Robertson Grant: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Robertson Grant: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:673;Page:19849] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 It is perhaps time now to respond to the first tranche of questions from members on the issue of clause 9 and the changes we are making to who is made a fellow and to the committee that makes the final approval. 
Firstly I will answer one set of questions that Nanaia Mahuta asked. The number of fellows has been kept at 12 new fellows each year. In effect by including the humanities but keeping the number of fellows at 12 we are raising the bar as to who can become a fellow. That is a decision that in time the Royal Society might decide to revisit because there will now be a much wider pool of people who can potentially put themselves forward to be fellows. But for now the number is staying at 12. 
Both Steve Chadwick and Nanaia Mahuta asked about posthumous fellowships. It is clear when we look at the key clause in the rules for becoming a fellow—I am reading from clause A6 of the academy council’s bylaws of June 2010—that “No person shall be nominated or elected as a Fellow unless he or she: i) is a citizen or permanent resident of New Zealand; and ii) has been a New Zealand resident for at least three years during his or her career; and iii) normally spends at least six months in New Zealand each year.” So it is quite clear that to be a fellow of the society one has to fulfil those criteria. Sadly if one is deceased one is not able to do that. 
However—and we come back to this in a later clause so I do not want to go into too much detail now—the question of honorary fellows of the society is much more open. It is at the absolute discretion of what is now called the academy executive committee. I would presume from that and from reading through the by-laws of the society that cover honorary fellows that there is nothing that would exclude a posthumous awarding of a fellowship. I certainly agree with Nanaia Mahuta that a number of people could be put forward for that. One of the very positive changes made during this Committee stage debate that shows the value of an extensive Committee stage debate was Te Ururoa Flavell’s amendment that brought te reo Maori and Maori studies within the humanities. Should people want to go down the path of recognising people from disciplines that have not previously been part of the Royal Society there may well be a way to do that via the honorary fellowship awards. So I do think it is possible. 
But it is quite clear when one goes through the list of current Royal Society fellows that there are very very few Maori. In fact having just flicked through it now and at the risk of what could be called racial profiling and at the risk of missing out some Maori because I am not familiar with them I see only one Maori fellow and he is Mason Durie. Mason Durie is an academic of significant scholarship and research but nobody else on the list is identifiable to me as Maori. Things get worse when we head to the Pacific sector. I cannot identify any one on the list of fellows who has a Pacific background. Su’a William Sio asked about this and I am sure that by including the humanities there will be a change. I think of someone like Albert Wendt who quite clearly would be deserving of a fellowship. To pick someone out is perhaps a bit unfortunate but I am sure there will be such people. 
In terms of Dr Choudhary’s intervention there are some fellows from ethnic communities in New Zealand. Manying Yip is in here as is Dr Choudhary’s former colleague Harjinder Singh from the Riddet Institute at Massey University. There is some representation but I do think it is quite clear that clause 9(1) will now broaden the range of people who are likely to become fellows and that is a very very good thing. 
The question was asked about the kinds of people who are fellows of the society now and I can think of one person who has graced this Chamber. Simon Upton is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a person with a broad range of scientific knowledge. He was a terrific science Minister. In another life I worked for Simon Upton as a foreign affairs official and he brought an incredibly scientific brain to that job. He was the chair of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development when I worked with him. The commission was charged with developing an oceans policy for the United Nations and Simon Upton was able to bring his extensive scientific knowledge to the table to ensure that both a political approach and a scientific approach were taken. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society who already has a humanities part to his background. Simon Upton has extensive experience and is now working at the OECD on sustainable development issues. 
Another couple of people whom I have had the privilege of working with are also Fellows of the Royal Society and are covered by clause 9. One of those is Richie Poulton who runs the multidisciplinary centre at Otago University. That is the centre that works with a cohort of people born in 1972 at Queen Mary Hospital in Dunedin. That longitudinal study has the highest retention rate in the world; 96 percent of the people who started in that longitudinal study in 1972 remain in it now. It is a remarkable study which Richie Poulton a fellow of the Royal Society has led. It now has not only those people; of course a lot of those people now have children. Those people are in their late 30s and their children are now part of the study. The centre has gone back and spoken to the parents of the people in the study as well so three generations are involved. The work that Richie Poulton is leading down there has a whole genetic basis to it. There is a lot of work on genetic make-up. An awful lot of the work has been used by the current Government and also by previous Governments on things like conduct disorder and being able to understand and predict some of the issues that children have in early life that may lead to problems in later life. 
Richie Poulton is a Fellow of the Royal Society on the basis of that work which is internationally renowned. That is the standard we are talking about. With only 360-odd fellows we are talking about a certain standard of research and scholarship. I absolutely respect the comments and questions that colleagues have put to me about fellows coming from backgrounds other than the traditional European male background that dominates Royal Society fellowship. I am sure that as time passes and the number of people from Maori and Pacific backgrounds who participate in tertiary education increases which it happily did under the Labour Government we will see those people flow through into fellowship of the Royal Society. 
I have just one more point in regard to the kinds of people who have membership of the Royal Society. They are people who are at the cutting edge. Recently in the  
Dominion Post  
some colleagues may have read about the work of a father and son combination. The father is Brian Robinson and he has developed a wound healing gel. He began by working with people who had had nose reconstructions and his wound healing gel makes wounds heal more quickly. It is non-invasive. There are no stitches; there is nothing like that. It has been developed by a father and son combination. Brian Robinson is a chemist. His son is a dentist actually and he has obviously used the gel within the dental area. Brian Robinson is a Fellow of the Royal Society. Just last week the work that they have been doing was patented and it will now be taken on by American companies I am quite sure. That is where a lot of the work in relation to leading edge science goes. So Fellows of the Royal Society are not just people from the past who have developed a scientific record and are now in some form of semi-retirement. They are people who are at the cutting edge of science. Brian Robinson is certainly one example of that kind of person. 
To sum up those questions I think it is sobering to look at the list of Fellows of the Royal Society and yes it needs to be enhanced by greater representation from Maori and Pasifika communities and other ethnic minorities and also women. There are a number of women on the Royal Society fellows list but the number is not in proportion to even the number of women academics let alone the number of women in society. I think we respect those who are Fellows of the Royal Society but we recognise that in clause 9 today we are beginning a process that will see an expansion of the number of people who can be part of that list and also perhaps a change in the demographic of the people who can be part of it. I thank my colleagues for having raised those questions because they are important. I think fellowship of the Royal Society which is covered by clause 9 will continue to be the pinnacle of achievement for people in the science and technology areas and now happily for those in the humanities areas as well.