A couple of weeks ago, Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage, Christopher Finlayson, announced the first findings of his review into the Historic Places Act (HPA). Since his announcement there has been some angst amongst the heritage community over concerns that members and local communities will be excluded from being involved in the protection their community’s heritage.

The two proposals that Minister Finlayson has announced so far are:

1. all members of the HPT board will be appointed by the Government (currently three members are elected from throughout the membership; and

2. Local branch committees are to be disbanded.

Well it turns out Chris Finlayson was singing an entirely different tune when he was the opposition spokesperson for Arts, Culture and Heritage. Back in 2006 he attacked Labour over the Historic Places Amendment Bill including opposition to increasing the number of appointed board members:

• “National says that is thoroughly undesirable. Six members should not be appointed by the Minister, with three elected by members of the trust. If anything, it should be the other way round.”

He went on to say:

• That is one of the primary reasons why National is totally opposed to this part of the bill. It undermines the principle of volunteerism. It more or less discards the huge contribution of volunteers to the preservation of our historic sites and historic buildings over the last 50 years… That is totally unsatisfactory.”

So, on the one hand he pays lip service to members of the HPT but now as Minister he’s undermining their ability to use their knowledge and experience in protecting heritage by cutting them off from funding.

On National Radio he basically said local communities were on their own:

Presenter: “They would also be freed, I presume, from funding from head office”

Finlayson: “Yeah, well, I am not a professional fundraiser, but I can think of a number of sources where funding will be available to enable them to do their job.”

If Finlayson knows of these sources, then I’m sure we’d all like to hear it.

Local communities have an important role in the protection of their community’s heritage. Undermining and cutting out local branches of the HPT ignores their ability to promote the identification, protection, preservation, and conservation of the historical and cultural heritage of New Zealand.

A couple of weeks ago, Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage, Christopher Finlayson, announced the first findings of his review into the Historic Places Act (HPA). Since his announcement there has been some angst amongst the heritage community over concerns that members and local communities will be excluded from being involved in the protection their community’s heritage.

The two proposals that Minister Finlayson has announced so far are:

1. all members of the HPT board will be appointed by the Government (currently three members are elected from throughout the membership; and
2. local branch committees are to be disbanded.

Well it turns out Chris Finlayson was singing an entirely different tune when he was the opposition spokesperson for Arts, Culture and Heritage. Back in 2006 he attacked Labour over the Historic Places Amendment Bill including opposition to increasing the number of appointed board members:

“National says that is thoroughly undesirable. Six members should not be appointed by the Minister, with three elected by members of the trust. If anything, it should be the other way round.”

He went on to say:

“That is one of the primary reasons why National is totally opposed to this part of the bill. It undermines the principle of volunteerism. It more or less discards the huge contribution of volunteers to the preservation of our historic sites and historic buildings over the last 50 years… That is totally unsatisfactory.”

So, on the one hand he pays lip service to members of the HPT but now as Minister he’s undermining their ability to use their knowledge and experience in protecting heritage by cutting them off from funding.

On National Radio he basically said local communities were on their own:

Presenter: “They would also be freed, I presume, from funding from head office”

Finlayson: “Yeah, well, I am not a professional fundraiser, but I can think of a number of sources where funding will be available to enable them to do their job.”

If Finlayson knows of these sources, then I’m sure we’d all like to hear it.

Local communities have an important role in the protection of their community’s heritage. Undermining and cutting out local branches of the HPT ignores their ability to promote the identification, protection, preservation, and conservation of the historical and cultural heritage of New Zealand.