Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill

As I said before, this is a swansong for me. Let us go over that one more time and pay homage to the Government Administration Committee, which I am leaving. Last night I referred to the Government Administration Committee, which heard this bill, as the heavy lifters of this Parliament. I think that that is still true, and certainly members on this side of the Chamber are putting in some effort in respect of the debate on this bill—and very admirably I might say.

💬 Grant Robertson: I’m losing the will to live.

It is very pleasing to move on to Part 2 of the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill. I know that Mr Grant Robertson is very sad that we have had to move on at this stage, as are the other members, but, alas, we do, and we will continue to debate this.

This part is the meat and bones of the bill.

💬 Mark Mitchell: Totally.

It is totally the meat of the bill.

💬 Brett Hudson: It’s an important bill.

It is a very important bill because, as we alluded to prior, the trust board does a lot of very good work in the community and the congregation of 30 churches that unite different religions range from the top of the North Island in Whangarei right through to Invercargill in the deep south, which is my electorate.

You know, it is important that we hear the Christian Churches when they say that the old Act did not empower them to deal with their property appropriately and that we need to repeal that Act, allow them to re-establish under existing charitable trust law, and give them wide-ranging powers—and obligations—to deal with their property appropriately, so that not only can they hold real property but sell that property, take the proceeds, and put those into different ministry projects, which are so valuable to the community. So Part 2 is entitled “Transfer of property, rights, and obligations from old board to new board”, and that is quite clear, setting out exactly what clauses 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 do.

I think it is important to note what my colleague Mr Brett Hudson raised, which is that the committee did consider a sunset clause. We asked officials for advice on having a sunset clause. It was raised in one of the submissions that we should be considering a sunset clause to get the Act, once the transfer of property had occurred, off our books. But the advice came back that this was a risk to the savings provisions because, although we are giving the new board the powers to deal with property and invest in their ministry, it does have obligations and it will have contracts that it has entered into and it needs to be able to continue with those contracts. Third parties, other parties to those contracts, need to feel secure in the fact that because the new trust board is coming into play, those contracts will see the test of time and will see the test of the obligations and service to whatever is set out in that agreement.

So as I said before, we did consider having a savings provision. It was thought inappropriate to use it. The other side of that too—not just in respect of obligations—is that, obviously, the Christian Churches do receive bequests and wills, and it was thought that that could be somewhat of a risk. If somebody had died and left a bequest in their will to the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board, that bequest could, in fact, fail if the sunset clause was in the Act and reference from the old board to the new board was not in place. So although we considered having a sunset clause, it was felt inappropriate to put that in the new bill, and therefore the bill from the first reading has been reported back to the House unchanged.

It was a pleasure to hear from the two submitters on this bill. Even though it is a small bill it is a very—[Bell rung]

💬 Alfred Ngaro: Mr Chair.

If you go for the call, you get the call first, because you are in the chair. You must call out louder than you did. So it is Alfred Ngaro.

I did hear a comment from Mr Robertson that he is losing the will to live, and it is appropriate that this bill is actually talking about the Christian Churches. Mr Robertson, help is on its way, and if you do need a defibrillator, the power of prayer from these Christian Churches may be of some help to you in your time of need, so do not lose the will to live. Listen on and I am sure that these speeches will help.

Returning back to Part 2 of the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill, which deals with “Transfer of property, rights, and obligations from old board to new board”, I refer back to the submission that was brought by the board, by Mr Baigent and Viesturs Altments, who is the secretary of the old board. In its wisdom, what the board has also seen fit to do in anticipation of the change in this legislation is ensure that a new trust deed has already been formed. A trust deed has already been prepared and agreed to by all the churches as to the purpose, powers, objectives, and other key clauses. So when we talk about clause 5, “Transfer of property, rights, and obligations”, it has been foreseen—the hope is—that there will be unanimous support for this bill and, with that, there has been some preparation for that as well. In sight of that, this trust deed has also been registered under the Charities Act 2005. So when the transfer in clause 5 happens, then it will be in line with the Charities Act 2005 and with the Charities Commission, on 9 September 2014, under number CC51021, as the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board.

