Anglican (Diocese of Christchurch) ChurchProperty Trust Bill

Mr Speaker—

Dail Jones: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is there no Committee stage?

Mr SPEAKER: No, the House has agreed that there will not be one. We took the leave of the House earlier today.

Dail Jones: But did we take the leave of the House to waive a Committee stage?

Mr SPEAKER: Yes.

TIM BARNETT: I move, That the Anglican (Diocese of Christchurch) Church Property Trust Bill be now read a third time. This is the fourth member’s bill that I have sponsored in this House in the last 6 years, and sometimes it can seem like quite a lonely furrow that one ploughs on those issues, so I was delighted in the last few minutes to hear a comparative explosion of interest in these issues from Dail Jones and Gordon Copeland. I am delighted and gratified about that; it makes the issues useful to discuss.

I will very briefly respond to the comments that were made. The bill is of such length because it is, effectively, a rewrite of a constitution of a complex organisation. The issue of the definition of “spouse” is one that the Anglican Church had not been alerted to prior to the bill coming into the House. However, prior to the first reading I was made aware that there was a human rights—a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—issue. I think it is very proper that we should respond to those things. In my first reading speech I made it clear that the church was supportive of an amendment to the bill, and that is what we see before us today. In terms of Mr Jones’ concerns about Anglican bishops living in de facto, including same-sex, relationships, I wish to say only that time moves on, the law improves, and even the Anglican church accepts the reality of contemporary relationships. It is important that new legislation going through this House now should reflect that. On that basis, I thank those in the parliamentary structure who have helped the Anglican church to get this bill together, and I thank the Commerce Committee. Again, I commend the bill to the House.

I will take a short call to indicate that New Zealand First will support the passage of this bill. But I do wish to remind the House and the Anglican church—and, as an Anglican myself, I think I am perfectly entitled—

Dail Jones: And Mr Speaker.

RON MARK: Yes, Mr Speaker is an Anglican, as well—

Dail Jones: Myself as well.

RON MARK: So is Dail Jones, as he informs me, so we are in good numbers here. But I do wish to take the opportunity to put on the record again a concern that I raised when this bill came to the House.

I had hoped that between the time that this bill came to the House for its first reading and the conclusion of some activities down in Christchurch, and particularly in Rangiora, involving some Anglican church property, we might have seen a little more consideration being paid to the spiritual concerns that many Anglican people had down there in respect of what was happening in the cemetery in Rangiora. Although at the end of the day the Anglican church did move to take on board the concerns of the members of that particular church in Rangiora, its approach to the management and the use of that cemetery, to the subdivision of a property that lay beyond that cemetery, and to the decision that was made to put a road through the cemetery was absolutely appalling. It does not matter how many times I read this bill, because I say that while the Anglican church may well be legally tasked with being—[Interruption] I did not hear that, but the member might like to take a call and to say something sensible.

What concerned me about the management of Anglican church property in Rangiora was that the members of that church protested their concerns to the Anglican bishop and to the Christchurch City Mission that the part of the cemetery they were choosing to run a road through would mean the road would go straight over the top of a whole lot of children’s graves. A lot of those people, who had lived there all their lives and were descendants of parents who had lived the bulk of their lives in that part of Canterbury, were simply dismissed. It was one thing for those people to be dismissed by the councillors of the local district council, who could not find any evidence or records to back up the claims being made by them, but it was something totally different for them to be dismissed by the leaders of their own church.

The property behind that cemetery was gifted to the Christchurch City Mission so that it could put an alternative school on it, but of course, because it was a landlocked section, approval and support were then sought to put a road through the cemetery. The concerns of those Rangiora residents were voiced loudly and clearly. This issue did not involve Māori people; it involved non-Māori. But Māori understand people who say they know there are no records, but there is an oral history. The members of that church told people that they knew for a fact that children were buried there, some of whom had been stillborn or had died in infancy. They believed there were also a number of adult graves there—graves of paupers, homeless people, or people who were not considered well off at the time they were buried, and therefore did not have marked graves. Their views and concerns were dismissed.

What happened then? When the bulldozers went in there, scraped off the topsoil, and started digging, they unearthed 13 graves. [Interruption] Jill Pettis is becoming a little “lemon-ish” on occasions. She sneers and snarls across the House. That issue might not be significant to her, but if that sort of thing had happened to a Māori cemetery, an urupā, this House would not hear the end of it. Māori people would most definitely voice their disgust and anger. But I guess that is the society we live in these days. Because the people concerned about that cemetery in Rangiora were Pākehā no one cared, and I find that very, very sad.

If that is an example of how the Anglican church will manage its property and real estate and the concerns of its own people under this legislation, I think maybe Parliament should rethink its support for it. Maybe Parliament should rethink the amount of responsibility that it discharges to the Anglican diocese if that one example is to be the example its property management is moulded on, because the diocese did a lousy job. The only point at which the diocese started to reconsider the situation and went back into the community to talk to the people from the local Anglican parish was after there had been a lot of bad publicity. That was not the right reason to address the spiritual concerns of the members of that parish. That was not an appropriate mechanism for kicking into gear actions that demonstrate that, as an administrator, one clearly does take into consideration the views of the members of one’s parish. On that issue the Anglican church failed, and it failed abysmally.

I am grateful that much later—regrettably after we had had the whole issue aired in the local community papers, after there had been meetings in halls, and after there had been a plethora of letters written to the bishop—the Anglican church moved to redress its errors. Unfortunately, the graves were dug up, the remains were reinterred, and the road is there now. But, quite frankly, the very concerns and objections raised by the members of that parish—not by other people—should have been taken into account right from the outset, not after the Anglican church had been given some bad press. I just want to have that recorded in Hansard as a warning. Nobody expects that the Anglican church will manage its property in that manner, and I sincerely hope that that is the last time we will ever see such action on the part of the church.

Bill read a third time.