Carter Trust Amendment Bill

I move, That the Trust Horizon (Trust Variation) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s my great privilege to stand here today and bring to the House the Trust Horizon (Trust Variation) Bill as a private bill. As the MP for the East Coast, which includes all of the Eastern Bay of Plenty, I’m honoured to be shepherding this bill through the parliamentary process for the benefit of all the people, the community, and the organisations of the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

By way of background, Trust Horizon is a local charitable trust with investments that include 100 percent ownership of Horizon Networks and Horizon Energy Distribution Ltd. Trust Horizon first began back in 1994, originally named the Bay of Plenty Electricity Consumer Trust. It was formed with the goal of keeping a portion of the local electricity company under community ownership. In 2015, the trust obtained 100 percent ownership of Horizon Energy Group, which includes the lines company that distributes electricity to homes and businesses throughout the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

The trust has distributed over $51 million to worthwhile energy-related causes in the district since its inception. However, its governing deed was drafted more than two decades ago, and while it has served the community well, the trust now faces structural and operational limitations that impede its ability to meet contemporary needs.

This private bill seeks to amend the terms of the trust deed to allow it to support a broader range of charitable activities within its district, consisting of Whakatāne, Kawerau, Ōpōtiki, and Kaingaroa, among the most deprived communities in New Zealand. It will seek to amend its deed to be able to apply in the future to the High Court for any further amendments so it does not have to come back to Parliament. The trust is not asking for unchecked powers. Future changes will still be independently tested and approved by the High Court.

In the Eastern Bay of Plenty, there are only a certain number of energy-related purposes available to support within the district, which has led to 30 years of static grant distribution, despite population growth. By the end of this year, the trust would have distributed around $55 million. It estimates that the change as part of this bill could mean an additional $1 million to $2 million a year available for the community in the Eastern Bay of Plenty. This supports community and sporting organisations and the many volunteers who keep the community’s not-for-profit sector going.

At the same time, the district includes some of the most deprived areas of New Zealand, with many worthy charitable causes that could benefit from the trust’s support. Community wellbeing goes well beyond energy, and the limitation on making grants only for energy-related purposes restricts the trust’s ability to respond to changing community needs or to support charities, societies, and other worthy groups that do not meet this definition.

With the present limitation on energy-related purposes, the trust has been able to grant about $900 per person in its district over the last 30 years. By contrast, its neighbour, the Rotorua Trust, which has broader charitable purposes, has been able to grant about $2,000 per person in its district over the same period.

In considering the need for change, the trustees have traversed many conversations. They consulted widely, including conducting a poll which 3,625 people responded to, and 80.7 percent of those people supported the changes. Those who supported the bill supported a wider range of social, educational, cultural, and environmental initiatives to include a variety of community projects and groups. Of those who opposed the changes, many felt it might result in higher power prices for consumers, which largely comes from the confusion about the difference between the trust and the electricity distribution company Horizon Energy.

Related to this, the trustees considered a variation of the energy-related purposes under Part 3 of the Charitable Trusts Act 1957. However, the ability to vary charitable purposes under that Act is limited. The trustees also explored a consumer distribution model, but as it’s a charitable trust, providing small regular payments to all electricity users across the district is not considered a charitable activity. The trust instead granted up to $2,000 to support charitable causes with energy bills and co-funded the EECA Warmer Kiwi Homes initiative to make insulation and heating free for those eligible. This equates to, on average, $1,000 for insulation and $700 for heating.

The trust has been integral in insulating more than 50 percent of all houses in the district through its insulation contribution, creating energy savings and healthy homes for past, current, and future generations. It provides low-interest lending for organisations wanting to install solar and has deployed over $1 million in funding to date for this purpose. This includes equipment such as electric lawn mowers, rollers, mobility vans, school electric vehicle chargers, community bike chargers, and very much more. They’ve done as much as they can in the electricity space. The trust supports local groups with energy transition, funding projects at around $1 million to $2 million in granting a year.

The reason I talk about all of these things is to demonstrate they have literally exhausted the electricity-related projects, and the funds continue to accumulate due to the narrow nature of the trust. The trustees have now agreed that a wider charitable purpose would be the most efficient way for it to assist with that need, and a private bill is the only way to achieve that goal.