One of the things that has also been important, which was on page 4 of the submission, was the key points, which clause 5 and clause 6 talk about in a sense—the rights of obligation. It has got a transfer process. So in the succession of development from the old board into the new board, page 4 of the submission talks about the key points in relation to the transitional provisions of that trust deed, which are: “first, that the Trust Deed appoints initial Trustees whose sole purpose is to manage the transition from the old legislative regime to the new charitable Trust regime.” Clause 5(1) also talks about this: “On and from the commencement of this Act, the property, rights, and obligations of the old board are vested in the new board.” So it is important that, in anticipation, they have started to prepare that too.

The submission also goes on to talk about the fact that it involves the appointment of the trustees in accordance with the provisions of the trust deed: “The preferred option was for the existing Trust Board to be the first Trustees, and then continue on until new appointments are needed in terms of the Trust Deed.” That is provided for in the bill. What that means is that, as was spoken about in Part 1 previously regarding using the word “flexibility”, this will then allow them to engage with that new trust board, which will give them rights and responsibilities to fulfil the obligations around the flexibility for wider forms of outreach of the Church into their selected communities as well.

Clause 7 talks about the dissolution of the old board, and on the commencement of this bill the old board will be dissolved. As I have talked about, in part (b) of the submission, page 4, it declares that “At this point in time, pending the passage of this legislation, the new Trust is a legal entity able to exercise all the powers provided for in the Trust Deed, but does not own any assets. These assets are still to be held by the old Trust Board in its role under the Associated Churches of Act until this Bill is passed and the 1929 Act is repealed.” So this provision here is important. The trust itself has prepared for the transactional change that will happen, and the transfer of property rights and obligations from the old board into the new board. So that preparation is important.

Finalising my contribution to Part 2, part (c) of the submission, where it talks about the reconstitution of the trust board as a charitable trust, says that “would the new Act legislate the existing Trust Board out of existence, and it would then transfer all the property and assets from the old Trust Board to the new Charitable Trust. There is still a process to be undertaken, once this Bill is passed, in relation to the transfer of the properties and titles to the properties held by the Board. The specific provisions in the Bill provide for that”, and will be referred to on presentation of the submission to the Committee. So we see that those provisions in the legislation are important to the transfer of property rights and obligations.

This is my first opportunity to speak on the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill, and I want to pay tribute to the Government Administration Committee, because my good friend and colleague Sarah Dowie has, up until, I think, today—is that right, Ms Dowie?

💬 Sarah Dowie: Today.

She has been the deputy chair—

💬 Brett Hudson: Yeah, she was rolled today. She was rolled.

Ha, ha! My colleague Brett Hudson says she was rolled today. It is a real shame for Sarah Dowie, but for the last 18 months she has been a very good deputy chair of that committee. I think, as other colleagues have noted, it is a reasonably robust environment on the Government Administration Committee—I have sat on it once or twice—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Talk about the bill.

—but she has done a good job. Well, I am talking about the good job that the Government Administration Committee did on the bill, and I want to talk about Part 2. I was interested in Ms Dowie’s comments about how the select committee considered potentially introducing a savings provision, and also a sunset clause, into the bill. They are funny old things, sunset clauses, because, of course, sunset clauses are clauses in bills that provide that after an expiration of a particular period of time, the legislation will cease to be on the statute book. Parliament does not like to legislate for sunset clauses, it is fair to say, so it was very interesting to hear from Ms Dowie that the Parliament—or at least the committee, in this instance—had considered putting a sunset clause into the bill. [Interruption] Thank you, Mr Mark Mitchell.

I was also intrigued about the savings provision, and I was going through the bill—it is only a short bill, it has two parts, and this is the chunky part, as somebody has mentioned—and I was trying to think about what particular savings provisions you would include in the bill and whether you would actually need them, because savings provisions, of course, are parts of bills that protect and carry forward pieces of legislation that you may be repealing. It is just a simple way of keeping, I guess, the best bits of legislation and making sure you throw out the bad bits.

