Goodhew Jo: Protected Objects Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Goodhew Jo: Protected Objects Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:632;Page:4265] 
JO GOODHEW (National—Aoraki) 
: 
 I rise to speak in the debate on the Protected Objects Amendment Bill which is a useful bill in its amendment of the Antiquities Act 1975. It seeks to regulate and prohibit the permanent export of protected New Zealand objects that are of such significance that their export would diminish New Zealand’s cultural heritage. I support my National Party colleagues and will turn to some of their comments later. We have not heard any disagreement in the Chamber tonight about the importance of the bill. It is about the protection of— 
Shane Ardern 
: Only from the Minister. 
JO GOODHEW 
: That is true; the Minister did have a dissenting voice before. The bill is about the importance of the protection of our cultural heritage in the form of objects. It brought to mind a recent visit that I paid to Maori rock drawings near Temuka in South Canterbury and the reason it brought that to mind was of course that those particular—I guess we should say—objects are very fortunately way too big to export. I think that that is fortunate indeed because we would hate to see those objects of such important cultural heritage and value spirited away overseas. 
That brings me to the point of this bill. We as New Zealanders know that we value cultural heritage and we value objects immensely and this bill allows us to have some redress from those who seek to export them illegally. Having not had the pleasure of being present in the Government Administration Committee for the process my comments will be general in nature around Part 1. It is abhorrent to New Zealanders that someone or anyone should seek to profit no less or seek ownership outside New Zealand illegally and many would say immorally of objects of rare and unmistakable value to the people of New Zealand—all the peoples of New Zealand. So this bill will provide a mechanism to shut down or to deem illegal such exports and to give teeth to the law dealing with the illicit export of protected objects. 
I guess it also brings to mind that it is probably quite unfortunate that the bill is not retrospective in its nature and that those objects New Zealand has already lost and that New Zealand citizens mourn will not unfortunately be protected by this bill. 
It is pleasing that the export prohibition in new section 5 proposed to be inserted in the principal Act by clause 9 in Part 1 of the bill puts the onus of care on the exporter to make sure that the object it is exporting is not a protected New Zealand object. There will be few excuses that could be deemed reasonable in the circumstances and that is good for the protection of our cultural heritage and objects. 
Also reasonable is that new section 7 also to be inserted by clause 9 will allow for temporary export because New Zealanders love to show the rest of the world their cultural heritage and the objects that are very precious to them. New Zealanders will be able to apply to the chief executive of the Department of Internal Affairs to have a temporary export of an object of cultural significance and that temporary export will allow a certain period of time in which that object can be away overseas. So we will celebrate and continue to show the world our celebration of our heritage in those objects. 
The other section of Part 1 that interests me in particular is the new section 7E “Register” which is also to be inserted by clause 9. The main point of this section is that if an item or object is on the register it may not be exported permanently and new section 7F allows the chief executive of the Department of Internal Affairs to take action if in fact that object or item has been exported illegally in order to return that object to New Zealand. 
That brings me to the reciprocity aspect of this bill where New Zealand will be able to join with other nations to help each other to protect objects of important cultural value to us and to other nations. We will be able to help other nations to have their objects of cultural significance returned to their shores just as we will be able to seek their assistance in the return of our special treasures. 
Of importance also relating to the register although it will not be published in order to not put out there in black and white the sort of illegal trade that those who seek to do this awful thing might look at and deem that those are the objects that should be stolen there will be enough public information about the types of objects that are captured within the definition. Therefore it will fall on the shoulders of those people who are exporting goods to make sure that an object is not on the list.