Robertson Grant: Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13666. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I was hoping that the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage might take the first call in this Committee stage debate to explain why the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill has sat on the Order Paper for so long. Just to refresh the memory of colleagues the Government Administration Committee was taking submissions on this bill in October 2010. It was so long ago that France was the Rugby World Cup champion—that is how long ago it was. It was so long ago that Mr Finlayson did not have that sheen of grey that sits across his hair tonight as we sit here. It was so long ago but it was so urgent to bring this bill forward to this House. Yet here we are in 2013 and finally the Minister has got around to the Committee stage of this bill.Chris Auchinvole: Good things take time.GRANT ROBERTSON: Well on this side of the Chamber we say that that is typical of the lazy approach of this Minister to the arts.This is the Minister who wants to claim credit for what he calls the golden age of arts in New Zealand. There he was the other night fiendishly writing away on Twitter telling us that EleanorCatton’s success in her short-listing for the Man Booker Prize was all Chris Finlayson’s work. It was all Chris Finlayson’s work. He was proud of that. He then took some advice and heard thatLorde’s music was also something that he should say he could take credit for. It was slightly outside his usual tastes which range somewhere between Mozart and Neil Diamond—he is not sure where. So he took credit for both of those artistic successes for New Zealand. But this bill—Hon Judith Collins: I suppose that member took credit for DavidCunliffe’s CV did he?GRANT ROBERTSON: What was that sorry?Hon Judith Collins: I suppose that member took credit for DavidCunliffe’s CV.GRANT ROBERTSON: Oh there is Judith Collins once again bringing us back to the big issues of the day—the big issues of the day from Judith Collins.The truth is that this is the best that this Minister can do when it comes to bringing a bill to this House about how to encourage and support the creative sector in New Zealand. The best the Minister can do is sit around for 3 years come back to this House and create a committee—because that is what the bill does. That is essentially Chris Finlayson’s vision for how to turbocharge the creative sector in New Zealand: create a committee of 13 people. That is all that Chris Finlayson is bringing to the Committee tonight. We would have thought perhaps on this side of the Chamber—and perhaps the Minister will take a call and tell us exactly what it is that has happened over the last few years that has meant that this bill has been delayed. He has obviously been anguishing in his mind about whether it should be 13 members or 12. Presumably he has chosen 13 because it is him and his 12 disciples. That is presumably why the Minister has chosen the number 13.I actually note that clause 11 in Part 1 of the bill allows the Minister to appoint the board. That is not unheard of in these kinds of organisations but what has subtly beentaken out of the 1994 Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Act which we are repealing here is section 9(5) which allows for public submissions on who might be on the board. That has subtly been removed to ensure that Mr Finlayson is the person who will control absolutely who is on this new board that is being created.It has been so long since the House had the opportunity to discuss this legislation that it is worth traversing exactly what it does. It creates a new committee for the Arts Council of 13 members and it disestablishes at the same time Te Waka Toi and the Pacific Arts Committee.On this side of the Chamber we have gone through this bill again and we have talked again to people in the sector and the reality is that this is a missed opportunity by the Government to actually do something about making sure that Creative New Zealand and the Arts Council which governs Creative New Zealand are actually in touch with what is happening in the arts community in New Zealand. Unfortunately that opportunity has been lost. We continue to wait for the really strong justification from this Minister for why he is disestablishing those bodies and for him to be able to show to this Committee that this new 13-person committee will actually be able to fairly represent the diverse interests of the arts communities in New Zealand. For instance will it be able to represent the diverse Pasifika cultures by moving from the Pacific Arts Committee down to a—