Mackey Moana: Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Mackey Moana: Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1672] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am happy to stand and take a call on the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill. Despite the fact that often these local bills are not very controversial they are in fact very important to the communities that support them and send them to the House. It is appropriate that we take the time here to acknowledge the work of the Franklin District Council in bringing this bill to the House. I also acknowledge the member for Hunua Dr Paul Hutchison for the extensive amount of work that he has done in bringing this legislation into the House. I thought the member who is sponsoring this bill gave a very fair and balanced speech in support of it. What a shame then that he was followed up by Allan Peachey! What a real shame! All the statesmanship of the Minister who should have been Dr Paul Hutchison was blown away in a bizarre speech by Mr Peachey who stood up and after regaling Dr Hutchison as if he were dead and Mr Peachey were at his wake then announced that all taxation was wrong. Clearly he meant all taxation apart from his parliamentary salary which he is happy to accept on behalf of New Zealand taxpayers. 
That harked back to a very similar debate that we had in this House last year on the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Bill which is very much in sync with the issue we are dealing with here the Auckland museums. Those provisions were based on the same system of funding that we had for another 10 or so organisations that were facing significant problems with funding in the Auckland region. They were at extreme risk of falling over if they did not have some form of permanent funding which was done for them through that legislation. I remember back to that time when National members supported the bill but every single speaker who got up opposed it. They voted for it in the end but every speaker who got up opposed it. I thought Mr Allan Peachey standing up to claim that all taxation was bad and should be done away with really did hark back to that debate. Mr Peachey then chastised my colleague Phil Twyford for talking about Auckland. I am not sure whether he realises that the museums covered by this bill are in Auckland or that my colleague Phil Twyford is a very effective spokesperson on Auckland issues for our party. 
Hon Judith Collins 
: He can’t be much worse than the last one. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: The honourable member Mrs Collins might care to tell us when the Government will release the report on the royal commission on Auckland governance if she wants to chip in on my speech. Does she want to tell us that? 
Hon Judith Collins 
: No I just want to know about the former spokesperson. That’s what I want to know. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: No she does not want to tell us that. She just wants to make some inane comment and to not tell the good people of Auckland when they can expect the report on that royal commission. In fact that is very pertinent to this debate. We had this debate when we considered the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Bill. The debate was that it would be far better if all these things could be dealt with in a less piecemeal approach when we try to support organisations that are at risk of falling over that need some form of permanent funding and that are organisations that members in this House support. There is no question about that—apart from Dail Jones from New Zealand First I believe who was quite adamant that we should not be giving those organisations that money. It all came down to the royal commission because some people thought that we should wait for the royal commission. If it had not been for the fact that those organisations were at serious risk of falling over financially in the meantime the Local Government and Environment Committee that I chaired may well have decided that the best path to take would be to wait for a royal commission. 
In saying that we need to recognise that the terms of reference of the royal commission did not cover this issue. We do not know. We have not seen the report. It may well be that they have decided that they should look at the issue of funding of all amenities currently funded by this and other means but we did not know that. So as a committee we decided that we needed to go ahead and make sure that those organisations did not fall over. At that select committee I was very impressed with the Mayor of the Franklin District Council and his submission on the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Bill. We had a lot of people come along and say: “No we don’t want it absolutely not.” The mayor came along and gave a very good submission. It was a very fair and balanced submission. That does actually count for something when one sees legislation involving the Franklin District Council and one remembers how impressed one was with the representatives of that area and how balanced they were and how they did not just back themselves into one corner and say “No way.” So I acknowledge the mayor and congratulate the council on that. We would like to see this bill passed as quickly as possible. As my colleague Darren Hughes pointed out we did not actually suggest that it should not be referred to a select committee.