Carter Trust Amendment Bill

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Carter Trust Amendment Bill in its second reading. Charles Rooking Carter is the reason we’re here tonight talking about this bill, and we’re really fortunate that we had people in our community like Charles Rooking Carter and the legacy that he’s actually left. I want to congratulate Mike Butterick for supporting this bill through to the Social Services and Community Committee. You’ve done a great job to champion this all the way through the committee. I also just want to recognise our first-reading speaker Andy Foster, who’s recently moved to the Wairarapa and who gave a very good overview of the reasons around this amendment bill.

Charles Rooking Carter was an amazing person. He was a builder, a contractor, and a farmer. He was a politician in this House not that long ago, and he was a very generous New Zealander. As we realise, he died in 1986, but he was a pivotal leader in the Wairarapa. The Carter Home for Aged Poor Men is what he originally set up, and, as we know, over a number of decades, the purpose there has changed, but that still runs today. The Carter Society now runs this set-up, and they’ve got roughly around about 10 units, the retirement village, and 40 independent senior rental units, so it is quite substantial in that sense.

This legislation in front of us is to make it a more efficient way of running the legacy of Charles Rooking Carter and to help the operations of the Carter Court home. What we’re trying to do here also is so that the Minister of Health will no longer have to approve any changes. That will be taken away, because the society will then be running this under their steam. The bill removes, as I say, the Carter Trust, but it gives a small amount of money—and it is, in today’s money, $50,000—directly to the Anglican Parish of Carterton, and the Carter Society receives the rest of that money. It is substantial. Who knows the value of that—it could be somewhere in the tens of millions of dollars. I think we estimated in our first reading around $12 million worth of assets.

Through the select committee hearings, we received just the 12 submissions; two of them were received orally through the hearing process. Obviously, the Carter Trust was the promoter of the bill, but we did hear from the Public Trust that is the trustee. The barrister who represented the Public Trust and the Carter Trust, David McLay, came in on a number of occasions and talked through the changes for the Carter Society and to the trust.

The two issues that I want to raise that were quite topical through the discussions are the upkeep of Mr Carter’s grave. We heard through those discussions that the Carter Society produced an affidavit to the committee agreeing to the upkeep of that grave. In the piece of legislation here, you don’t see that, but there is an affidavit, in behind, that gives the upkeep of that grave, and I think it’s very, very important. The other piece that the committee did deal with was the proposed amendments around removing section 12, which was around the fees. As I say, the Minister of Health is no longer needing to be involved. What we did find, through the Residential Care and Disability Support Services Act 2018—that’s the set nationally agreed maximum contribution for contracted care services, and that sets the rates. What we find now is the Carter Court care home is a signatory to that Act, so there’s no need for ministerial involvement in setting the fees. That’s the reason section 12 was removed.

In closing, I just want to say that New Zealand First supports the intention of the bill, and we admire the foresight of Charles Rooking Carter in helping vulnerable New Zealanders. New Zealand First has a long and proud history of supporting our regions, and the Carter Trust has been a been a pillar of the Wairarapa for over 130 years. This legislation provides the ways and means to ensure that the assets intended for the aged poor continue to benefit the seniors in the most cost-effective way possible. On that, I commend the bill to the House.

Kia ora e te Pīka. I’ve been in Parliament for a few months now and been in this House a number of times, and I think the only thing I’ve learnt from that side of the House is how to do a short call. I support this bill.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on the second reading of the Carter Trust Amendment Bill. I had the privilege of chairing the Social Services and Community Committee, which heard submissions on this bill. I want to take the opportunity to also acknowledge that it’s been sponsored by the great MP for Wairarapa, Mike Butterick. The Carter Trust was a charitable trust established through the will of Charles Rooking Carter, and I do want to join other colleagues in the House in just acknowledging his foresight in generating income to establish and maintain a home for aged poor men, as it was called at the time. This bill will, basically, allow this to be modernised and for his intention to carry on.

