Trust Horizon (Trust Variation) Bill

I move, That the Trust Horizon (Trust Variation) Bill be now read a second time.

It is a privilege to stand in this House today as both the sponsor of this bill and the member of Parliament for the East Coast, soon to be East Cape, representing the communities that will be directly affected by the bill’s passage. At its heart, this is a practical bill, a community-focused bill, and a bill about ensuring that a successful local institution can continue to serve the people it was established to benefit, but with a new focus and a wider statutory purpose that enables much greater opportunities for support in our community.

To recap, Trust Horizon was created following the reforms to New Zealand’s electricity sector under the Energy Companies Act 1992. Since then, it has become an important source of funding and support for communities throughout Whakatāne, Kawerau, Ōpōtiki, and Kaingaroa. For more than three decades, it has operated under a trust deed that requires its grants to be directed towards energy-related purposes. That purpose reflected the circumstances of the time. However, communities change, their needs change, their aspirations change, and what may have been an appropriate framework in the early 1990s has become increasingly restrictive in the 2020s.

The wonderful Social Services and Community Committee—a great bunch of people—has heard evidence that Trust Horizon now holds assets of more than $200 million, yet the range of projects it can support remains constrained by a narrow requirement that funding be linked to energy-related purposes only. This has meant, for example, that the trust could fund a new solar development on the roof of a sports club, but it could not pay to fix the roof itself. The trust has found itself in a position where it wishes to distribute more funding into the community, but the scope of eligible projects has just been too limited. Meanwhile, Eastern Bay of Plenty continues to face significant challenges and opportunities across housing, education, health, environmental restoration, community development, sport programmes, and social wellbeing. This bill seeks to address that mismatch.

The central proposal is simple: it broadens the trust’s objects from energy-related purposes to the wider concept of charitable purposes within the district served by the trust and for the people of its region. Energy remains fundamental to the prosperity and resilience of our region, and Trust Horizon has made a significant contribution to energy initiatives over many years and will continue to have the ability to support such projects into the future. What this bill does now is provide flexibility; it allows trustees to respond to the real needs of their communities, rather than having those decisions constrained by an increasingly outdated legal definition.

During the select committee process, there was robust engagement from across the Eastern Bay of Plenty. We heard from a large number of organisations—from former mayors to charitable organisations to sports clubs and various others. We heard from local government as well, philanthropic bodies, and members of the public. Many of those submitters recognised what appears obvious to local residents: that charitable funding should be capable of addressing the issues that matter most to local communities at any particular point in time. It’s fair to say that the select committee did have a robust conversation on a number of occasions, and I know that there were members, including yourself, Madam Speaker, on the committee who gave their views that it was important to retain the original intent of the trust, which was energy-related, in its future form. The committee carefully considered the issues and ultimately concluded that the bill should proceed, albeit with some small changes to ensure that that initial integrity of the trust was maintained.

I do want to take just a moment to acknowledge all of those who participated in that submissions process and in the select committee, whether they supported the bill, whether they expressed concerns, or whether they simply sought different aspects of clarification. The contributions helped ensure that Parliament examined the proposal thoroughly and responsibly. We did have some—as I say—robust conversations, and I think we’ve landed in a really good place with it. The select committee resolved unanimously to ensure that the dual purpose, energy-related purposes, and other charitable purposes were to be allowed going forward, and the trust could then expand its philanthropic work while staying true to its initial legislative set-up.

A second important feature of the bill concerns any future amendments to the trustees. One of the things that we’re always quite keen to do is ensure, when these kinds of Acts come before us, that they don’t end up just going in a circular process and keep coming back to the House and back to the House and back to the House again. So the proposal from them was a good one, and that concerns future amendments to the trust deed, if there are any to be done in the future. Currently, any significant variation requires the extraordinary step of returning to Parliament through a further private bill at great cost and time to the House, as well, which is a cumbersome process and one not typical of a modern trust governance set-up. Accordingly, the bill as it’s amended now introduces a mechanism that would enable future amendments to the trust deed, subject to the approval of the High Court. That safeguard is significant. It ensures that any future changes must be demonstrably in the interests of the trust and consistent with its charitable purposes, while avoiding the need for Parliament to revisit administrative matters more appropriately dealt with through the courts. This strikes a balance between flexibility and accountability. It gives the trust the ability to adapt over time, while preserving appropriate oversight and public confidence.

As the local East Coast MP, I’ve had the privilege of meeting countless organisations and volunteers across our region. I’ve seen sports clubs keeping young people engaged and active. I’ve seen community groups supporting families through difficult times. I’ve seen environmental projects restoring waterways and native habitats, educational initiatives helping young people reach their potential, and I’ve seen iwi charities and local organisations working tirelessly to build stronger communities. Many of these groups face constant pressure to secure sustainable funding. This bill now creates the opportunity for Trust Horizon to play a larger role in supporting the aspirations of its community. The significance of that opportunity should never be underestimated.

Trust Horizon has already distributed millions of dollars back into the community over its history, yet the evidence before us suggests that even greater benefits can be achieved, as the trust is now allowed to invest according to community need rather than a narrow historical restriction. Ultimately, this bill is about trust, not merely in the legal sense—not merely in the name—but also in the wider, broad, community sense. It’s about trusting local people to identify local priorities, it’s about trusting trustees to act responsibly within an appropriate governance framework, and it is about trusting communities to determine what success and wellbeing look like for themselves.

I wish to pay tribute and acknowledge the trustees, staff, and leadership of Trust Horizon. Their approach throughout this process has been thoughtful, helpful, and transparent. They have recognised both the responsibility that comes with managing a substantial community asset and the importance of ensuring those assets generate the greatest possible public benefit. They have worked with the select committee in an open and transparent way, and this has been extremely helpful for all of us to work through.

I want to acknowledge my colleagues on the Social Services and Community Committee, under the chairmanship of Joseph Mooney. Thank you very much for the hard work that you did and the various conversations we had.

But, most of all, for the people of Whakatāne, Kawerau, Ōpōtiki, and Kaingaroa, this legislation represents an opportunity to unlock greater investment, greater flexibility, and greater impacts for future generations. I’m proud to sponsor this bill on behalf of the region I represent, and I thank members across the House for their consideration of it. It will be a bit of a race against time to get it through before the end of the parliamentary term, but I know we are all doing our very best to try and see that happen.

