Robertson Grant: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Robertson Grant: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:677;Page:686] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I move  
That the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. I do so with great pleasure. In fact I am sure members across the House will have great pleasure that we have now reached the momentous stage of the third reading of this very important piece of legislation—a piece of legislation that this House has dealt with thoroughly. I do not think there can be any doubt anywhere in the House that we have dealt with this matter thoroughly and that the Royal Society now has a greater prominence in our political history and discourse than it has ever had before as a result of us being able to examine each clause of this bill in significant detail. I want to note for the record that the memorandum of understanding signed between the Royal Society and the Council for the Humanities to set in place the changes to legislation to incorporate the humanities within the Royal Society’s ambit gave the Royal Society 5 years from 2009 to achieve legislative progress. Is it not great that halfway through that period we reach today— 
Chris Hipkins 
: Ahead of schedule. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: —that is right Mr Hipkins; we are ahead of schedule—and we have the Royal Society Amendment Bill before the House to do just that? I want to thank all members of the House for their participation in this debate. We had a number of extremely interesting and informative contributions. We heard from a member of the Royal Society Moana Mackey although fortunately she did not go too much into her dissertation topic on blowflies and sheep which is a subject I would encourage all members to engage with Ms Mackey on. As a member of the Royal Society she is fully aware of the importance of the bill. Other colleagues on all sides of the House participated well in the bill.  
What the bill does is incorporate the humanities into the Royal Society’s work. That is a good thing. It allows those who have contributed in the area of the humanities to be recognised allows for the humanities to be advanced in a way that is appropriate to the importance of the humanities to our society and also allows for other types of science to work more closely with the humanities in the development of knowledge— 
Dr David Clark 
: An excellent thing. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: —an excellent thing indeed Dr Clark—in New Zealand. It is a bill whose time has come—finally—and I think we on this side of the House are extremely glad to be able to say that we support this bill. The Royal Society itself I am sure will be pleased to see it pass. It has already been acting in a way that the bill prescribes. It has already been including the humanities in its decision making. There are new structures within the Royal Society to allow for that. The bill also made some other minor technical changes around changing the name of the academy council to the academy executive committee in order to avoid confusion. As I have noted in many of my other calls on this bill there was some dissent. It is important to note that that dissent existed within the Royal Society but I think in the intervening period the society has got on with doing what it needed to do. Therefore this legislation will pass—3 years ahead of schedule—and will put into place formally in law the very thing that the Royal Society wanted.