There were a couple of small amendments we made in the select committee. One was that we were concerned about the provision for the upkeep of Mr Carter’s grave. It wasn’t something that he had in his original will, but we think, over time, that’s clearly become important, so we wanted to ensure that would continue, and we received assurances that it would and were satisfied that that did not need to be included in this legislation. The other was whether the Ministry of Health needed to be consulted in setting the fees for long-term residential care. We noted that that’s already controlled by the Residential Care and Disability Support Services Act 2018, which sets a nationally agreed maximum contribution for contracted care services. We’re satisfied that that’s already addressed under legislation and didn’t need to be included in this legislation, so we recommended that be taken out to ensure that this can be administered as well as possible.

The final thing I would say, and this something that the Parliament may well consider at another point in time, is whether an omnibus bill would be appropriate at some point to deal with bills of this nature. We do have many of these kinds of Acts on the book, and I think there is scope to do something about them in the future. Apart from that, this has been a very good process—very collegial at the select committee—and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of this bill. I join my colleague on the other side of the House in supporting the idea of perhaps streamlining the way we deal with these bills. They are important, but I think that an improvement could be made.

I also just wanted to say, as the spokesperson for community and voluntary services for the Labour Party, that it’s actually really important that people, like Mr Carter, make these kinds of bequests. We have a whole lot of people who are baby boomers, and they are people who it would be lovely to see look at things like this and see that we handle them carefully, and we adhere to the purpose in the great sense. It would be great to see people follow suit and generously leave bequests, because we desperately need to boost philanthropy in this country. Thank you, I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It really is a pleasure to be able to contribute in the second reading of this bill, the Carter Trust Amendment Bill. I didn’t have the pleasure of being on the Social Services and Community Committee with my colleagues, but I know that good work is being done here. I want to commend my colleague and my friend Mike Butterick for shepherding this bill.

I also would like to acknowledge—Mr Butterick brought it to my attention, because he’s in the second-best electorate in the country after Takanini. I’d like to welcome Mr David McLay, the legal practitioner, also helping with the good work being done here. He’s in the House tonight. Thank you for making your way here, but also thank you for the guidance and the expertise. It really has been instrumental with the kaupapa and taking it forward. There’s a lot of complexities with situations like this. It’s good to know, hearing from my friend Mike Butterick, that you were able to alleviate some of the concerns and keep the wairua, the underpinning, of the original intent of Mr Carter with these changes. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The next call is a split call—call No. 10. I think it’s between the Labour Party and the National Party.

Greg Fleming: Mr Speaker? Yeah, it was a split call.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): It was a split call. Usually the Labour Party goes first, but we’ll go ahead—Greg Fleming.

I rise to take a short call on this. I just acknowledge the contribution of my friend and colleague Joseph Mooney. I just want to echo his suggestion that it might be possible in future for these kinds of bills—the best use of the House—to be dealt with in the manner that he suggested. On that one, can I just mihi to the whole House in the way that today’s members’ day is being progressed and the amount of legislation that we are going through rapidly. It’s fantastic, and long may it last. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much. I rise in full support of this. This is long overdue, and the Carter Society do tremendous work in the Carterton community. They’ve been working on this for quite some time, and I’m really pleased to see—acknowledging Mike Butterick for bringing this on their behalf. I’m pleased to see that it has the full support of the House. I understand that the next bill on the Order Paper is likely to have the same, and I’m confident, on the bill that follows that, at least the discussion will be done in a respectful manner, and that’s exactly how a members’ day should be conducted.

This bill will make a tremendous difference to the trust, who have been constrained by the rules that were set a very long time ago. It is a valid question as to why we need to debate legislation in the House for individual trusts that simply just want to evolve with the modern requirements of the needs in their community, but nevertheless we are here. I’m pleased to speak on behalf of it and I’m looking forward to it passing.

I rise in support of the Carter Trust Amendment Bill and would also like to echo my colleagues and the wonderful work of Mike Butterick, MP for Wairarapa, for bringing this to the House—obviously, a very important bill. I’d just like to also acknowledge the Social Services and Community Committee members, and Joseph for his comments as well.

Obviously, we really support philanthropy and the work of Charles Rooking Carter and would like to acknowledge him, the centre of this bill, as well. This allows his legacy to carry on, so I commend it to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Trust Horizon (Trust Variation) Bill

First Reading