As a result, and in the best sense of it, I wanted to add that I’ve just flown back—I literally ran into the House to deliver this speech, which I was very keen to do. I thank my colleague Tom Rutherford, who was standing by to step in, if need be. The great news of today in the other part of my electorate is the announcement of the special school in Gisborne, which is a brand-new school for those with challenging educational needs. I just think it’s worth noting on the basis of the wonderful electorate that the East Cape is, and the very great need it has for extensive investment across education, health, and roading infrastructure.

As a result—Madam Speaker, thank you for indulging me in that last little piece—I will move—

Dr Carlos Cheung: Fixing the basics.

DANA KIRKPATRICK: Yeah, we will be fixing the basics and building the future, but I commend the Trust Horizon (Trust Variation) Bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I’d like to congratulate the member who’s just taken her seat, Dana Kirkpatrick, for bringing this private bill to the House on behalf of her community. I’d also like to thank the Social Services and Community Committee that considered this bill and put the work into it.

Labour is supporting this bill, as we did at the first reading. What we know is that Trust Horizon is a significant community asset. It was created to serve the people of the Eastern Bay of Plenty. What this bill is asking to do is to give the trust flexibility to continue to deliver benefits for their community as circumstances change. The bill seeks to address a very practical problem. Trust Horizon says it has accumulated substantial assets over time, which its existing trustee places very tight limits on in its ability to distribute and the purposes for which those funds can be used. This bill is asking that we broaden those purposes to allow the trust to support other activities in the area and to the people that the trust deed lays out, namely the people of Whakatāne, Kawerau, Ōpōtiki, and Kaingaroa.

Trust Horizon was established through the energy sector reforms under the Energy Companies Act of the 1990s. These trusts speak to a point in our history in terms of the breaking-up of energy in our country and the way this was distributed to communities. Labour supporting this bill does not mean accepting the proposition that energy-related opportunities in our regions have been exhausted—just the opposite. What we do accept is that the purpose as it sits at the moment constrains what the trust can do within our energy sector.

I do acknowledge, at this point, that private bills are designed to address narrow local issues that are largely technical in nature. Usually, they pass through this House really cooperatively; there is a desire for members to work together on this, and that is the spirit in which we have approached this. But beneath this, and something we have not applied to our consideration of this bill, sits the broader part of party-political agendas around what we should be doing in terms of the organisation of our energy system. While we are supporting this bill because they are operating within the environment as it exists at the moment, that does not mean we don’t think there should be broader consideration of that environment.

We are moving into an era of greater electricity demand. Households and businesses are electrifying, and that’s something we want to see. We’re seeing transport electrify, we’re seeing heating electrify, and we’re seeing industrial use electrify around the world. At the same time, communities also need a more resilient electricity system, one that can withstand extreme weather events, that can reduce power bills, and that give people more control over the energy. That’s what we call our electricity distribution businesses, or EDBs. Horizon, in one of its guises, is the local lines company for that area. That’s where we need to think about the role of these businesses in the 21st century. We need to stop judging networks simply by how much copper and concrete they can install, and we need to benchmark networks on whether they can deliver affordable, reliable electricity to their communities.

Now, this is not the environment that is currently operational. Change needs to be made to allow this to happen. We need to make sure that we are putting in place those changes that will allow this, and that is exactly what Labour has said it will do, putting in place those benchmarks around affordability rather than simply building poles and wires, rewarding electricity networks for delivering reliable, affordable capacity, testing the networks to see whether they are affordable and reliable, and recognition around the cheapest form of delivery. These kinds of changes would open up so many more opportunities for trusts like Horizon to deliver electricity and energy-related projects in their local area.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Good save.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Oh, absolutely. This is about what a lines company can and can’t do. What we are seeing at this election, as we go in to it, is we are going to see a contest of ideas around that. Labour has put out a proposal in Solarsaver that expands the role of an electricity distribution business. It sets up exactly what can’t be done and what Horizon is saying it can’t do in terms of the ability to lend for solar and batteries in the way that would take pressure off its need to build poles and wires. This is exactly what the Sustainable Energy Association of New Zealand’s (SEANZ) submission to the bill said. SEANZ came to the select committee and they said look, “There are all kinds of other ways that we could be using our distribution businesses in the 21st century, but it is going to require Governments to make change.”

So nobody here is judging Horizon for what they’re doing What we are saying is in order for them to operate differently, we need a Government that is prepared to change the system, and we haven’t seen it from the current Government. But, at this election, we have that alternative being put up—the ability for our lines companies to really get in there and make the difference.

When we’re considering the way in which a trust like this really can support its community, not seeing energy sitting over here and community sitting over there, but seeing the delivery of very affordable solutions for its community and the ability for a lines companies to engage in those activities is something that we believe a Government should do. And that’s something that needs to be there, because there should not be a choice about community investment and energy enhancements. They should be one and the same. We should be making our communities more resilient. We should be having more affordable energy going into our communities, and this is the New Zealand that, on this side of the House, we want to see.

In the meantime, we are more than happy to support this private bill because this is the environment in which they operate and we recognise that. But we think that as a party that is seeking to be the Government, that it is our responsibility to put up options, to make the changes so that we actually can have a New Zealand where we have more affordable, more reliable energy, and that we have organisations like this able to be more active players. At the moment, the regulated asset base keeps them from doing many of the things. Change needs to be made, but we are happy to support this bill. We can see that this is an organisation that is seeking to serve its community within the current framework, but we are signalling that we want to modernise the environment in which organisations like this operate. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to rise to support this bill. I want to thank Dana Kirkpatrick and the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee, Joseph Mooney, for the very helpful discussion we had on this bill and the movement that we were able to achieve working together. I did note that I participated also in the discussion of this bill, which somehow has been left off, but I wanted to participate because this is going to be the electric election. This bill is important for that reason, because when we initially discussed it, it was about simply opening it up to all charitable purposes. I am very pleased that we managed to ensure that we are keeping energy-related charitable purposes as a priority, and other charitable purposes subsequently. So it really does open it up.

