go cap in hand to a bureaucrat in order to get money to fund their research and development. 
Colin King 
: Instead of using creative accounting. 
DAVID SHEARER 
: Colin King is interjecting. I say to him that Australia came over and took our 15 percent tax credit lock stock and barrel—everything that we had done—and transported it over there. That is what Australian companies have. This Government proclaims that it wants us to catch up to Australia and the Australians have come over to New Zealand and taken one of our best ideas and transported it back there. The Australians are using it and their companies are getting all the advantages. That is not to mention that the Australians have bumped up their research and development spend by 25 percent. 
One of the main drivers of this Government’s economic development which is research development and innovation is purely pathetic. The Government has dismantled the best thing that has been brought in. It is the biggest tax cut that companies in this country have ever received. It is bigger than the tax cut that was announced in the Budget. Companies that are exporting which are the most valuable to us in New Zealand have had a tax increase as a result of this Government. It took away the 15 percent tax credit and that 15 percent tax credit was one of the biggest helps to innovation and development in this country. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Good for creative accounting. 
DAVID SHEARER 
: It is simply what we have now—State welfare for companies. It will do nothing to raise the research and development private spend which is at an abysmal level in this country; it will do nothing for that. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Prove it. 
DAVID SHEARER 
: Dr Mapp keeps on interjecting. Dr Mapp keeps talking about Denmark being a wonderful country. Denmark has the same agricultural basis as New Zealand but it has managed to increase its manufacturing and its innovation. How about taking on some of the same things that Denmark has done rather than sitting there and talking about what a wonderful place Denmark might be? What about having a tax credit for research and development? Denmark has lots of assistance and lots of support and far more support than this Government is handing out. If this Minister really wants to be aspirational why do we not go over to Denmark and see who is over there who might lead our Ministry of Science and Innovation rather than opening up the recruitment process for a period of 2 weeks and 3 days? Somehow in 2 weeks and 3 days we were supposed to attract the best and the brightest throughout the world. Instead we kept our aspirations looking towards our feet rather than looking towards the sky. Instead of that we certainly have not gone through the right process. 
I believe that although this legislation seeks to bring the Ministry of Research Science and Technology together with the Foundation for Research Science and Technology and create a new dynamic innovative powerhouse in the Ministry of Science and Innovation it is doing nothing of the sort. In fact as we found out at the Education and Science Committee when we asked some of the officials: “Where are the aspirational aspects in this bill? Where is the statement of intent as to what it will do?” they said: “Well actually we’ve just been struggling with trying to bring the two parts of these two organisations together and we really haven’t got to that yet.” I think that should have been set through the leadership of the Minister and we should have had an aspiration that we could have actually followed in the legislation that followed that aspiration. Instead we have legislation welding together a couple of departments. We are not opposed to it because when we come back into power we will make something of them. We will take this shell we will take this pathetic attempt at innovation—nothing more than the words—and we will stitch it together and actually make something of it. That will include having a tax credit such as the one the Government has taken away. 
This legislation that has kept us here on a Saturday for 6½ hours is nothing short of a complete waste of time. We have taken Archives New Zealand and the National Library of New Zealand back to the Dark Ages of the 1990s and we have been completely and utterly unaspirational as it concerns the Ministry of Science and Innovation. I can think of many many things I could have done with these 6 hours today rather than sitting here in this House and listening to that. Thank you.