Street Maryan: Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 05 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13361. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): It gives me great pleasure actually to rise to speak to the Heritage New ZealandPouhere Taonga Bill. I must say that I enjoyed its progress through the Local Government and Environment Committee very much. I learnt things that I did not know before and I could see that this modernisation of the previous legislation the Historic Places Act 1993 was overdue. This bill will be supported by the Labour Party as will the amendments that the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage has put forward in his original Supplementary Order Paper 135 of some time ago and more recent amendments as well.This bill seeks to repeal and replace the Historic Places Act of 1993: “The Historic Places Trust (Pouhere Taonga) in its current form which was established under the Act would continue under the name Heritage New ZealandPouhere Taonga. The new name is intended to remove confusion as to the organisation’s legal status as a Crown entity.”It restructures the organisation it reforms the governance of it it disestablishes branch committees and it does continue theMāori Heritage Council.I want to go immediately to that point about the disestablishment of local branches of the Historic Places Trust. I for example have belonged for a long time to the local branch of the Historic Places Trust and have been a regular donor to it. There has been some concern expressed and it was expressed quite some time ago when the bill was first introduced. People felt as if they were going to lose their local opportunity to express concerns about historic taonga of great importance to them in their local region. We on this side of the House got quite a few submissions from people who were concerned about that and who said: “Well how are we going to stay alive as a local branch of the Historic Places Trust if there is no role for us in the governance structure of the new entity?”. That was a concern that I took to heart. In Nelson there are numbers of people who are very actively involved in local societies of this kind and it was something that I took a great deal of notice of.So it was with some real pleasure that when we talked to officials about this at the select committee we were told that—this was when we interrogated them about clause 101 of the bill—in fact transitional grants were available on enactment of the legislation and they would be based on the number of members of the previous societies that there were in that locality. In those transitional arrangements there was to be $250000 that was to be passed across to the committees that transitioned through to the new structure. At the time that we considered this bill there were 20 of the 24 previous local societies that had transitioned across to the new structure. There were four left. Auckland was one and there were three others. I am hopeful that the action of Supplementary Order Paper 135 and the structure of the governance in the bill will encourage the other four to migrate across to the new structure and the new legislation and to apply for some of that $250000 which could support them as they seek to develop their new existence under the new provisions. So I put that out there to encourage the new bodies that have been developing locally to apply for that funding once this legislation is enacted.That was something about which I was very pleased. It made me feel a little comforted—the fact that the people who have put their hearts and souls into Historic Places Trust manifestations in local communities and who were feeling disenfranchised by the original bill could have access to some support that would allow them to carry on and to carry on the good work that they do.This is a significant bill for the national identity of Aotearoa New Zealand. The way that we in a modern society protect our heritage protect artefacts and protect archaeological sites is really important. We need to be modern. We need to never discard these protections as we progress through the ages. It is important that there have been some significant protections inserted into this legislation which I think will makea difference particularly for archaeologists as well as for the protection of names. As the Minister referred to in his speech the development of a historic landmarks list will also give added protection and significance to places artefacts buildings and monuments that hold a special place in our history.When we had our sesquicentennial I think it is called when the Treaty of Waitangi reached 150 years of age I was saying that this was a wonderful thing—150 years of the Treaty of Waitangi. A friend of mine who lives in London said “My kitchen is older than that.” Yes that is true.Māori have been here since the 13th century andPākehā settlers have been here for much less time but we still need to ensure that this House takes our heritage and the responsibility for protecting our heritage seriously even though in other people’s terms we are in fact a very young country—a very young settled country.Hon Tau Henare: Is that “settled”?Hon MARYAN STREET: A settled country—settle down Mr Henare. Oh he is married now. He has settled down. So I commend this bill to the House. One of the things that I think is good in it as well is that there has been a definition of protection that occurs and can be applied immediately in the event of a natural disaster an emergency. There is a particular clause applying to emergency situations and that refers to natural emergencies. So in the event of earthquakes and other things with which we are now all too familiar there is still provision in this legislation to protect the things that are dear to us in terms of historic presence and identification of us as uniquely Aotearoa New Zealand. Thank you.