One of the useful things, and I think this is something I just want to raise for the House—one of the examples that was given of why this needs to be done was the example of a property that needed a roof replaced and that that wouldn’t be covered as an energy-related purpose. I just think this is a helpful thing that we actually try and understand: what is an energy-related purpose? A roof is part of the thermal envelope of a building. It has an energy-related purpose. Under my reading of an energy-related purpose under this bill, that’s a poor example; it should have been able to be funded. Nevertheless, we have something here that is going to open up things, and the Trust Horizon is a member of the Community Energy Network. The Community Energy Network is a network of community organisations that work on energy hardship and energy innovation around the country. That’s important because there’s so much that needs to be done. We’ve heard the Government wants to put in 10,000 EV chargers, or are going to under this term. Well, we are far from that, but if we can enable an organisation or a trust to do some of that work, they can pick up where the Government’s failed.

We’ve heard that we need greater investment, community energy accelerators that some of the networks, Orion for example, have funded. That’s some more work that this change can enable; where the Government’s taken away money from the Community Renewable Energy Fund, we now look to trusts and electricity distribution businesses to provide for those services. To that point, we are very pleased to have launched our energy policy to support community energy. I think this will feed into Trust Horizon and their ability to build their own energy as it’s to build resilience for their communities. We should be thinking about democratisation of our energy system, decentralisation of our energy system, and decarbonisation of our energy system. That’s what this bill is going to enable. We should not be thinking big, we should be thinking decentralised.

We support this bill, and we think it fits extremely well with the Green Party energy policy, which we will implement in a few months when we’re in Government. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. We’ll see you all here back at 7.30 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 5.57 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Good evening, members. When we finished, we were on the Trust Horizon (Trust Variation) Bill, second reading. The next call is call No. 4 for ACT—Laura McClure.

Mr Speaker, thank you very much. I rise in support of the Trust Horizon (Trust Variation) Bill. As a member of the Social Services and Community Committee, we had this bill come to us, and it was brought by the member Dana Kirkpatrick, so I want to thank her for bringing this bill to Parliament. Unlike the previous bill, this one was a little bit more controversial. There was actually more of a significant change requested to the deed. Trust Horizon needed their deed changed so that they could move away from supporting just energy-related projects and to be able to fund other projects in the community, because they found that they had a very large, voluptuous bank account needing to be spent, so they looked out to community to see what other projects they could fund, and there were all kinds of different things. To be honest, in the submission process, we heard from a lot of organisations that could really do with some funds right now, given that there are tough fiscal constraints and, actually, philanthropy is down a little bit.

It makes sense to be able to expand their remit, but also, at the same time, we wanted to take into account the fact that there are actually a lot of energy issues out there for people, particularly in the Bay of Plenty. My colleague Cameron Luxton is from a place called Murupara. Trust Horizon have some of the lines there, and they’ve had issues in the past—big power outages. You’ve got a really small, low socio-economic community and power and resilience for them and energy security is obviously really important.

There were questions raised. I haven’t actually heard the previous contribution, but also the Greens had issues with what it actually means to go out of that remit, and had they really exhausted all of the options when it came to energy-related projects There were suggestions around whether you could even actually just lower people’s power bills, but as it turns out, that is not actually something that the trust can do.

But where I think we landed given all the submissions on this bill was that we came to a compromise where we kept energy-related purposes as the first and foremost—what would you say?—requirement of the trust to take into consideration when actually making grants or applications. If it turns out that they have applications, for example, that are energy-related projects and also they may have things like funding, I don’t know, a hospice or something else, we would expect that the energy-related projects would still be given priority. That is because that was the original idea of the trust being set up, and it is a dividend from an energy supplier. I think that that is really good.

But what we heard from the submitters, and also from the trust themselves, is that sometimes they want to fund projects like—they talked about a marae where they wanted to fund some of the energy projects there but they also wanted to build a new roof, for example, and put in some other things within the marae to actually make it the most energy-efficient it could be, but given their remit, they were unable to do that. They could only fund the electrical power component and the switchboards and things like that. That actually felt like the project was not going to be completed, and, in fact, the project didn’t go ahead, because they couldn’t get the funding for the other part of the project. The trust wanted to be able to expand this out so that they could, say, complete a full project for someone in the community, and we think that that is a really good thing to do—and, at the same time, keeping that energy-related charitable purpose at the forefront.

I commend this bill. I want to thank the member again for bringing it. I want to thank my colleagues on the Social Services and Community Committee for the scrutiny of this bill.

Dana Kirkpatrick: Great committee—great committee.

LAURA McCLURE: Absolute great committee—the best committee; no bias at all from us. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support this bill, the Trust Horizon (Trust Variation) Bill, and first also to congratulate Dana Kirkpatrick for her work on this bill. You have been challenged a little bit in the Social Services and Community Committee, but you’ve definitely brought all the information the committee needed, and the way that you’ve shepherded this bill up to this point has been really, really impressive.

The select committee had 38 submissions in total, but we heard from eight oral submissions, and those submissions were quite interesting because they were quite a flavour of the Eastern Bay of Plenty—different people and different groups that came along and spoke to us. They spoke to us in favour of this bill and about how it could create opportunities.

What also happened was, before this came to Parliament, there was actually a poll, and I think that’s worth mentioning as well. There was a poll of—I think it was 3,469 people who took part in that poll, and over 80.7 percent of the people said, “Yes, this is a really good idea.” So there was actually public support to actually see this change go ahead.

As we also realise, this is a private bill, and something I just want to touch on, also sitting on the Standing Orders Committee, where we’re looking at different changes going ahead into the next Parliament: something like this, and the previous bill that’s been already spoken to tonight, there’s a lot of time that’s been taken up in the House with these types of bills. They are worthy in part, but for the amount of time and effort to go through select committee then come through the House and to get the resolution that’s needed—why I draw the House’s attention to that is it is my understanding there are 100-plus bills that are similar to this one and similar to the other one that we’ve already debated this evening. The issue with that is it’s taking up so much of the House’s time, and there needs to be some thought around a more efficient way of actually dealing with these types of issues with trusts.

But Trust Horizon, they did come on their merit, and the bill is with us, and it is about getting a better contribution to the community it serves. As I mentioned, that is the Eastern Bay of Plenty community, and if we just see at the moment on the news across New Zealand the cold weather that is affecting all of us, even here in Wellington with snow falling yesterday, it’s these types of trusts that give so much benefit to communities in what they actually do.

This trust has had a long history since back in 1992. It was formed in the energy sector reforms, and at that time it was the Energy Companies Act 1992 that gave life to this. A deed was written up in 1994, and why we go back to 1994 is because at that time, the purpose was the energy-related purpose of this trust, and that’s something that we’ve got to keep mindful—and the committee was very mindful, and challenged the sponsor a little bit on this, that we didn’t want to lose the original purpose of the bill, and that was to be related back to an energy-related purpose.

The ironic thing is that each year, because this trust has built up so much money—over $200 million in assets—40 percent of the net income goes back into supporting energy transition aims. That’s renewable energy, and that’s something that’s going to continue. But the other 60 percent go towards the local community funding and grants. That’s actually the issue we’ve got here. Ironically, the trust in one sense has too much money. That’s a very rare thing to get up in this House to say that you’ve got too much money, but it’s not actually too much money; they just can’t get it out the door to where they need to get it out to. The idea of actually opening the scope up to other charitable purposes was the idea of this coming to the select committee and then allowing the community to actually access the money, not just for the energy-related purposes but for charitable purposes as well.

We’ve heard from a number of the other speakers that ironic thing that happened where insulation or heating within a building could be granted by the trust, but then we had the situation with the roof. The roof wasn’t classed as something that the trust could fund. That meant that some of the projects that they wished to fund, they had to wait on another third party to come along to fund that part of the project before then they could come along with the charitable energy trust money to fund that. What this actually does is actually opens the door where the trust can fund a full project and get it across the line.

In a previous life, one of my former jobs at the Marlborough District Council was being a hearings commissioner for the Resource Management Act. We always had to use the term, when we were making decisions, of “weighting”—weighting up the weight of a decision or information that you received. This here became the contentious part of this bill, where originally we had the energy-related charitable purpose, and now also adding a charitable purpose to it. The committee, over a number of weeks, discussed at length what actually has the weighting—whether the energy-related issues would always outweigh the charitable purpose, or whether both of those things put together a decision maker could look at either one and then grant. I think where the committee’s come to, not in the fact that we’ve weighted a priority of one or two, but in the decision, we’ve made a decision where we’ve made it quite clear that the energy-related part of the trust is the first thing that they need to be funding and looking at. Then the charitable part should be the second part. But it’s not written in a priority order, but we’ve given that clear direction.

On that, this is a very, very good, common-sense thing that the committee’s taken the time and looked at what is the best use of this money. As I say, having over $200 million that keeps accumulating, and actually to be able to get some more of that out the door, for New Zealand First, makes it common sense. It’s something in our regions. We want to see our regions thrive as much as possible. By making this small change to this trust, we’ll make sure that the eastern Bay of Plenty community can get on with projects. So I commend it to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Mike Davidson—five minutes.

Mr Speaker, thank you. I’m actually very surprised—after listening to the criticism about the amount of time these types of bills take up in the House, and I also understand there’s desire to ensure that some of these bills pass all their stages before the end of the parliamentary term—at the duration of some of the calls that we’ve been hearing tonight. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and speak on the Trust Horizon (Trust Variation) Bill. I wish to commend the member Dana Kirkpatrick, the great member for the East Coast, who’s brought this bill on behalf of her community and has done a sterling job on shepherding this bill through the House. I wish to also just acknowledge the sterling work that Trust Horizon does in its communities. It’s one of those rare organisations that has actually been so good at doing its job that it has over $200 million more than it can spend, which is a highly unusual thing.

Maybe it’s worth just going back a little bit into the history. I think it’s been touched on from a few other speakers, but I think it’s quite important. As a charitable trust, it was established through the sector reforms under the Energy Companies Act 1992. It was established as part of the establishment plan for the Bay of Plenty Electric Power Board back in 1994. It was given a very specific purpose: its purpose was to provide funding for energy-related purposes within its district, which includes Whakatāne, Kawerau, Ōpōtiki, and Kaingaroa. Now, we’ve had quite a discussion in our committee about that original intention and what this bill is intending to do, which is to expand it from just energy-related purposes to allow it to focus on other initiatives in its area of interest and reflect the needs of its community in recognising that this community does have quite a few challenges that are not just energy-related.

We listened carefully to submitters. I want to thank all of those submitters who did both written submissions and oral submissions to our committee. We received submissions from 38 interested groups and individuals, and thank you to all of them. We heard oral evidence from eight submitters. The majority were in support. There was some concern raised by one or two submitters about expanding energy-related definition. We really canvassed this with the trust itself and with advisers. The advice that they had is that they would like to do a lot more, but they were constrained in what they could do, including in things that some members thought would be obviously energy-related, but the advice that the trust had was that would actually be outside of the scope of the legal definition.

So we did carefully consider this as a committee. We recommend the dual purpose that this bill will now have. So it’ll be a consequential insertion of energy-related charitable purposes, and also it has a dual purpose for other charitable purposes. So it’ll be up to the trust to determine those two purposes and how the funds are allocated to the community, but we do and did recommend that the trust continues to give weighting to energy-related charitable purposes where practical—that is “where practical”.

There’s one other thing I should mention, because I’m quite familiar with another trust, which was founded in the same time period. This is down my way—the Central Lakes Trust, which is also founded from the Energy Companies Act 1992 and the Electricity Industry Reform Act 1998, which required power boards to be incorporated, allowing communities to determine how the shares of the new energy companies were held. It’s just interesting to compare the difference between Trust Horizon and Central Lakes Trust, because many communities, including the central lakes down in my part of the world, allocated shares into trusts, as was done here. In this case, in central lakes, while many trusts retained their lines business, with the 1998 reforms, Otago Central Electric Power Board sold their lines business but retained the generation business, now called Pioneer Energy, which is actually a very, very good company. Those assets were settled into the Central Lakes Trust, and it forms part of the investment portfolio which powers their grants. In that case, it was determined that the purposes would be for the relief of poverty, the advancement of education, and other purposes beneficial to the community.

