Sage Eugenie: Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 03 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4282. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]EUGENIE SAGE (Green): I am pleased to take a call on the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill and to help it on its way to becoming law. I like other speakers congratulate the Hon Nicky Wagner on her work on the bill and also Scott Simpson on running a very collegial process around the Local Government and Environment Committee’s consideration of the bill. Certainly this bill is an example of how parties can cooperate. It is really disappointing that there has not been a similar cross-party agreement on one of the most important issues of our time—our climate. It is really disappointing that the Prime Minister has dismissed the Green Party’s invitation to build a broad cross-party consensus around the emissions reduction target that we take to Paris and the changes that our country needs to make to its economy to ensure just as Scott Simpson talked about present and future generations enjoying the heritage of the Arts Centre. We need to have that cross-party agreement around reducing our emissions so that we get a stable climate for future generations.The Arts Centre as others have noted is one of Christchurch’s major heritage assets. MPs at the select committee talked with submitters and each other on this bill in a very constructive way to make some changes in response to some of the issues that submitters raised. All of the parties have been able to agree on how the objects of the Arts Centretrust should be translated into the legislation and how the trust should be governed in future to ensure that it guides the management of this wonderful heritage precinct at the heart of the central city.We should also be able to do that on our climate because the issues—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This is not about climate change; this is about Christchurch—EUGENIE SAGE: Well the issues in terms of—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No this is a narrow debate specifically as mentioned by previous speakers and I will ask the member to come back.EUGENIE SAGE: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Well in terms of the bill and the heritage restoration project $290 million is being spent on that. When MPs visited the Arts Centre on our field trip a lot of us were excited about what we saw in terms of the traditional craftsmanship that was evident there with the stonemasonry work that was being undertaken the huge scale of the challenge of repairing the buildings after the earthquakes the dedication and commitment of all of the contractors staff and consultants engaged in that very ambitious project and the leadership and vision of the trust board chaired by Jen Crawford and the chief executive officer André Lovatt in ensuring that the work was happening across the complex. It is quite a complex project and I think everybody was very proud of the work that was being done there.I would also like to acknowledge the foresight of the former trust board and the former chief executive officers in ensuring that the Arts Centre was very well insured. This meant that post-earthquakes it was able to get a good settlement and had the financial wherewithal to begin the restoration work. So it has been that combination of a lot of dedication competence craftsmanship and expertise that I think is contributing to the rapid progress that the Hon Nicky Wagner alluded to in getting the project potentially completed ahead of target. We still need that same commitment on the climate but I will finish talking about the climate there.Everybody agrees that the Arts Centreis worth saving and restoring—Ron Mark: The climate of the House.EUGENIE SAGE: And so is the climate—thank you Mr Mark. In fact it is worth saving even more. The purpose of this bill in terms of setting out the objects and powers of the Arts Centre trust in legislation is updating revising and consolidating the trust’s governance arrangements and revising its winding up arrangements. Of course we hope that those provisions will never be called upon.Others have certainly canvassed the scope of the bill and I would just like to talk a wee bit about the changes to the appointment process. The original Arts Centre trust deed provided for a mix of trustees appointed by both the board and by nominating bodies. As Historic Places Canterbury noted in its submission over the years this split model had become quite a source of contention because successive boards altered the bodies that could appoint members and those changes tended to reduce the community appointees. That led to a perception that the board had become quite unresponsive to the beneficiaries of the trust—the public—and also that it did not result in the most appropriately skilled trustees being appointed. So this bill actually changes that to provide for the appointment of a skills-based trust board of no more than nine members and the board invites nominees for consideration.It was reassuring that organisations such as Historic Places Canterbury said that the appointment processstrikes a good balance between the desires of interested groups to put forward potential trustees and the need of the board to obtain trustees with a range of skills. The fact that the bill also provides for trustees to serve a term of no more than 6 years instead of the previous 9 years means that the board will be regularly refreshed. One of the other changes that the select committee made was to ensure that the conservation plan was presented at the annual meetings of the trust in the same way that the strategic plan is also required to be presented at those meetings. That helps promote accountability and engagement with stakeholders.In this final reading I would like to repeat a call that I made earlier for the Church Property Trustees who are responsible for the Christchurch Cathedral to visit the Arts Centre to see what can be achieved in terms of restoration. The Church Property Trustees in the way that they are treating the cathedral leaving it open to the elements and to continue to decay—really refusing to engage with any of the many initiatives that the Great Christchurch Buildings Trust has put forward to restore the cathedral—are really lacking in vision. The cathedral has become a huge source of contention and opposition in Christchurch because of the Church Property Trustees’ reluctance to progress its restoration.The Arts Centre in contrast shows what can be achieved with a commitment to restoration and with dedication and energy. That is particularly important because of the huge loss of heritage in Christchurch thanks to the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority’s overzealous approach to the demolition of heritage buildings. We have seen 235 significant listed heritage buildings be demolished. If anyone has visited shop 7 in Cathedral Junction they will have seen where those interested in heritage have got a roll of honour in terms of the 235 buildings that have gone showing us what we have lost. That is why the Arts Centre is so important because of what it represents in terms of Christchurch’s Mountfort buildings and the heritage of his architectural legacy and Hurst-Seager’s legacy—all of the basalt stone the limestone the Oamaru stone the woodwork in those buildings which represent huge craftsmanship and the ability to restore those. That could also happen at the cathedral but it is not.I commend this bill and the Green Party is very pleased to support it.