Of course, in this particular instance, what we are doing is—the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill is a long bill title, but this is certainly a short bill. So this is repealing a particular piece of legislation and dissolving a particular board, but it is simultaneously transferring all the property and the powers and the obligations from one particular body—that is, the Associated Churches of Christ Extension and Property Trust Board—to a new charitable trust, the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board. That happens simultaneously upon the commencement of this legislation, and that comes into force the day after it receives the Royal assent.

So I was sitting there as Ms Dowie was speaking, just pondering in my mind what particular savings provisions you might need in this bill, and, of course, Ms Dowie rightly pointed out to the Committee, in the forthright manner with which she has become known in her time in Parliament, that no savings provisions were required. That is why in Part 2, the chunky part of the bill, we do not have any savings provisions.

So what do we have in Part 2? Well, we have the transfer of property rights and obligations. So from the commencement of this legislation, the property rights and obligations of the old board are vested in the new board. That just harks back to what I mentioned a few moments ago, which is that simultaneous transfer from one body to the new body.

I particularly want to pick up on clause 5(2) of the bill, which is about how the proceedings that could have been commenced or continued against the old board before the commencement of this legislation can be commenced against the new board. That is particularly important because what that means is that anyone with standing who is taking suit against the old Associated Churches of Christ Extension and Property Trust Board can take action against this new body. That is really important because we would not want to deprive people with standing of their rights under the law just because Parliament was passing a private bill.

They are funny old things, private bills. In the second reading I was considering how many had actually been passed over the years, and it turns out that in the last decade—since the modern-day parliamentary website has gone live—there were actually nine. So, you know, on average, we pass about 1.15 or 1.2 a year. They are odd things, private bills, and they tend to deal with very, very small, private obligations for people. It would be fair to say they are more historical quirks—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Back to the bill.

—but they are funny old things.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Interesting history lesson, but back to the bill.

Clause 7 of this part is very important. This is the important point that the old board is dissolved, and that, of course, is part of the purpose of the bill. It is very important. I just want to also refer to—

Mr Chair, I noticed that you looked over at Grant Robertson. He has been following this debate intently throughout, and I am surprised that he has not taken a call on this bill. I am very happy and pleased to take another call on the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill. I was referring to some of the Churches that are actually involved in this group and are going to be affected by, and empowered by, this very important change that we are debating in the Committee tonight. I said that there are churches from the far north to the far south. I spoke about Mairangi Bay Community Church, which I know personally, and I want to acknowledge it. I want to acknowledge the work that it does in our communities, and I also want to acknowledge its member of Parliament, the Hon Murray McCully.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Acknowledge Part 2 of the bill.

No, I think it is important, actually, that I go through some of the Churches that are part of the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill. We have got the Freedom Community Centre in Invercargill, which I am sure the outgoing deputy chair of the Government Administration Committee, Sarah Dowie, who is the very good member of Parliament for Invercargill, would know very well. And, of course, her predecessor Mr Eric Roy was also heavily involved in the community as a Christian leader as well. The Reach Christian Centre in Rimutaka and the Church of Christ community in Dunedin North—I want to mention them, and, of course, I want to mention the very good list MP for Dunedin North, the Hon Michael Woodhouse. I want to mention the Unite Church in Nelson, because this is really important—

💬 Brett Hudson: Can you tell us about that church please?

Well, the thing is, this bill, of course, was brought to the House by the Hon Dr Nick Smith, and the Unite Church—

💬 Brett Hudson: The local member.

—that is right—is in Nelson. I do not know why the Opposition has got a problem with me actually highlighting some of the Churches and the areas that they operate in. Like I said, I would be very keen to hear from Mr Robertson because he appears to be very engaged in the debate, but he does not want to take a call. I would also like to hear some more thoughts from the member in the chair, Alfred Ngaro, because I do not think there is another member in the Chamber who has got more experience and more background than him. And actually—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am going to intervene now. It is all very well talking about where the churches are located, and that is fine—that is within scope of the bill. But accolades about every member who happens to be associated with the Church within that region is really stretching it, I would have to say. I am happy that you include Churches, because that forms the basis—they are the Churches involved. That is fine, but then to have the accolades about how your colleagues are actually associated with that region is really stretching it too far. So I ask the member to come back and be more focused on where the churches are, but not then give a précis of the member who happens to be representing that particular area.