I just raise that to illustrate that different communities at the same time around the country determined different things. On the East Coast in this case, the determination was for energy-related purposes. We, now, fast-forward to 2026, and they’ve realised that they’ve accumulated over $200 million that they think could be better allocated to other things, including energy-related purposes. I know my colleague Sam Uffindell also has communities of interest in this area, and I’ve spoken to both of these great members of Parliament, who are very strongly representing their communities and are both strongly supportive of this bill, and I thank them both for their advocacy and representation of their communities.

There was an example that the trust explained in terms of the challenges they currently face. If they were to fund an energy project, such as installation or heating for a building, at present, a different stream of funding would be needed to build the roof. Broadening the trust purposes, in this case, would allow it to fund projects that are energy-related without relying on another sponsor for other components of the infrastructure. I did hear from another member on this point earlier in the evening, and it’s a very good point that he made. It’s that the roof of a building is, in fact, part of the energy envelope of a building, and should be a really important part of ensuring the energy component that will protect the loss of energy is done properly. But, in this case, the trust had been constrained in the interpretation they’d been given. That’s a good, practical example of how this can actually help with something that is energy-related but had been deemed to be out of scope.

We also did take a close look at whether this could be done by other means. We looked carefully at this, as we do on all of these types of bills, and we were satisfied that the only way we could have this consequential amendment was through the parliamentary process and through this mechanism. Laura McClure did speak earlier—and it’s something we’ve been discussing for a while now as a committee, as we’ve had a few of these bills coming through in this term for these trusts who are needing to come to Parliament to have a change to their empowering trust legislation. It has to come to Parliament: we then have to have a first reading; we then have to have a select committee process; then we have a second reading, as we are tonight; and then a committee of the whole House process; and then the third reading.

Broadly speaking—and, I think, with all of the trust bills, in fact, that we’ve had in this Parliament—we’ve actually all agreed on the outcome and the changes that have been recommended by the trusts with the very broad support of their communities. All of the parliamentarians in my committee that have been discussing this are all in agreement that it would be worth Parliament’s time to look at, actually, a mechanism to—and I see Helen White nodding; thumbs up—

Helen White: Yep.

JOSEPH MOONEY: —to look at a mechanism where a sort of omnibus bill could address scenarios like this, where there is broad agreement, there isn’t controversy, and there could be a mechanism so that all of these types of bills could be changed without coming to Parliament and taking up Parliament’s time. It’s not that we don’t appreciate the opportunity to speak to these communities, to hear from them and to help them empower them to do what they have decided as being in the best interest of their communities, but we think, in cases like this and all the ones we’ve had in this Parliament, that that actually could be done much more effectively. I think that’s a good piece of work for a future Parliament to work on. We’re short on time in this Parliament to do it, but it’s something that we would really like to recommend going forwards.

I’m going to conclude my comments very shortly, but I just wanted to say that I know what a fantastic region that this area covers. I have been fortunate in the past to visit it, including with both members of Parliament who happen to be sitting beside me tonight, who represent different parts of it—oh, and Tom Rutherford; can’t miss Tom. Great members of Parliament. It’s an area that people are very passionate about, and this is fundamentally an opportunity to help empower that community to determine its own destiny. That’s 100 percent something that I think all members of Parliament are in support of. The National Party is, of course, really about strengthening communities, and we want to recommend this bill to the House as an opportunity to build their future.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. Look, we will be supporting this bill, and I want to acknowledge the member who’s shepherded this bill through, Dana Kirkpatrick. It’s always a privilege as a member to shepherd a bill through the House, particularly when it’s got support from the Parliament.

This is a bill that seeks to deliver for members of the Eastern Bay of Plenty region. I’ll tell you what, though: what’s also going to deliver in the same energy space for members of the Eastern Bay of Plenty and much wider will be Labour’s SolarSaver policy, because that is about energy and ensuring that there is investment in areas that will support households who are really finding it difficult in the sense of energy efficiency and actually making a difference when it comes to cost of living. So while the fine folk of the Eastern Bay of Plenty will no doubt benefit from the change that this bill will make in terms of broadening the purpose for the monies to be made available for the community, it’s also good to see that Labour’s SolarSaver policy will also deliver benefits. We commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Unlike the previous speaker, Tangi Utikere, I’m going to take a long time to talk through the many positives associated—

Tangi Utikere: This’ll be different!

TOM RUTHERFORD: This will be different, Tangi Utikere. I’m not going to be standing up here spouting off party-political messaging around it. I’m actually going to talk to the substance associated with the bill, for a nice change—for a nice change. I see a smile on your face, Mr Speaker. It’s a nice change to see a smile, as well.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): There’s no rules against irony, Mr Rutherford.

TOM RUTHERFORD: There’s not, but it’s very clear—it’s very, very clear. Thank you very much.

The first acknowledgment must go to my friend, the exceptionally hard-working member of Parliament for the East Coast, soon to be the East Cape, Dana Kirkpatrick, who has done a phenomenal job not only representing her community—which, as she outlined in her speech leading off this second reading debate, is a really diverse community. If I think of the Eastern Bay of Plenty side and Whakatāne and Ōpōtiki, and then I think of the other side of her electorate with Gisborne and the many, many small communities that make up her East Coast electorate—she does a superb job getting her way around it, listening to those who come and speak with her and raise issues, and then advocating and fighting on their behalf. That is the true testament of a really strong local member of Parliament.

This is a bit of an anomaly of the way Parliament works, where local members of Parliament often have to bring these private bills to fix something. We often stand here, and I can remember, goodness me, it feels like many, many times just in this three-year term where I think, gosh, why is Parliament—not that this isn’t an important change; this is really important, and I’m going to dive into that. But, gosh, why do we have to get here to do this? Why did we actually have to bring this bill to the House to actually bring about this change? Surely there must be a way that we can fix that and make this more streamlined and easier for people, rather than having to—not necessarily waste Parliament’s time, but not have to waste their time waiting for Parliament to deliver that change.

Actually, as I was reading to prepare for my contribution this evening, I noted that, actually, that was one of the changes that is enabled in this piece of legislation—and Dana mentioned it in her contribution, and I thought it was a really worthwhile point, where she mentioned that any future changes actually won’t require coming back to the Parliament to do. It can be done through the court process, and, ideally, they won’t need to do that either. It can just be delivered as we’re intending for it to be.

