Trustees Executors Limited Amendment Bill

I move, That the Trustees Executors Limited Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill is a private bill, promoted by Trustees Executors Ltd to amend the TOWER Trust Limited Act 2002. The bill updates the principal Act to reflect Trustees Executors’ current name and ownership structure and, importantly, allows Trustees Executors’ future parent companies to be named in the principal Act by Order in Council. As previously noted, the Commerce Committee has unanimously endorsed the bill and has made only minor drafting amendments. Trustees Executors agrees with the committee’s conclusions.

Once again, I take the opportunity to thank the Commerce Committee and its members for their thoughtful consideration of the bill. They were not easily persuaded at the beginning, and the bill really did need that kind of consideration. I take it from the three members who have spoken that there were pros and cons to the process that was set in place, but I think we have come to an almost midway point that still allows for some parliamentary control through Order in Council. I commend the bill to the House.

I rise to support the third reading of the bill and to echo Marian Hobbs’ comments regarding the bill. As we have discussed, its purpose is to expressly authorise Trustees Executors Ltd to transact business with its parent company, Sheffield Investments Inc. (NZ) Holdings Ltd, which is now Sterling Grace (NZ) Ltd. The bill allows that transaction to take place. In all instances up till now, that needed to happen through an Act of Parliament. We are now changing that situation, particularly in this bill, by introducing regulation, and by giving power to the Governor-General to amend, by Order in Council, the schedule to the principal Act. Quite simply, that will allow the process to be speeded up in future transactions.

We have already talked about the fact that name changes are more prevalent in today’s economy, and I think it is important that we introduce legislation that allows us to mirror where the economy is going. We cannot have a situation where bills are redundant or historical. We need to be constantly looking at our legislation and taking such bills out of the system, and reducing compliance costs for those companies. I did not talk about that point during the second reading debate, but there are significant compliance costs for those types of organisations in even bringing an amendment bill to Parliament and getting name changes through. So there will now be a definite reduction in compliance costs. Off the top of my head, I think, the cost of bringing this legislation to Parliament and getting the whole procedure through was about $25,000.

We were led to believe by the officials that the compliance costs would be smaller by going through the Order in Council channel. I am yet to be convinced of that, but I am told that that is the case. So without further ado I say that this bill is taking trustee legislation forward, and we support that.

Bill read a third time.