That is a good point, Mr Chair. I guess I did get a bit carried away in wanting to highlight the great work—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes, that is right. I have made a ruling now, and if the member just concentrates—you cannot comment on a ruling I have made. So just focus on what I have suggested you do on Part 2 and the clauses associated with that.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Like I said, I am very happy to have another call on the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill. I have got a list of about 30 churches here. I might come back to them in one of my future calls. I think it is important to name them, but I am going to come back to Part 2 and the transfer of property—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: The member was never at Part 2. What do you mean “come back” to it?

Well, I would like to, if you give me a chance. I would love the member to take a call. Please take a call, because I can see how engaged you are on the bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Come on. Let us start on Part 2.

Yes. Sorry, Mr Chair—you are right. Back to Part 2, “Transfer of property, rights, and obligations from old board to new board”. I want to acknowledge my colleague Chris Bishop, who had some insightful comments to make around this. Clause 5 is headed “Transfer of property, rights, and obligations” and subclause (1) states: “On and from the commencement of this Act, the property, rights, and obligations of the old board are vested in the new board.” Mr Bishop made a very good point: this is going to be a seamless transition. That is important, because obviously the new board cannot begin operating, making decisions, and managing its assets until the bill has the Royal assent and the new board is vested and has the authority to do that. So that was a very important point that he highlighted and raised in his contribution on this bill.

I move, That the question be now put.

I will hear from Brett Hudson. He spoke on Part 1.

We move on to Part 2, and I will absolutely focus on this part of the bill. Just to recap, as I did say in Part 1, when we were on that, the purpose of the bill is to transfer all the existing property, interests, powers, and obligations from the old board to the new. Here we are under Part 2, which talks specifically of that transfer—the rights, the property, and the obligations—from the old to the new. I think when we are making this change we can appreciate that it is about a seamless transition.

Actually, the bill is about giving the board—which is a new board—greater flexibility to do the right things for its constituent members by removing some of the constraints that exist under the existing legislation. It is very important, in doing that, that we do not abrogate any rights and that we do not actually leave someone in a worse position than they would be, or remove rights, particularly rights of challenge, by creating new legislation that may remove an ability for a party to take action against the old board, because, of course, the old board will no longer exist.

So if I draw your attention to clause 5(2), it notes very clearly that “Proceedings that could have been commenced or continued by or against the old board before the commencement of this Act may be commenced or continued by or against the new board on and from the commencement of this Act.” This one subclause will ensure that the transition to the new board will ensure that that board retains any of the obligations that existed with the previous board under the legislation that shall be repealed, and will also not prevent any parties—so a party may have a contract with the old board. It may maintain property. It may provide a service to the board—maybe a cleaning service. There are any number of services for which individuals or companies or sole trading businesses may have some form of express or implied contract with the old board.

So it is very, very important that in making this change that we do not suddenly wipe out the rights that those parties have to enforce their own contract provisions and to ensure that they have a means of redress, a means of having issues heard, with the new board. It would be, quite frankly, an injustice, I think, in terms of the intention of this bill if we have created a situation where old legislation was repealed and a new board constituted, and all of a sudden people did not have rights to take action for historical issues or services. So I think it is very, very important that we are taking that action, and I think it is something that can give a great deal of confidence to existing service providers to the board, the trust, as it exists today.

Along with that, we have to make sure that in doing so we do not create issues that were not there to begin with. We have clause 6, with matters that are not affected by the transfer of those rights, obligations, and those properties. The very clear and express provision there in clause 6, for instance, notes “The dissolution of the old board and the transfer of its property, rights, and obligations to the new board—(a) are not to be treated as placing a person in breach of, or default under, any contract, or in breach of trust, or in breach of confidence, or as otherwise making the person guilty of a civil wrong;”.