Ultimately, the bill is about amending the terms of the trustee to broaden the Trust Horizon’s objectives to include any charitable purpose. I think that’s really noble of them. They’ve worked pretty damn hard to raise the funds that they’ve got sitting there, and they want to make sure that they can put it to the best possible purpose across their community. I think that is something that is worth commending. They want to bring about changes that will directly or indirectly benefit their district in the Eastern Bay of Plenty. At present, they are fiercely limited in what they can do. They are limited to objects that are only energy-related projects and purposes for the district. I think, by broadening that, they’re going to have a really positive impact across the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

They were established through the Energy Companies Act 1992, and as part of the establishment plan for the Bay of Plenty Electric Power Board. If I think back to the western side of the Bay of Plenty for a moment, I think we had Trustpower previously. If you were a local consumer of theirs, you would get your cheque in the mail; you would get your Trustpower cheque and that would come off your power bill, and you would get your discounted rate. It doesn’t quite work like that anymore, but what we’ve got instead in Tauranga and the Western Bay of Plenty is a phenomenal organisation called the Tauranga Energy Consumer Trust (TECT), and they do some of the most amazing and incredible work across our community. I look at Sam Uffindell and I look at Jan Tinetti across the House; both are nodding, because often what happens is someone says, “Oh, I’ve got this idea and I’m looking for funding.” The first response they get from almost anybody in our community is, “Have you asked TECT? Have you been to TECT to see whether they would help?” And boy oh boy do they have their fingers in so many pies across our community, bringing about really positive change, that I can just see that happening now for the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

That’s what this bill’s going to enable. I think of the amazing organisations that TECT has been involved in, in Tauranga and the Western Bay of Plenty, and I’m excited for the Eastern Bay of Plenty, because Trust Horizon are going to have that same opportunity. Ultimately, it’s not actually going to be about them; it’s going to be about the people of the Eastern Bay of Plenty who are going to benefit from those positive changes and the positive impacts that this investment is going to have for their future and for the future of their community. We’re talking about people who live in Whakatāne, Kawerau, Ōpōtiki, and Kaingaroa. They’re going to really feel the positive impacts from these changes, and I’m pleased that our Parliament is going to be delivering it.

The trust considers that it’s at its natural limit to the amount of energy-related purposes that it can support within their district, so they’re capped at what they can do at the moment, and they’re saying, “We’ve actually got this money and we want to be able to allocate it to our community. Can you enable us to do it?” They say that they’ve built up over $200 million, and Joseph Mooney, in his contribution just before, actually paid credit to them for being able to even build it up. That takes really fantastic governance and management to have enabled that. I’m really pleased to see that they didn’t actually, you know, get the bazooka out and decide to just spend it all on something; they were actually really sensible and reasoned in their decision making, and I think that’s really positive.

On average at the moment, they’ve distributed about $1.7 million a year, and I note from reading the Social Services and Community Committee’s report here that they are wanting and willing to do more in that space for the Eastern Bay of Plenty. They want to distribute equity to benefit the district through a very broad remit of charitable purposes. I was pleased to hear, also—I wasn’t part of the select committee process, but I was pleased to hear that through that process there was quite significant scrutiny from a number of members who made up the select committee around whether changing that purpose was the right thing to do. That’s the right question to be asking, because, actually, we shouldn’t just rubber-stamp it and say, “Trust the people who have put this forward—this is what they’re wanting.” We actually need to say, “Is this the right thing to do?”—not just for the people standing there now in those governance positions and making those decisions but for the future of the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

A really good example that Dana Kirkpatrick gave in her contribution was that if they wanted to fund a solar panel project, they’d be able to do that, but if the roof it was going to be situated on needed to be repaired, they couldn’t put any money towards that. Most of us would sit here and go, “Gosh, isn’t that just ridiculous? Isn’t that simply so backwards?”: “We’ll give you the solar panels, but, sorry, you’re going to have to do something about that roof, and you’re going to have to do it on your own.” I think this is trying to get out of the way: get that stuff done, give us the easy process so that we can do it, and make some really positive changes.

The other points I wanted to highlight were some other points that Dana raised in her contribution as well around energy remaining fundamental to the prosperity and resilience of her region. It’s a really big challenge, not just for the Eastern Bay of Plenty, and not just for the East Coast, but all of New Zealand, but recognising that Trust Horizon have made a significant contribution to energy initiatives in the Eastern by Plenty over many, many years. Just by changing their purpose here, it won’t stop them from investing in those energy projects moving forward. It’s not saying that they’re not going to do it; it’s just saying we’re broadening the opportunities for them to invest. It’s going to allow their trustees to really respond to the needs of their community, and I think that is a really positive change.

Some of the other things I thought also were around how the bill is introducing a mechanism that would enable them to make further amendments in the future to the trust deed. I talked about this at the start of my contribution, about not having to come back here to Parliament, and I think that’s a really good thing—not that Dana Kirkpatrick wouldn’t be interested in, in future, sponsoring another member’s bill; I’m sure she’ll do many in her long tenure as the MP for East Coast, and soon to be the East Cape. But it’s about saying let’s make some common-sense changes here to improve it and not having to come back to this place again.

It also, in allowing it to go to the High Court rather than having to come back to Parliament, ensures that future changes will be in the interests of the trust and consistent with their charitable purpose while avoiding the need for Parliament to revisit administrative matters that, ultimately, I think are more appropriately dealt with through the courts. I think that’s a really fundamental process and place we need to find. It strikes that balance between flexibility but also some accountability as well.

Just in the final few seconds of my contribution, I just want to acknowledge that, sometimes, Parliament can be a really nice place where political parties can all come together and say, actually, this looks like the right thing to do. Tonight is one of those opportunities, with the previous bill, the Ōtautahi housing one that we just had previously that Dr Megan Woods was bringing to the House—and this side of Government was supportive of it as well. It’s the exact same with the Trust Horizon (Trust Variation) Bill. It’s not about party politics, it’s not about who’s bringing the bill forward and whose name it is in, and it’s not about getting the win for one person over getting a win for somebody else; it’s about what’s best for that community and what is best for our country. So, in that vein, I commend my colleague Dana Kirkpatrick, and I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): This is a five-minute split call.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I remember, back in February it was, when this bill was first brought to the House by the member Dana Kirkpatrick, having the opportunity to speak on this particular bill, the Trust Horizon (Trust Variation) Bill. I remember saying at the time how I had looked up the work of the trust and what an amazing trust they are, given the narrow confines of what they have been able to operate under. I remember thinking how wonderful they will be and they’ll be able to grow on that when they have that extended remit that this bill is giving them.

