Hodgson Pete: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hodgson Pete: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:673;Page:19430] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 Clause 7 is a long clause. It details the functions of the Royal Society in part by in many cases just adding the words “and humanities”. But it means that the work of the Royal Society now increases significantly because the humanities are a significant addition to what is already going on. Let me give the Committee a couple of examples. 
The first would be the management of various awards. The Rutherford Medal the Pickering Medal the Thomson Medal and many other awards are sought and given under the aegis of the Royal Society on an annual basis. These are highly contested awards and they are prestigious in the world of science. One needs to be a scientist or understand a bit about scientists to understand why the awards are so prestigious. They are often the thing that either drives a scientist or makes a scientist feel well-respected in the eyes of his or her peers. That peer review that peer acceptance and that peer acknowledgment is often much much more important to a scientist than anything to do with money status title or whatever. It is what drives many scientists; it just is. So it is reasonable that the Royal Society should be responsible for managing the allocation of those various medals. 
There is another thing the Royal Society does or at least it does indirectly and that is manage the Marsden Fund. Actually there is a council appointed by the Minister of Science and Innovation that manages the Marsden Fund but the link between the Marsden Fund and the Royal Society is so close that it is best to not bother distinguishing one from the other. The Marsden Fund is a pot of money that everyone says is too small and everyone does not want to get any bigger or at least not too much bigger too quickly. The reason for that sort of dichotomous approach—it is too little but do not make it too big—is that the Marsden Fund is itself a prestigious fund and a Marsden Award is a prestigious award. People put them on their CVs. If Marsden Awards were freely available then everyone would be able to put them on their CVs and that would lower the currency a bit. 
But there is another reason why the Marsden Fund should not get hugely big. I guess some people are listening to this and saying “Oh that’s why that guy Hodgson when he was Minister of Research Science and Technology never did make it that much bigger when we wanted him to.” Actually it went up by 90 percent while I was Minister but not 190 percent. The success rate is still only about 10 or 12 percent— 
David Shearer 
: Five to 10. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: If that is what the member’s notes say it has dropped away even more. That means that the vast majority of the folk who apply for a Marsden Fund grant do not get one. In a way we need to remember that because the Marsden Fund is not based on relevance to New Zealand society but only on excellence that means that an irrelevant topic can be studied so long as the proposal is excellent and so long as the researcher is excellent. That means that every year some journalist says there will be for example $300000 given over to a particular topic—the last one I remember reading was into the study of moth genitals—and we are all supposed to laugh like drains. Chris Hipkins is away already. He has got it. He is going to crack a joke about moth balls before long. Let us see how long it takes him. The point is that that sort of weird and wonderful research enables excellent researchers to follow their dream not to follow what someone else says is relevant. Out of that sometimes come serendipitous results that are of value and the Marsden Fund is alive and well with examples of that. But there also come scientists who become committed to a research career especially scientists who are in their late 20s or early 30s. If they pick up a Marsden Fund grant they feel as if they have reached a bit of quality and they are often away on their career. 
The Royal Society oversees that stuff and it is really interesting because the Royal Society is itself made up of excellent researchers This could be a den of iniquity. This could be a den of backhanding. This could make FIFA look like something amateurish but it does not happen. 
Hon Members 
: Ha ha! 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Well think about it. The only people who are qualified to decide who is an excellent researcher are excellent researchers. If they are not conflicted they are no good to us. That is the truth of it. I do not think that is funny. That is honestly how I see it. The question is how one maintains the integrity of a situation under those circumstances without the word getting around that someone’s brother-in-law got what he should not have got. All I can say is that that has never come across my desk. I think when the Hon Steve Maharey was Minister for Research Science and Technology for a couple of years he ran into a bit of that—an allegation that others said had absolutely no substance—but the allegations themselves are rare. So how will very clever people decide which of those very clever people or other very clever people will get a bunch of money because they do without it becoming an issue of conflict of interest? 
One other thing is that the Marsden Fund has for years supported humanities. It might have decided to fund research into moth balls but it will also fund research if it wants to into ancient Icelandic. The only criterion is one of excellence. So for years long before this Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill came into the hands of Grant Robertson and long before it came before the House the humanities part of the Royal Society’s function has been in a way manifest through its very close neighbour the Marsden Fund and that funding process. The Royal Society is generally responsible for housing the Marsden Council—you know the tea and the coffee. Generally it is responsible for putting up the names to the Minister of the day as to who should go on this or that committee. It just circulates them around. 
All the while that I can remember being a Minister there were some monies there for humanities so there is a bit of a track record of money coming from Vote Science and ending up in the hands of humanities researchers. Humanities scholars would say “not enough”—they would say serially and seriously not enough—but that does not alter the fact that we have been doing this a little bit for some time. It may now mean that the emphasis on the Marsden Fund distribution heads a little more towards humanities. I do not want to dictate that to the folk who will be appointed to that body or offer any advice to any present or future Minister; I am just saying that it seems possible. So those are a couple of the functions of the Royal Society. There are many other functions listed. They are listed in the legislation and I am sure that other colleagues will want to explore them. 
I say in conclusion that in respect of the Government’s interaction with the Royal Society 20 years ago when Simon Upton was looking at what to do with the Royal Society and trying to work out how to carve out its niche which he finally did in the legislation called the Royal Society of New Zealand Act 1997 way back then it was unclear what its role would be. Since that time it has developed a series of roles including advisory roles to the Government which I am sure other members will speak about. That means we cannot easily do without those functions—and not only do we want them; we now need them. That I think is something that needs to be said in the Royal Society’s favour. For those who think the society is a bunch of people who are fuddy-duddy and sandal wearing that is no longer the truth and has not been the truth for at least the time I have been in Parliament.