Shearer David: Carter Observatory Act Repeal Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Shearer David: Carter Observatory Act Repeal Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:663;Page:11350] 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 It is with great pleasure that I rise again to speak on the Carter Observatory Act Repeal Bill. As members have said before it has meandered its way through our Parliament for a number of years and we hope tonight to put it to bed so to speak so that we can all move on. As we know the practical work has been ongoing. The Carter Observatory effectively is already being operated by the Wellington City Council so in many ways we are simply rubber-stamping a situation that is already in existence. 
The bill as we have canvassed many times before is a sensible one. In today’s world the idea of a national observatory as set up under the 1938 Carter Observatory Act is pretty much a thing of the past. Most of the functions of what we might call a national observatory have been moved to the Mount John Observatory down in Canterbury and I know that the University of Canterbury is very willing and eager to allow other universities and other academic institutions to use that facility and that is very welcome. That means that the Carter Observatory now has more of a tourist and visitor focus rather than a highly scientific role. That does not mean that it does not have a scientific function. It has an incredibly important role in providing visitors students and others who are involved in science with a place within the Wellington region to examine the stars and to ask those most basic of questions: who are we how did we get here and what is the nature of the universe? Those questions have been occupying the minds of the human species for time immemorial. 
The transference of the Carter Observatory happened with the agreement of both sides of the House and the Wellington City Council as well. In 2008 the Government of the day the Labour Government put more than $2 million into the upkeep of the Carter Observatory. The Wellington City Council I understand spent about $1.4 million on the observatory. My understanding is that as a result of a shortfall Nathan Guy through the Lotteries Commission put another $600000 into making the observatory a real feature of Wellington City and the Wellington region as a whole. 
The Education and Science Committee canvassed the various arguments and aspects as Colin King knows. Under the leadership of Allan Peachey we talked about the bill at some length. We invited submissions. We received three. The submissioners wanted to make sure that what we were doing was both robust and the right way to proceed. I do not think we have any qualms that that is not the case. We are moving in the right direction and those submissions as I recall backed the move and our recommendations that it go forward. 
It has been a long journey for this bill. I am pleased that it has got to the stage where we might see it properly put to bed tonight—see it go through its third reading and be finished. I think that the original recommendations that Dr Bessell set out in his report were basically the right ones although I think he actually wanted to maintain the idea of a national observatory. We have moved beyond that. We felt that a national observatory in the form of the Carter Observatory was not the right way to go.