So I think, with full support of the House, across the House, we’re doing a really good thing here tonight progressing it through to the next stage. I look forward to seeing the work of this trust continue and expand under their expanded remit, including the energy-related purposes that they’ve already had and now including charitable purposes. So, with that, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, I really love a community bill or a member’s bill, because it’s one of those things—when they’re originally made into law, I don’t think anyone having all the right intentions of, you know, turning an energy fund into something for the community would’ve thought, you know, “We’re going to do this and we’re going to ring-fence this funding and we’re going to make it really hard for them to do all these other things.” They would’ve thought, “How good is it that we can have some funding that’s come from our energy revenue and put it back into the community?” The fact that because we’ve made it a law, it then has to come back to Parliament to get changed, because we can see that the things that they intended to do with the bill in that fund are now not quite going to cut the mustard—there’s more that they want to do. They want to take it further, and they see that they can, but, somehow, they have to come back to Parliament and get us to change the law. You know, the world does move on, and so I think it’s great when we can come together and see the rationale behind this and get out of the way.

Look, it’s a National Party value to have limited government and have us involved in these things as little as possible. And, you know what, wonderful too that we have organisations like this that can provide funding to communities, community-led initiatives where the Government doesn’t have to intervene. But here we are today intervening just a little to enable them to do that work so we don’t have to intervene as much. How good is that?

Look, like all of my colleagues, a little bit of credit goes to Dana Kirkpatrick, MP for East Coast—soon to be MP for East Cape. I know how closely connected she is to these communities. Obviously, most people would know Whakatāne; most people would know Ōpōtiki. Kawerau and Kaingaroa—Kawerau is a little energy Mecca, a little geothermal energy Mecca, and we’ve heard a few things—

Dana Kirkpatrick: An industrial epicentre.

KATIE NIMON: Exactly; it is an industrial epicentre, and it’s actually a town that was set up around industry, and so it should benefit from industry. The fact that this trust is established to do this and we are better enabling it to do that is wonderful. Kaingaroa, a little forestry town that really is completely reliant, again, on industry, and lack thereof at times—it’s really important that these sectors and these trusts can do stuff to better support them.

I think no better point was made than my colleague Tom Rutherford, where we want to put solar on your roof—“Sorry, your roof is not fit for solar; we can give you the panels but we can’t fix your roof.” I mean, let’s get out of our own way and do the right thing here. I think this is a wonderful example.

We have an organisation in Hawke’s Bay called Unison—Unison’s our power company. You know, you grow up thinking everyone has Unison, but, actually, they’re regional entities, and they do wonderful things.

Stuart Smith: Mainland.

KATIE NIMON: No, well, look, not in the mainland, Stuart Smith; I’m sure Kaikōura has other wonderful companies that do similar things.

But in Hawke’s Bay, I mean, I’ve had conversations with Unison and the work that they want to do, and they are also bound by the rules of what their funding can go to. As Tom mentioned, also the Hawke’s Bay Power Consumers Trust and the cheque that you get in the mail for having a power bill, and actually what they would really rather do with that as well. We also have the Eastern and Central Community Trust that’s able to support community organisation—for example, in Wairoa a year and a half ago, it opened a new basketball court in Māhia, which is a little part of the Wairoa district, for members of the community. Those organisations are able to do that by listening to the community. And wonderful that the MP Dana Kirkpatrick, who knows these communities inside and out, is able to advocate on behalf of Trust Horizon.

I’d be really keen to know, actually, having not been on the Social Services and Community Committee, some of the people that submitted. Because you think members’ bills obviously really get a lot of passion and emotion and they’re rooted in issues that people have raised. Community bills and private bills like this are usually very technical, very much driven by necessity, and not largely called for from a huge range of people. So you often wonder: do you get the thousands of people writing in that are actually going to benefit from it, because I know how many people will greatly benefit from this change. But I have heard from my colleagues to my side that 36 people submitted. I have no doubt that, actually, in the scheme of things, those 36 people would have had a contribution that’s considered these amendments. I think the amendments as well give great consideration to the fact that we don’t want this trust to stray too far away from its core purpose, which is to stay around energy contribution. So with that, I think that it has been very thoughtful, the changes are clear, and this trust will go on to do great things. With that, I commend the bill to the House.

Mr Speaker, thank you. I was on the Social Services and Community Committee during the consideration of this bill. I think it’s a really good change that we’re making here. I was born in Kawerau, and so it’s close to my heart—

Hon Members: Aw.

HELEN WHITE: Yeah. It’s an area that is wonderful, it’s very beautiful, but it’s also very poor. It’s got a struggling community. So if we can get this bill through by the end of this Parliament, rather than taking full calls on it, I think that would be an excellent thing for that community. Thank you. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s really good to be able to stand and speak on this bill. I want to start by acknowledging the trustees of Trust Horizon, who I understand are watching this from across the eastern bay—kia ora. It’s good to have you here watching, and I know you’ll be proud, just as everyone from around our region is as well.

After that little mention, I’d also like to mention my colleague from the East Coast Dana Kirkpatrick. It’s a real pleasure to be able to get bills like this up and also through the House—second reading today—but with support from the other side of the House as well. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does it’s a good thing, and it’s good to see Parliament operating like this, as they did on the previous bill, the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust (Trust Variation) Bill—that was good to see as well. In the spirit of conviviality, we’ll make this a positive speech about all of the positive things that will be coming from this bill.

Trust Horizon do some excellent work, and they have made significant contributions across the eastern bay over the past several decades. Starting out as the Eastern Bay Energy Trust, now as Trust Horizon, they have contributed over $40 million to projects across the eastern bay.

Katie Nimon: For some really good community projects.

