Robertson Grant: State Sector Management Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: State Sector Management Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 09 December 2010. Volume:669;Page:16298. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I return to Part 3 of the State Sector Management Bill. When I was speaking earlier on I was speaking more generally about the concern Labour had on a philosophical level about what is happening in Part 3 which undermines the independence and ability of the Chief Archivist to perform his or her core constitutional role. 
I will now refer to specific elements of Part 3. Firstly I refer to a change that has been made by the Education and Science Committee on the question of Archives New Zealand’s continuing existence in some form or name. Essentially the bill removed all references to Archives New Zealand because Archives New Zealand as we know it as a Government entity will not exist. Archives New Zealand is still the repository for documents—this would continue. A number of submitters raised questions around the ownership and control of documents and people had concerns that as the bill was drafted the Department of Internal Affairs rather than Archives New Zealand would have ownership and control of those public documents. Clearly that concerned a lot of submitters; it was raised by a large number of people. I am pleased to say that the committee was able to make a change and a large number of clauses have been changed so the phrase “Archives New Zealand” is included. 
That is important because again it goes to the heart of the matter of ensuring that there is an independent archive. The absence of that and the handing over effectively of control or ownership of documents to the Department of Internal Affairs raises all those concerns again that it will not be Archives New Zealand that controls these important records but a Government department into which the archive has been subsumed. In that small matter we were able to achieve a change in the Education and Science Committee but it does not take away from the other matters that we have traversed. 
A number of submitters raised important concerns about the way in which the Chief Archivist is appointed and how his or her independence is maintained. The critical change made was that under this bill the Chief Archivist can act independently “in exercising his or her professional judgment;”. Under the previous legislation the Public Records Act 2005 the Chief Archivist was independent in the discharge of his or her duties and functions. We now have a difference. There is a downgrading so that rather than the Chief Archivist being responsible for and having independence in all of his or her activities he or she merely has independence in the exercise of his or her professional judgment. The select committee sought clarification from the officials that this really was about ensuring that the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs’ authority remained totally unchallenged. That is the nub of the problem. In this situation we need a Chief Archivist who can challenge the authority of the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs where that is necessary. That alteration in terms of the description of the Chief Archivist’s independence is a critical change and one raised by a large number of submitters but one that we were not able to resolve satisfactorily in the select committee. In one of my typescript amendments we are attempting to rectify that situation and I encourage the Government to ensure that that amendment is passed. 
The relationship between the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs and the Chief Archivist is obviously at the heart of that matter and again it has not been dealt with adequately in the bill. The chief executive will be the employer and the Chief Archivist’s role will be subsumed because of the structure of the State Sector Act. The release of the structural document for the Department of Internal Affairs reconfirmed this and showed that the Chief Archivist will be a third-tier manager outside the executive leadership team. That is a very important point. The Chief Executive and managers of the Department of Internal Affairs who will set the strategic direction for the Department of Internal Affairs will not include the Chief Archivist. We on this side of the Chamber find that simply unacceptable for such a significant constitutional organisation. We would like to see that changed and there are Supplementary Order Papers dealing with that. 
The National Library’s situation is similar. The whole question of reporting has completely changed. Reporting will be via the Department of Internal Affairs. The National Library will report to the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs and that is not acceptable.