Peachey Allan: State Sector Management Bill — First Reading 
Peachey Allan: State Sector Management Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:13688] 
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 The significance of the speech of the previous Labour speaker Grant Robertson will not have been lost on members on this side of the House nor will it have been lost on the people of New Zealand who are listening in because that member just advanced an argument against efficiency in government. It was an argument against efficiency in government. 
One of the purposes of the State Sector Management Bill is to absorb Archives New Zealand and the National Library into the Department of Internal Affairs. That is an act of efficiency in government and the Labour Party has made it very very clear this afternoon that that is what it is opposed to—efficiency in government. The best figures that I have seen suggest that the potential savings from this merger alone will be in the order of $8 million a year—$8 million a year. So not only is the Labour Party arguing against efficiency in government but 
also 
it is arguing 
against thrift in government. The money that will be saved from this action from the passage of this bill is not the Labour Party’s money. It is not the money of individual Labour MPs. It is the money of the taxpayers of New Zealand. It is beyond me and beyond members on this side of the House that in the difficult fiscal times New Zealand is living through with all the other demands that the Government has upon it the main Opposition party can get up in this House and argue against firstly efficiency in government and secondly thrift in government. 
I am bound to say that as the chair of the Education and Science Committee I very much look forward to chairing the hearings on this bill and I very much look forward to the Labour Party approaching those hearings in a positive way as it always does in these matters. I am sure that we will work cooperatively on this exercise. 
I will make just one observation about the National Library. It has been a pleasure to serve on the Education and Science Committee and to have been responsible for reviewing the performance of the National Library. That responsibility no longer rests with the committee and I am sorry about that because the committee worked in a most non-political way in terms of the interest that it took in the library and in fostering the library’s interests. As the chairman of the committee that had oversight of the National Library I wanted to make that comment. 
I move now to the other significant provision in the bill which amalgamates the Foundation for Research Science and Technology and the Ministry of Research Science and Technology into a new Ministry of Science and Innovation. I am pleased to note that the previous Labour Party speaker indicated that the Labour Party was not in principle opposed to this action and I express the hope that in due course that party will vote accordingly. There can be no doubt at all that this country as part of its economic recovery and part of building a sustainable economy in the future needs to rethink its approach towards science and the role that science plays in a growing modern economy. 
I can stand here and predict the next Labour Party speaker’s line on this. Do members know what it will be about? It will be all about more money—taking more money from the taxpayer to throw into science. I predict that now. Those members will want to throw more money at it just as they did for 9 years when they were in Government. For any situation that came up they threw other people’s money at it and said “She’ll be right.” But of course it was not right—it is not right. It is neither responsible nor correct. What is needed in the scientific community in New Zealand today is a coherent planned logical approach as to how this country can best develop and use science in the national interest. 
Members on this side of the House are obviously supporting the State Sector Management Bill. I speak in favour of it. I look forward to chairing the select committee hearings on this bill and I commend it to the House on its first reading.