SAM UFFINDELL: That’s absolutely right, Katie Nimon, there would be a number of good community projects. I was looking across their website earlier today, and I saw a number of things they’ve been investing in from apprenticeships—making a huge difference in an area which is a notoriously deprived area, relative to the rest of New Zealand. To have Trust Horizon stepping in and providing those apprenticeships not only makes an impact at that point of time, but over a lifetime for those people and their families as well. Also there’s been mention around the creation of warmer and healthier homes—that is a good thing; that is a really positive thing. The trust needs to be commended for all of the work that they have done in that space.

But like many things, when they set up initially, the purpose is what the purpose was at that point in time, and things have evolved. We’ve got to the stage now where there are greater opportunities for the trust to invest and support the community through other means. Initially, when it was set up, it had quite a tight charitable purpose. It was limited to those with an energy-related purpose. As members who have been sitting through this reading will know, this bill seeks to amend the terms of the Trust Horizon charitable trust deed to allow it to support a broader range of charitable activities within its district. I believe it was my colleague Joseph Mooney who spoke about the key towns and cities in the region and the district being Whakatāne, Kawerau—where the previous member Helen White noted that she was born—Ōpōtiki, and Kaingaroa. I also brought Joseph Mooney into the debate. I understand Joseph was also the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee. Well done to you, Mr Chair, on getting the bill to where it is.

I will acknowledge, I think one of the members said today—it was probably yourself—that there was quite a lot of discussion and pushback and challenge through the process, which is good. It wasn’t just a walkthrough. There was a genuine attempt by committee members to move around and discuss and challenge and ultimately bring a pretty good bit of legislation back to the House.

I’ll talk a bit about some of the opportunities that there are. Look, the eastern bay is close to where I am, obviously, in Tauranga. There’s a lot of interactions. Part of the Bay of Plenty, but we do share a lot of services. There is a lot of stuff that is obviously centred in Tauranga, which is the major population base across the Bay of Plenty, where people from across eastern bay will come in—thinking specifically with the use of health services. I have spoken to people in our community who are very keen on a cancer lodge to be set up close to Tauranga Hospital. This is something that the trust wouldn’t have had that ability to contribute towards, given it isn’t an energy-related purpose; however, it would serve the broader purpose of assisting people from the eastern bay to come into Tauranga, to be able to be accommodated in Tauranga, and seek treatment at Tauranga Hospital. Without that service—and it is still in discussion phases at the moment—this is something that the trust may well consider in due course. But, hopefully, once this bill gets through the future stages—the committee of the whole House and then the third reading—it is something that they would be able to consider.

I note that my colleague from the ACT Party Cameron Luxton has walked in—another person from the bay. You should have been here giving a speech, Mr Luxton. I noticed that my colleague Mr Rutherford did talk about the excellent work that the Tauranga Energy Consumer Trust, colloquially known as TECT—

Tangi Utikere: What about this one?

SAM UFFINDELL: —does across our region. Jan Tinetti is here as well—kia ora, Jan Tinetti. But what a fantastic entity TECT is. You can walk anywhere into Tauranga and across the western bay with a charitable purpose, and you will see who the funders are—almost without exception, you will see TECT on the wall. Mr Rutherford was absolutely right: whenever anyone comes and says, “Look, I’ve got this community project that we want to look at, what would be your suggestion?”, one of the first questions would always be: “Have you spoken to TECT?” They are a fantastic organisation that serves their community incredibly well.

I have hopes and aspirations—as I know Dana Kirkpatrick will as well—that Trust Horizon will be able to provide that level of community care and support throughout the eastern bay. This bill brings us one step closer to this. I was reading, as well—and believe one of the other speakers mentioned it—that the trust has accumulated over $200 million in assets. That is a substantial capital base and assets that it cannot effectively distribute due to its narrow mandate. There’s only so much in energy-related projects that you can distribute towards, but I know that there will be a significant number of sports clubs out there, or schools—you name it—any number of community interest groups or organisations that are going, “Hey, this is a really good day for the Eastern Bay.” I know that those trustees watching this will be thinking the same.

Katie Nimon: They’re thinking, “Oh my gosh, the floodgates are about to open.”

SAM UFFINDELL: They may be thinking that the gates will be opening, Ms Nimon, on the applications to come through. With all good deeds and intentions comes an increased workload, but also comes increased purpose and, obviously, a feeling of community spirit and real pride that an organisation you’re a part of is able to deliver more and more to a community that genuinely needs it. I’m really happy to see this.

There has also been some futureproofing of the bill—of what may be the future bill—to allow amendments to the trust terms without needing to come back to the House and relitigate it through here. I think that is a sensible, common-sense approach from the committee, where that came in. I know you did have quite a few submitters, Mr Mooney, I believe—

Katie Nimon: Thirty-six apparently.

SAM UFFINDELL: —36 from memory—good memory, Katie Nimon—and I believe eight of those were also oral submissions that came in. I’d imagine a high proportion of those were in favour of where we were heading, which is good.

Joseph Mooney: The vast majority.

SAM UFFINDELL: Almost all of them—excellent. In closing, I just want to say, look, this is a really good bill. I am supportive of it. The National Party is supportive of it. This is going to improve community outcomes across the Eastern Bay. Well done, Trust Horizons, and well done to my good friend and colleague, Dana Kirkpatrick, on her shepherding of this bill through its second reading today. I commend it to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Rachel Boyack—this is a 5-minute Te Pāti Māori call.

Thank you. Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take the final call on the Trust Horizon (Trust Variation) Bill. Can I also acknowledge the member who has had the opportunity to shepherd the bill through the House, Dana Kirkpatrick. I had the opportunity to take a private bill through the last term of Parliament—not to be confused with a member’s bill; they are quite distinct—so congratulations. It’s always an honour to take a bill through the House on behalf of your community.

We also had discussions in the Governance and Administration Committee last term about the amount of time that these bills do take up in the House. They do tend to belong to institutions that are somewhat older—that began when it was usual practice to have an Act of Parliament governing an organisation rather than a constitution, as is now the common practice. I do agree with members’ comments that there are perhaps ways that the Parliament could look at these bills slightly differently.

The Labour Party supports this. It’s excellent to see an organisation looking to further expand their charitable purpose and how they can make stronger benefits into their community. That has been well traversed by many members tonight, so I’m not going to be the one to get in the way of this bill passing so that this trust can continue their excellent work. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Local Government (Management of Local Authorities) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed from 22 July.