Thomas Cawthron Trust Amendment Bill

Members, the House is in committee on the Thomas Cawthron Trust Amendment Bill. The question is that the preamble stand part.

Point of order. I move that all parts be taken as one question.

The member seeks leave for all provisions to be taken as one question. Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is none. The question is that the preamble and clauses 1 to 12A stand part.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just want to take a short call in this committee stage just to talk through a few other matters related to particularly changes that were made at the select committee. Can I just begin, at the back of what has been a very thoughtful and useful second reading, with my appreciation to members from across all sides of the House for both supporting the bill, but also for the thoughtful contributions they have made. I know, having spoken to the chair of Cawthron tonight, John Palmer, that there is a great appreciation from the Cawthron Institute to the House for the care and interest that they have taken in this bill.

I did want to make some specific comments around some changes that were made. First of all, though, I want to talk a little about the question of the House considering these types of bills. The committee did grapple with this quite extensively, and received useful advice around other options that could be looked at. One of the ones I particularly wanted to note that they looked at was the suggestion that another mechanism could be created for integrating court orders into a statute, because one of the challenges we’ve had at Cawthron is that we’ve had two High Court orders, and that has actually created confusion at times around the interpretation between the court orders and the principal Act. One of the suggestions to be considered was the potential of an Order in Council on recommendation by the responsible Minister.

Now, I do want to share my view, I don’t think that’s a useful path to go down, because essentially it’s taking the time away from the House and putting it into another arm of Government. The one suggestion I think could be useful in terms of being looked at in the future, that I did want to put on the record, was about in the future considering having a stripped back bill—a stripped back Act that is quite high-level, that doesn’t have a lot of detail in it—and then having other mechanisms through a trust deed, which is a normal process that would happen these days, so that the Act’s less prescriptive, and broader, and that would allow an institute like Cawthron to be able to make changes without having to come through to the Parliament, or to the court.

I did specifically want to note the importance that updating the Act has on those High Court orders. One of the orders introduced the commercial board of directors. The institute has two parts of its governance. It has a trust board, and then it has a commercial board of directors. The High Court order gave powers to the board of directors. What then occurred was that in the 2019 Trusts Act, that amended the Trust Act and the interpretation of the principal Act, which, depending on how you read things, could have accidentally given some of the powers that have been given to the commercial board of directors, back to the trust board. So it created quite a bit of confusion between those two arms of governance. So what has been very important is the updating of the Act through this process so that it’s actually all contained within the Act, and it’s very clear the differentiation between the role of the trust board and the commercial board of directors.

I just wanted to make a point quickly around the spelling of Te Tauihu. This has been something that we have grappled with—just wearing both of my hats for a moment, with my Cawthron hat, and also as the promoter of the bill. The issue has been that the spelling in the Settlement Act for our eight iwi of Te Tauihu is spelled using three words, “Te Tau Ihu”, but there has now been a change in practice locally to use “Te Tauihu”—so two words. Now, it might sound like a small matter, but it is a matter of significant importance to local iwi. I do note that there are some differences of opinion, and the Cawthron Institute has chosen to follow the advice of local iwi. However, I do note that that is of interest given that the settlement agreement for Te Tauihu iwi uses a different spelling. The select committee chose not to make a change.

Just a couple more matters before I’ll finish this call, Mr Chair. I do want to note the part around remuneration. The High Court order—one of the High Court orders took away the option of trust board members being remunerated. The trust board felt that it should be inserted back in as a possibility, because we know that there are some members of the trust board who put in significant amounts of time. We did discuss at a trust board that there was never an intention for the member for Nelson and the two mayors to be remunerated, given that they already are. But I do want to acknowledge the submission of my predecessor, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, who is now on the trust board again as the Mayor for Nelson, and his submission requesting specifically that those three members are not explicitly excluded from being remunerated.

So the last point I do just want to note—just acknowledge the Business Committee for allowing the removal of the section around the capital conservation account. That was something that did come to the attention of the select committee following this process. So I just want to acknowledge the Business Committee for allowing us to remove that. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Thank you, Mr Chair. In my very brief call, I want to do two things: firstly associate with the comments of the sponsor of the bill in her intervention then, but also to correct an omission in my second reading speech, and that was to acknowledge the counsel for Cawthron, David McLay, who provided excellent counsel to the select committee during that process, and we benefited from that wisdom, as we did from the passion and knowledge of John Palmer, the chair of the board, and I just wanted to put on record my thanks for that contribution.

Preamble and clauses 1 to 12A agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Thomas Cawthron Trust Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

In accordance with a determination of the Business Committee, this bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading