Tizard Judith: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Tizard Judith: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12300] 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Associate Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage) 
: 
 I move  
That the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Bill be now read a second time 
. This bill enters a cultural environment that has been strengthened by the additional resources allocated to it by the Government and Parliament over the past 4 years. We made that investment in order to ensure that New Zealand’s cultural infrastructure is demonstrably robust and sustainable. With that knowledge and commitment we celebrate the institutions and people who enrich our culture as well as enable New Zealanders to participate in our culture and to have access to the many strands that make it up. Our commitment to the creative sector saw an injection of funding in 2000 to place some of our most cherished national cultural institutions on a secure footing base—in many cases for the first time. 
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is one of this country’s flagship cultural institutions in which New Zealanders have taken great pride and pleasure for nearly 60 years. A suite of excellent regional orchestras complements the role of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra thus ensuring that a wider New Zealand audience has ready access to orchestral music of very high quality. New Zealanders are very well served by our orchestral institutions but the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has not always been well served by the financial and legal parameters imposed on its operations. Since it was established in 1988 there has been very little change to those parameters. The capital funding of $3 million allocated to the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in 2000 established a more stable financial base for its functioning. At the same time this Government allocated an extra $1.4 million annually to ensure that the orchestra would be adequately resourced. With this bill we address the legislative platform of the orchestra’s operation. 
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is currently a Crown-owned limited liability company. It is operated within a commercial framework in keeping with the provisions of the Companies Act. However as the owner and principal funder the Government does not necessarily expect the orchestra to achieve operating surpluses. Although the orchestra is required to remain financially viable its prime responsibility and role is to deliver world-class performances of orchestral music to New Zealand audiences throughout New Zealand. In doing so it helps to build a distinctively New Zealand cultural environment. 
In 2000 the current company structure of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra was reviewed in the context of the State Services Commission’s programme of reforms of Crown entities. The purpose of establishing the orchestra as a limited liability company had been to use the provisions of the Companies Act as an incentive to the board to act prudently in its financial management. Those provisions have had little effect on the orchestra’s operations. Moreover the company structure does not reflect this Government’s primary interest in the orchestra which we have already described. Therefore one of the primary purposes of this bill is to change the status of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra from a limited liability company established under the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Act to an autonomous non-company Crown entity. That structure will ensure that robust accountability requirements and the obligations of the board to act prudently in financial management are maintained. However it does not in any way imply that Governments or Ministers could direct the choices made by the orchestra. 
An important principle underpinning this bill is that of artistic freedom. The bill will ensure that the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra operates without ministerial direction in all artistic matters. That reflects a well-established principle that cultural sector Crown agencies operate at arm’s length from the Government without ministerial direction. That principle is embodied for example in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Act and in the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Act. It empowers those cultural agencies to pursue their objectives and perform their functions while promoting and maintaining freedom of artistic expression with no direct political intervention. Robust governance and accountability requirements are included in the bill and the board will be accountable to the Government through the collective and individual duties imposed on its members and through its reporting requirements under the Public Finance Act. 
The principal Act does not prescribe the orchestra’s purpose and functions nor does it spell out the Government’s or Parliament’s expectations of it. Therefore the second primary purpose of this bill is to clarify the orchestra’s role as a touring national orchestra by establishing in legislation its principal objectives and functions. The principal objectives and functions will provide a common understanding about the orchestra’s responsibilities and scope. The principal objectives describe in broad terms the leadership role that the orchestra is expected to take in the New Zealand cultural environment. The orchestra will provide New Zealanders with symphonic music performed to international standards and encourage the development of New Zealand music musicians and composers. The functions expressed in the bill reflect the high-level expectations of the orchestra. They include ensuring that the orchestra presents a broad repertoire of orchestral performance including New Zealand works and recent works encouraging the development of New Zealand musicians and encouraging the development of New Zealanders’ knowledge and appreciation of music. 
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s board and management have been actively consulted during the development of the bill as has the general public. Creative New Zealand and the four major regional orchestras have been briefed on the bill’s contents and progress and all relevant cultural and artistic agencies had the opportunity to make submissions on its content during the Government Administration Committee hearings. The bill was first read in February last year and was referred to the Government Administration Committee. The committee received 15 written submissions and heard five oral submissions. I thank the select committee for its excellent work. Some issues were quite hotly argued and I am sure that the debate in the House will reflect that. 
Submitters strongly supported and endorsed the general intention of the bill. The issues that they raised focused in particular on the objectives and functions set out in clauses 8 and 9. That those clauses attracted the most attention was to be expected as they specify the orchestra’s purpose and function for the first time in legislation. Given the orchestra’s very high profile as a flagship performing arts organisation there was high interest amongst the submitters in general—in particular amongst those from the music sector—in the Government’s expectations of the orchestra and in the nature of its contribution to the cultural life of New Zealand. It was reassuring that the proposed amendments to the orchestra’s principal objectives and functions generally sought to provide an extension or a refinement of or to give greater emphasis to the existing provisions of the newly drafted bill and did not propose fundamental changes to it. I thank all the submitters who took the time to look at the bill. 
Some submissions on the principal objectives provided textural amendments that became overly detailed and potentially proscriptive. Those amendments were rejected. The objectives and functions are articulated at a sufficiently high level to allow the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra executive and board to develop the orchestra’s strategic and business plans independently and to agree to a statement of intent with the responsible Minister. Accordingly the select committee did not recommend any amendments that would limit the orchestra’s flexibility in that area. We will go through the amendments as we go through the Committee stage so suffice it to say at this stage that the committee made four major recommendations for changes to the bill. I thank the committee for that excellent refinement of this legislation. 
