Robertson Grant: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Robertson Grant: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:672;Page:18851] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 Clause 5 is the interpretation clause. It is where a number of quite significant changes are being made. As members know Te Ururoa Flavell has an amendment to clause 5(2) which we will come to in time. I note before we do that his amendment has been consulted on across the House and there is agreement to it. The Royal Society itself is comfortable with the change and supports it going through. So I hope that all parties in the Chamber will be able to find their way to support it. It will be helpful to have an explanation of the process and how we arrived at it. 
Before we come to that though there is clause 5(1) which amends the Act by “repealing the definitions of ‘Academy bylaws’ and ‘Academy Council’ ” and substituting the definitions included there. The important point as was raised earlier was the confusion that could occur by having an Academy Council and a separate council of the Royal Society. The Academy Council is essentially the science scholarship committee of the Royal Society and the council is the governance body. But by having one called the Academy Council and the other called the council there was scope for some confusion. Therefore the decision was taken to rename the Academy Council as the Academy Executive Committee. 
Some might say that is a minor point but it is important. Those two bodies represent the different strands of work of the Royal Society. The council has the overall governance role to ensure that the Royal Society is performing the functions outlined in clause 6 which we will come to forthwith. It is about fostering the culture of science and presenting arguments to the Government. There needs to be a body that can govern that work and provide the overall stewardship and leadership. That body does not necessarily have to include just scientists and it does not. Currently it includes someone like Phil O’Reilly from Business New Zealand. He brings an outside perspective. He would not consider himself to be a scientist I think by any means but he has a valid perspective that is worthy of being included on that council. The Academy Executive Committee on the other hand is the harder science end of the operation. It is the part of the organisation that decides who wins fellowships and scholarships. It is at the hard edge of deciding what work the Royal Society will undertake within its scientific fields. That is what clause 5(1) focuses on. 
Clause 5(2) as I mentioned defines “humanities”. This has gone backwards and forwards a little bit. The original definition that came before the House included English and other languages and American studies at the end of it. That is a slight hotchpotch of subject areas. It was largely defined by subject matter that the Council for the Humanities tended to note when it described itself. I think the Royal Society made clear from the very beginning of this process that it was relaxed about that definition. It wanted a definition that was inclusive but that highlighted areas that people thought were important. The Education and Science Committee withdrew “English and other languages”—perhaps a member of the select committee might want to discuss that; I was not on the committee myself—“and American studies.” Te Ururoa Flavell has introduced an amendment that will include te reo specifically and also Maori studies. 
As I noted when I read out the memorandum of understanding I think that that falls in line with what the two organisations the Council for the Humanities and the Royal Society were trying to achieve in bringing themselves together. Right at the start of the memorandum of understanding the third point refers to the importance and value of Te Whanga Maori. It was recognised right off the bat that that was part of the bringing together of those two organisations. I actually think Mr Flavell’s amendment picks up that spirit; it includes te reo and Maori studies. There could have been an argument to re-include other things but the Royal Society is happy with where it has ended up. As I have stated before I am here on behalf of the Royal Society sponsoring this bill and it is comfortable with the amendment that is on the Table in respect of clause 5(2) but it would be useful to hear from someone on the select committee at some point about why the change was made to withdraw English and American studies originally. But I do not think that we should concern ourselves that the amendment is in any way hostile; it is in fact very supportive of the original agreement of the Council for the Humanities and the Royal Society to bring this bill to the House. 
I think clause 5 is an important one because what it does is define two specific changes that have been made: the change to the structural part of the organisation and also the change to the definition around the bringing in of humanities. Just to clarify once and for all I say that the social sciences are already there so my own subject of political studies is covered already and humanities is defined as it is here in the bill and in the amendment from Mr Flavell.