Ardern Shane: Historic Places Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Ardern Shane: Historic Places Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:631;Page:3525] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I follow on from my learned colleague in opposition to this part on a number of grounds. The first one which is totally fundamental to our opposition relates to the principle of democracy. Democracy has but one weakness: it requires participation. The only reason people become involved in a Crown advisory organisation such as the Historic Places Trust which I guess could be described loosely as a non-governmental organisation is that they feel as though they will be carrying out a meaningful occupation or use of their time. When the State intervenes in the way proposed in this bill which will reduce the number of elected board members—those people in the public sector who are seen to be learned enough to be involved in such an organisation—from 11 to nine and imposes on an organisation those whom it deems to be suitable persons rather than acting in partnership which this Government talks about at great length then we have a total undermining of the very essence of why people get involved in organisations such as this one. 
This Government needs to step back from its socialist roots for 5 minutes ask why New Zealand has been so successful under successive democratically elected Governments and compare this country with nations around the world where the total dominance of the State has had a major role. It should adopt that principle right here in this legislation and move away from its “we know best” attitude. The Government thinks its members in Wellington the learned left of the Labour caucus know best when it comes to what a historic place is. It thinks they know how to dominate the scene as it were in terms of what is significant to protect. 
The Government thinks its members in Wellington who aspire absolutely to the principles of Moscow or of foreign nations other than those that New Zealanders love should tell the people of the Historic Places Trust how they should manage their business. What is worse is that the Government will find a Minister who of course has no knowledge at all of these issues or will certainly not be from mainstream New Zealand and it will appoint that person to be the sole guardian of what happens with regard to those activities. [ 
Interruption 
] 
 I say to the Minister in the chair Judith Tizard who is trying to interject to take a call explain the Government’s point of view and win the debate; do not just ram it through with numbers in an undemocratic way. She should stand up and tell us why she thinks this is the best way forward for the Historic Places Trust. Up to this point in time nobody on this side of the Chamber has been able to receive or understand a reasonable explanation as to how this bill will bring about a panacea to determining the issue of what the average New Zealander would see as a historic place—that is something that should be preserved. 
I give the Minister the example I gave in the first reading of this bill. In Taranaki there are multiple dairy factory sites. Those dairy factories were built by English engineers generally speaking and were designed to last for 400 years. They were used for about 60 or 70 years and then abandoned by the industry. That was the industry’s decision. Most of them are now in private ownership. Those buildings could be deemed to be historic but they are not. They are all being bowled over one after the other. It is quite probably the right thing to do but because the workforce in those factories was predominantly Maori there are bound to be buried Maori artefacts around them. The building itself may not be historic but the artefacts probably are; I do not know. 
Of course at the end of the day under the regime that is being proposed in this bill one of those things or the other could be deemed to be historic. Therefore any major development that is likely to go ahead in the Taranaki area could be halted or otherwise have a further compliance cost placed on it because some ministerial group in Wellington—which would not even know where Taranaki is let alone know what an abandoned dairy factory might be like or know about any artefacts that may be buried around it—will be able to say that should happen.