It goes on to say that the dissolution and transfer “are not to be treated as entitling a person” to terminate a contract, to “enforce or accelerate the performance of an obligation;”, or to “require the performance of an obligation …”. Those areas together are saying that if the first subclause of clause 5 was making sure that no one had their rights quashed by the creation of a new board, then, in the process of constituting this new board, people could not use that as some sort of clever leverage to create an issue where none existed previously. The new board cannot be made to suddenly provide a different level of performance or to face an unsubstantiated allegation of an issue that did not exist—or, in fact, someone could not use the switch, the transition, as a vehicle or as an opportunity to terminate an agreement.

We are protecting rights and obligations on both sides, if you will—the trusts and the members of the board but also the providers of services to those trusts. I think there is still a lot more to be said on Part 2, but if we look at Part 2, the part that is giving effect to these transfers and creating the sort of necessary protections that we like to see—

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Part 2 of this bill, the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill, is where the real meat and substance of this measure lies.

💬 Grant Robertson: Hang up, I thought you said that earlier.

There is a local example that I want to bring into this, which brings some relevance in particular to what clause 6 sets out—the positive aspects that are outlined in clause 6. There is a relevant local example that I am sure the local member Grant Robertson will be aware of. Here in Wellington Central we have a Union parish church.

💬 Grant Robertson: A couple of them, actually.

It is St Anselm’s Union Church, at 30 Mākara Road, and I am sure Grant is very familiar with that. So its property, its assets, and the services that it provides using those assets to the community from that base in Karori will be safeguarded through this legislation. This is an important point.

Just to give you the background of St Anselm’s Union Church, it is a small Christian community in Karori West. That is a beautiful part of town, yet it is one of the less affluent areas of Wellington, if you were to look at the Habitation Index, for instance. It is important that the Church maintains a strong property basis so that it can continue to offer a ministry and a community service to its flock in that area. That is also a liberal community—a liberal Christian community—and I say so because in 2014 it expressed concern that the General Assembly of the New Zealand Presbyterian Church had voted to disallow members of a partnership that was not a traditional marriage to act as ministers. This comes back to the Church’s tradition of having a focus on laity ministry rather than ordained priests, but that tells me that this is not only a valuable community asset but also a liberally minded one, that it sent that signal to the Presbyterian Church.

In terms of the assets that will be safeguarded under clause 6, it has a hall that is available to the community to rent for not-for-profit-style functions and community events. It has something called the Bell Room, and I can assure you that there is no familial connection there with the Bell Room—it is so-named because there is a bell involved. But it is a nice room with tables and chairs. It is a small room that can host meetings of maybe eight to 12 people. There is a coffee room and a kitchen for those sorts of social gatherings where the grandmothers of the community might like to get together and sit around a coffee to discuss the issues of the day. And there is, of course, the chapel.

These are the sorts of properties that clause 6 does give some very clear advice around how they are going to be transferred to the new board, and also says that there will be protections there. It will protect the board from becoming guilty of a civil wrong because it has undertaken actions, despite the fact that its legislation is so significantly out of date. It does not entitle a person to terminate, cancel, or modify contracts or arrangements pertaining to properties such as the one that I have talked about that are valuable community assets.

Just to give you another example of the sorts of things that the Union parishes offer, recently they had Professor Lloyd Geering, member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and also, of course, one of the very few people to be convicted in a blasphemy trial by the Church—in a canonical church court, actually, not by the State, of course. Professor Geering gave a series of lectures on what we owe to ancient Iraq and what we owe to ancient Iran, giving the historical and archaeological background to how the modern Christian faith has been influenced by those ancient cultures in the Holy Land.

Those useful community events and services and opportunities that are offered out of the properties controlled by this property trust board do need to be safeguarded—they do need to be protected. So I think it is a very positive thing that clause 6(b)(iii) very clearly states that the legislation will not entitle a person to “require the performance of an obligation not otherwise arising for performance;”. Essentially, it modernises the arrangements that are in place, protecting those properties without introducing a new or onerous obligation, or even, in some cases, impossible obligations, upon the trust board. That will give great assurance to members of the St Anselm’s church community—that small but very positive, liberally minded church community at Mākara Road in west Karori. For that reason, I think it is highly positive.

