Upston Louise: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Upston Louise: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:677;Page:698] 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 I am very proud to speak in the third reading of this bill as a former member of the Education and Science Committee. This was a topic on which we did some serious work on the committee so it is nice to have it finally in the House for its third reading. But I do want to start by commending the speaker from New Zealand First who preceded me Tracey Martin. It would have been great to have heard more about New Zealand First’s commitment to the Royal Society in New Zealand—we only got a glimpse of it then. So thank you for that and I look forward to further contributions. I also want to just take a moment to pay tribute to the former chair of the Education and Science Committee the late Allan Peachey. I think it has been very fitting also today to hear a contribution from the new member of Parliament for Tamaki Simon O’Connor. 
So in terms of this legislation I was a bit horrified to find that one of the Opposition members was accusing this side of the House of not having a real understanding about the Royal Society and I do want to correct one of the members opposite by saying that I had quite a lot of involvement on one particular project with the Royal Society when it was around the promotion of science in schools and in the whole awards programme that was put together to do exactly that. I think that is one of the things that is really important in terms of the work that the Royal Society does.  
Clearly this is an organisation that has been around for quite some time. We have had some of the history and I could go over that but I think we have covered that well. I could come back to that maybe a bit later speaking in this third reading. For an organisation that has been around since 1867 it is incredibly important that the opportunity is taken to review the way the organisation is structured in its shape and form. 
Although there is obviously consensus in the House about passing this legislation I do want to just bring to the House’s attention that it was not all smooth sailing in the select committee that we did actually have some submitters who were opposed to this who were unhappy with the consultation that was undergone around this time and I think it is important that we do recognise that a full democratic process should be undertaken in this instance where a proper select committee scrutiny was provided and there was definitely not full support from the submitters who appeared before us. If you look back to when you have an organisation that has a number of branches involved and a New Zealand - wide organisation sometimes what happens is that there is some tension between the branches and the New Zealand - wide or the national organisation. That led to some tension and it led to some very strongly worded submissions that were opposing this piece of legislation. So I do hope in the interim given that there has been quite a passage of time since it was first introduced that those branches have managed to deal with those issues and complaints that they had at the time and that they have been able to work with their New Zealand - wide organisation in overcoming their opposition. Clearly it would not be healthy for the Royal Society of New Zealand—such an esteemed organisation—to have tension within its own branch structures. So I am hoping that with the passage of time—and I do say it has been quite lengthy—there has been the ability for the Royal Society to mend those bridges and to resolve any of the issues that it had within its branches. 
It is quite interesting because we talk about the fact that we do have broad agreement for this bill and I am actually looking at some of the  
Hansard 
 notes from Grant Robertson who of course now is the deputy Labour leader. He spoke very strongly and he used words about consensus and collaboration in the House which are all fantastic words and they are good examples of when the House can work together incredibly well. But as those of us who were in the 49th Parliament know and as those who were interested in the bill following on the members’ day Order Paper know actually it descended into quite a level of complaint and criticism. And if I was the Royal Society I would be fairly annoyed at the amount of time that this bill actually took due to the Labour Opposition being so vehemently opposed to the voluntary student membership bill that followed behind it. So although Grant Robertson who is the member of Parliament in charge of this bill talked about consensus and collaboration it was absolutely anything but. Given that we are talking about science and given that this is the Royal Society and its mandate I thought I would give evidence of some of that delay. 
I am now looking at some of the speeches in the Committee stage. It was interesting when we had discussions about the title. I know how many Committee stages you Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch have presided over and how you would appreciate that debate on the title clause at the Committee stage generally moves quite quickly. But instead we had the then member of the Local Government and Environment Committee David Shearer who is of course now the Leader of the Opposition speaking at quite some length about whether we should describe define or go into some detail about the word “a”. There was lengthy lengthy description about “a” whether the word should be in there and whether it was clearly defined. If we did not think that that was riveting enough we then moved on to a definition of “the”. So for Labour which now has the member that I refer to as its leader it is a bit tragic if it has to spend so much time defining words like “a” and “the”. 
Then of course we got on to some really chunky discussion and that was the definition of “society”! I can tell you if I was the Royal Society I would have been highly insulted. It would have been offensive to the society that members of the Opposition took to this important legislation with such frivolity and with absolutely no rhyme or reason other than a clear intention to disturb the progress of the House when it was a bill in the name of one of its own. That is quite staggering. Just to remind you that person now is Labour’s deputy leader.  
Actually this side of the House does take science seriously and it is great to be in the House with the Minister of Science and Innovation the Hon Steven Joyce. Of course he is also the Minister for Economic Development and the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment which is a fantastic bundling of those important areas that to this side of the House are extremely important. I am speaking to this because one of the Labour speakers suggested that National is not that interested in science. Well that is absolute rot. I want to give some examples of why we are interested. If you look at the Primary Growth Partnership you will see it is investing almost $500 million in research and innovation in the primary and food sectors. And we have seen just in the last few weeks information out from Statistics New Zealand showing the level of exports growing and the growth in particular of the dairy sector. So clearly research into this area is vital. 
Today in the House we have seen in question time some questions around fracking and its use in geothermal energy. In my own electorate in Taupo science and innovation is alive and well with the Clean Energy Centre which of course is focusing on the development of further geothermal techniques which are so important in terms of achieving our renewable targets. So the areas of tertiary education economic development and science and innovation are so interwoven with this Government’s economic growth agenda. They form part of the 120-point economic development plan; I could talk for 10 minutes solely on what we are doing with the high-tech sectors. There is just so much information to cover with the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill and the importance of science and making sure that we get it right. This side of the House is giving it the attention that it is due so I am proud to support this bill in its third reading.