I add one further point. I am aware that in considering the role of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in the bill the select committee had its convictions in relation to the vital part played by New Zealand’s regional orchestras confirmed. This legislation does not necessarily affect those orchestras but I share the committee’s view about their vital place. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is extremely important to New Zealand and to New Zealanders. So too are the regional orchestras and I am confident that that importance will be acknowledged by the support they receive through Creative New Zealand and by the collegial support they will receive from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. 
The Government is particularly pleased to see the performing arts community including the regional orchestras and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra responding so positively to the intent and spirit of this bill. The community recognises and respects the invaluable service that the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has provided to New Zealanders during its very long history. It is an irreplaceable feature of our cultural landscape. As Associate Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage I look forward to seeing our national symphony orchestra flourish within the appropriate legislative framework and to its continuing wonderful performance as an artistic institution. I am confident that the ongoing cultural benefits that accrue from the Government’s commitment to the orchestra will benefit all New Zealanders. I thank the individuals and groups that made submissions on the bill and I am grateful to the members of the select committee and the other parties in the House for working so constructively on it. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Mr Speaker thank you for the opportunity to speak on this unnecessary New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Bill. I must admit that the very thought of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra fills me with great enthusiasm. National very much supports the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and very much supports the concepts of artistic independence and artistic excellence but we do not support a Labour Government bill enshrining the orchestra in unnecessary legislation. It is quite ironic that the Prime Minister Helen Clark praised the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra saying it is iconic—and so do we—yet she wants to enshroud it in all sorts of unnecessary legislation and to prescribe its functions and objectives. The question really is when is a symphony orchestra not a symphony orchestra and the answer is when its functions are enshrined in Helen Clark legislation. Just what is it in the genetic make-up of the New Zealand Labour Party that makes its members unable to resist the temptation to involve State control in every piece of legislation they can think up? 
In this particular case the Government has the gall to suggest that it is in the name of artistic independence. The policy statement in the explanatory note of the first reading copy states: “The primary purpose of this Bill is to change the status of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra … from that of a limited liability company established under the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Act 1988 to a non-company Crown entity. … The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Act 1988 does not prescribe the Orchestra’s purpose and functions nor government’s expectations of it. As a limited liability company the Orchestra operates within the requirements of the Companies Act 1993. Consequently it is expected to carry out functions that are commercial in nature.” 
What is wrong with that? Why prescribe the functions and objectives of an organisation that thrives and flourishes when it is given the ability to do so? It is quite quite ironic that the Prime Minister of New Zealand who so enthusiastically praises the orchestra and its past successes now wants to destroy them. 
When one looks around at some of the world’s greatest orchestras it is quite obvious that those with some of the finest artistic performers and with absolute quintessential creativity have organisations that owe their very existence to obeying commercial principles. I think of the London Symphony Orchestra the London Philharmonic Orchestra the Chicago Symphony Orchestra the Cleveland Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. They are all orchestras that exist on being absolutely responsive to the public—not to a Government prescription which is exactly what the Labour Government wants. Here in New Zealand we have only to think of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. That is a very successful orchestra that operates extremely successfully with no legislation and with a cost in terms of Government help of about 15 percent per year of that of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. 
Some of the world’s finest orchestras are in America and this is the prescription that encapsulates them: “An organisational structure that canonises the music director a volunteer support system that creates serious tension between the art of music making and the business of orchestral management and a reliance on community sponsorship that juxtaposes popular taste with the moral virtues of serious art.” It is quite extraordinary to look at the principal objectives and functions that the Labour Government has dreamt up for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. I go immediately to clause 8(c) which states: “to be a leading New Zealand performing arts organisation with a role in the development of a distinctively New Zealand cultural environment:”. What does that mean and why does it have to be prescribed in legislation when we have had a New Zealand Symphony Orchestra that performs extremely well? The Government admits—in fact it cries from the rooftops—how well it has been performing but oh no the Labour Government wants it to develop a “distinctively New Zealand” cultural aspect. 
It gets worse. The functions in clause 9 include: “(f) to carry out any other functions consistent with its principal objectives as agreed to by the Minister after consultation with the Orchestra:”. The Minister has to be brought into those objectives and functions. The Government just cannot help itself. On the one hand we have the Labour Government saying what a great orchestra it is under its present structure. But oh no the Government has to enshrine and entangle it in prescriptive legislation. It cannot help itself. 
There has been a little bit of debate about the board structure itself. Again there is an enormous irony there. There has been quite a lot of thought about putting a player on to the board. There are many orchestras around the world that do that. But no the Labour Government says: “Let’s be pure on governance when it comes to the $10 million Symphony Orchestra but when it comes to the $8 billion district health boards oh no we have to have a majority-elected system. We have to have a majority-elected system when it comes to $8 billion but when it comes to the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra we are going to be pure.” The Labour Government has perpetrated some awful confusion on us and at times it is very hard to keep up with it. The very cost of the legislation—$1 million—surely would have been far better put towards the musicians themselves but no let us drag it through the House and the select committee for the cost of $1 million. 
I want to recall an experience I had listening to the Shanghai Orchestra that visited New Zealand 20 years ago. In the first half of the concert it played the  
Yellow River Concerto 
 and  
Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy 
. It was an awful plodding boring experience. But in the second half of the programme it played traditional Chinese music that had been generated and had evolved through thousands of years of experience and was played with a whole range of orchestral instruments. It was pure magic. The clear contrast is that of State-controlled music versus that of an orchestra given its head. This bill that the Labour Government is perpetrating is most unfortunate. The Government praises the orchestra as it is yet it wants to shackle it quite unnecessarily. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is carrying out a superb job as it is. The National Party wants it to flourish and we wish it all the very best without this unnecessary legislation.