My colleague Paul Foster-Bell talked about Part 2 being the meat and bones. I heard Mr Peeni Henare say: “Is it not pork bones?”. I am not sure, Mr Henare, but you could say that this here could be pork bones. This is the substance of the bill here in Part 2. Mr Chair, I do thank you for your wise guidance in saying that, in a sense, all speeches, especially in the Committee stage, should add some relevance, some new information, and so I do stand with some new information that I can add to Part 2. Maybe this can be the pork and the bones for Mr Henare in this regard.

We are talking about Part 2, “Transfer of property, rights, and obligations from old board to new board”. When we talk about the old board, the Associated Churches of Christ Church Extension and Property Trust Board, it was set up to unite Churches and to bring together the various denominations under one banner. That was the intent. So that is the sense of the old. It is an evangelical, missions-based Church, which is the reason why having all funds tied up in property runs counter to its reason. We talked about the flexibility of that—so that is the old sense of what it was.

The laity-based tradition means that people in the pews take the lead in the service—so there are a lot of lay preachers who are actually the ones who deliver the services and preach the sermons, and distribute the ordinances that are there. In other words, they take communion for people as well. Each Church is an individual being, and the collective is known as an association because the various congregations span the divide of the Christian expression from the Pentecostal to the conservative. My colleague Mr Mark Mitchell talked about the 30 congregations. We will not name all 30 congregations as that could take up some time, but their history in New Zealand saw them seed many congregations, starting in Nelson, but now extending to Invercargill and Whangarei.

Here is a bit of information that many may not know—again, talking about Part 2 and transferring the old into the new. The forebears, their ancestors, the tūpuna, of Minister Finlayson, the Hon Annette King, and also the Deputy Speaker, the Hon Chester Borrows, were the founders of congregations in Richmond and Spring Grove in Nelson. This included the Rev. Roger Russ, who ministered in Dunedin, Whanganui, Onehunga, and Matamata, and Mr Cliff Russ—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: How is this relevant to Part 2?

—who was the minister in Newton, St Albans in Christchurch, and in Ōāmaru. In fact, since I know that Ms Sepuloni would like to know the 30 churches in the 30 areas—I will not name them all, but I will name a couple of churches in particular. I want to acknowledge Annesbrook in Nelson. That is where the Hon Chester Borrows was actually married. This is one those churches.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Is that in Part 2 of the bill?

That is Part 2 of the bill, because this is, in a sense, transferring the old moving into the new.

In Part 2 the bill is talking about the transfer of property and the rights obligations, but we are talking about transferring the old into the new. As I have said before, this is to allow the flexibility. The intent of the old legislation was that it would establish an umbrella association that would bring all the denominations from Pentecostal to those that were more conservative together, but still focus on what they had in common. What they had in common was to be able to outreach into their communities. But since 1929 until where we are now, it is, obviously, agreed that the fact is that this transfer—not just of property but of rights and obligations—is to ensure that they are then able to administer their roles of responsibilities of ministering into those communities, in particular.

I think it is important in the rounding up of my speech and in my contribution to this part to acknowledge the Hon Nick Smith, who has brought this bill forward. I want to acknowledge the board, which came and made its submission to the Government Administration Committee. There were only two submissions, but I want to acknowledge Mr Altman, who was the secretary, and also Mr Steven Baigent, who is the chair. I think they will look forward to the eventual outcome, the Royal assent, and the gazetting of this bill, which will allow them to fulfil to perpetuity their stewardship of the Christian ministry in those churches, right throughout the whole of New Zealand.

I want to acknowledge that in the area of west Auckland, in Te Atatū, there is one of those Union churches there, the Te Atatū Union Parish, but it meets at the old Te Atatū tennis club. It meets there for prayer and for services, which is really important. I round off my speech and I acknowledge the role and responsibilities of the Government Administration Committee and thank it for its work.

Part 2 agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

House resumed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Report adopted.