It has, in numerous numbers, letters of support from all of the leadership agencies in the region. It has good support across the district. I think the trust’s intention is to unlock transformational change by enabling more funding that positively impacts communities and supports a wider range of community projects and groups across Whakatāne, Kawerau, Ōpōtiki, and the Kaingaroa Village.

There are a number of people to thank, but I think I’ll leave those for the right of reply and just leave that for now and commend the bill to the House. We are very excited in the Eastern Bay of Plenty to unlock some more funding and potentially more opportunities for our communities and organisations. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I rise, also, to support this bill. I want to thank Dana Kirkpatrick for engaging so productively on this bill to help me understand just how valuable it would be to make sure this passes.

I certainly have had the experience of working in the environmental non-governmental sector (ENGO), and I understand the value of the small grants that charitable trusts can make to the ENGO sector. Today, just to check where this bill was going, I took the initiative to talk to Derek Caudwell, the chief executive of the trust, to understand what their intention was. I was really pleased to hear that this isn’t going to leave behind all of those energy projects that the trust is already supporting. I think that’s really important to note, because there is so much to do with energy, and energy is fundamental to how we do things. If the trust is going to keep doing that work—supporting the sustainability options, for example, in Tauranga; supporting the 20 Degrees movement to ensure that we have healthy homes, to ensure any more work for Warmer Kiwi Homes—this is great stuff. In fact, I was told that they’ve been doing grants to help people move away from fossil fuel vehicles to electric vehicles (EVs); they’ve been doing EV chargers for schools; they’ve been moving people off fossil heating systems to heat pumps; they’ve got $1 million that they’re putting into solar on schools, marae, and council buildings. They’re already doing a really huge amount in this space.

What I also heard is that they want to do that and other things, such as operational grants to small-scale ENGOs. We know, in this day and age, where people are really struggling and our charities are finding that they are overwhelmed with people in hardship or difficult environmental problems, that those operational grants, which are so hard to get—that is what’s going to be enabled by this bit of legislation.

I think we all understand that Eastern Bay of Plenty has some great deprivation issues, and if we can do something to enable better community outcomes and community development through this bill, then let us do that. I’ve had the experience of the other trusts that operate in my jurisdiction down South, the Central Lakes Trust and the Otago Community Trust, both of whom were the recipient of those reforms from 1992. They have a wider mandate, and they do some great things in our community. I can see a future where the Horizons Trust will be able to have that wider mandate.

I’m also very, very pleased that, interestingly, they are one of the organisations that both donates or provides resourcing to Sustainability Options, a member of the Community Energy Network. They are, themselves, a member of the Community Energy Network. So there’s a nice grouping there of people who are working for our community, working at the flax roots, and making sure that things happen.

Finally, I had a really interesting conversation—because, of course, I am interested in the energy side of things and I want that to continue—and I heard that Horizons Trust is going to keep working and they want to support the Community Energy Activator. This is really important because, across the House, I’ve got to say that one big mistake the Government made was killing off the community energy fund. Now, we’re looking to the sector to provide that, and Horizon Trust is looking to do just that, which pleases me to no end. We are very happy to support this bill, and, Dana, we commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a good day to see such leadership from the Eastern Bay of Plenty coming together and lobbying their local MP, who I think took not much arm-twisting to take this bill on, because getting some money into the community is what Dana Kirkpatrick is trying to do.

That community we’re talking about is the Eastern Bay of Plenty. Now, the local MP who’s ably shepherding this bill through talked about Kawerau, Ōpōtiki, Kaingaroa, and Whakatāne, but, you know, there’s other places for which I hold a special pride—

💬 Hon James Meager: Galatea—what about Galatea?

💬 CAMERON LUXTON: Galatea, Mr Meager; Murupara; we were talking about Kaingaroa village, but there’s Minginui, Ruatāhuna—all these places that need a bit of love in this House, and I’m happy to give it to them.

I have to tell a story about my old mate Cannon, who decided one day that he was going to trim the trees on the front of his place and happened to take out the Horizon lines, which were providing the entire valley with electricity. We went dark for a couple of days, and I think he might have hurt the profits of Horizon’s lines company, which may have meant that we didn’t quite get $200 million or maybe a bit more sitting in assets to be distributed. Because of the hard work of Dana, what is in there is going to be distributed, and I commend the bill to the House.