Costley TimTIM COSTLEY (National—Ōtaki): It's a pleasure to speak again on this bill. I've become quite a fan of this bill and not just because I believe that our country is at its best when our community is at its best and when we are looking after each other and we're not reliant on the Government for everything but we work together and we contribute what we can—and no better example will we find that back at the start of the last century than that of Allan McLean—but also because I guess my ancestors were MacLeans of Duart and my dad was a good Canterbury man. So if he were here he'd still love to know that we were—Hon Nicola Grigg: I knew there was something I liked about you. TIM COSTLEY: Well we all have our secrets don't we? Now I want to start by reflecting on some of the notes that we did get back from the select committee themselves when they considered it and in particular on their belief that the changes proposed in this bill were consistent with the wishes of the late Allan McLean. There's a couple of key changes I'd like to focus on—particularly recitals (6) and (10A) in the preamble of the bill and clause 24 of the Schedule itself—but I want to first just reflect on this comment that these changes are consistent with the wishes of the late Allan McLean. Of course it can be difficult for us to know. As previous members have reflected it was a different time it was a different age there was different language and there were different customs at the time and different social norms. So to try and understand whether this is the same and whether we are keeping with that original intent—particularly for those adjoining us in the gallery today and those that may be watching or listening from home—let me take you back. Let me take you on a journey back almost 200 years ago—200 years back—to when the young Allan McLean was just a 14-year-old boy in the Scottish Isles. His dad was working in copper mines and trading between Ireland and Scotland and tragically he was killed in a shipwreck. They managed to get the body ashore but they couldn't save him. Young Allan McLean with an older brother a younger brother two younger sisters and his mum was left to work the family farm to try and make a living. As we've heard just four years later there was crop failure after crop failure. A terrible time struck this family and so they made the tough decision that the five kids and mum would move overseas. They'd heard about this fantastic country at the other end of the world. A paradise in the Pacific—what better place could there be? Unfortunately they ended up in Australia but you can't get everything you want. But they travelled to Australia and they made a new life for themselves there and they lasted a few years working in the goldmines trading gold collecting gold and selling it. They set up their own store at the time because there were no banks and there was nothing else in this area and they worked hard. They made a living for themselves until disaster struck again. They found out about a plot to kill the oldest brother John. But they were warned by what's described by the McLean Institute as a Chinese man who swam across a nearby river to get to the other side to warn them in time so that they could escape and indeed they did. They made good their escape and they never forgot that goodwill. In fact they took this Chinese gentleman by the name of Fan So with them to New Zealand. He became a lifelong companion and lifelong friend and someone they always looked after and that tells us a little of that character of the McLeans. In fact they were known—and I'll read the quote. They were known in Australia for having loyal hearts gracious manners and a real will to work hard." When they got to New Zealand they were known for their courage for their steadfastness and for their faith in others. I looked back through the Hansard from the second reading of this bill to try and find what other values we can learn about Mr McLean and here are the values that I've found mentioned specifically—and I quote—strong families caring communities personal responsibility loyalty to country and competitive enterprise. I googled those values because they sounded fantastic. I could only find them collectively in one place and that place was the National Party website. So I'm not suggesting that he was a foreman to the National Party but indeed he shared the values that a vast number in this House share and great values they are for every Kiwi. But he made his money and he made his living there and I think it's a great story that tells us of him. As he has moved he retired from the farm into a small cottage in Christchurch and he said "I want plans drawn up for this house." They came to him with plans for a four-bedroom house and he said "No I didn't say a four-bedroom house; I said a 40-bedroom house." and they were thinking "Why would this old gentleman want to have a 40-bedroom house at this late stage in life?" He hadn't married and he had no children of his own and it wasn't until his death and until his will was read that they realised this benevolent intent behind it and that he wanted to set up what we now speak about today as the McLean Institute: to look after others. So when we think about this bill and when we think about the changes that we're considering I think we have a real taste of who Allan McLean was. He was someone who cared for others and someone who wasn't afraid to work hard for himself and for his family and who was faithful to those around him but who was also intent on helping others and we must reflect—as the member opposite did just before—on what it was his mum went with. He was in those dark places those dark times with his mum. They were what was known as the dark '40s—the 1840s of course—when those crops failed when he lost his dad and his mum was widowed and when they went to Australia and she saw her son's life threatened and they had to once again flee the country and hence maybe that's the spring of his intent to look after others. So we move to the bill itself and the technical changes and I did just want to reflect on a couple in particular. One of the key ones that is being made here is the change not just to recital (10A) in the preamble which sort of highlights it but it's perhaps better captured—in view of the time—in clause 6 where it talks about the fact that although the McLean Institute was incorporated in this Act of Parliament in 1909 from that point on Part 3 of the Charitable Trusts Act 1957 applied to the institute and the fund. What that really means is that instead of having to come to an Act of Parliament to make changes it can be done by the trust board itself or it can be done through the High Court and those specific clauses for each one are set out in recital (24) in the Schedule to the bill where it sort of goes through them. If I can just give an example of a modern-day charity to kind of help people to understand what the difference might be I was the founder of a charity called the Missing Wingman Trust. It's a charity that supports air force families when someone is killed injured wounded or ill—what we call our Kiwi family. I'm grateful for the advice we had when setting it up from firstly retired Air Commodore Tim Walshe but also to Tim Foss the accountant and particularly to Mark Sinclair who was the lawyer who gifted his time and his services to help us set up the trust. His guidance was very appropriate and I am mindful of it today as I read these changes to this trust. It was set up in such a way that if changes were needed to be made as can be done now with the McLean Institute they can be made by either the trust board—for example we just went from six trustees to seven in order to bring in a little bit more diversity to the trust. Having the ability to do that as a trust board without having to go through Parliament and without having to make significant variations to the trust deed and register them with the court makes the trust more efficient and it makes it more effective but it also saves us from having to go through this particular journey that we go through with this unique one because it was founded through an Act of Parliament. As well as that there was advice to keep the objects of the trust—i.e. what it is that the trust can do—broad and to keep the definitions of beneficiaries broad. In fact Mr McLean was very specific in his definitions and we've heard about some of those. But they were only to look after gentlewomen or "women of refinement or education in reduced or straitened circumstances" and "children not being over the age of ten". He went on to say that it was for "persons of the female sex not being under the age of eighteen [or] children … over the age of ten" and I did hear the comments from members on the other side of the House who were concerned about omissions of this definition or another. I guess the point that I would make as I reflect on this is to ask what's most important to us. Is it to set broad objects and broad beneficiaries and then to pick good trustees and to trust them to do the job? You don't want to have them hamstrung at every corner. You'd want people to be able to go out and make good decisions and I think about some of the families that we've supported through the Missing Wingman Trust—air force families. They weren't the ones you might expect—those that were tragically killed in some high-profile crashes or who were injured in air craft incidents—but in fact it was those ones that can slip through the cracks. I think of a young woman who had a child that was tragically stillborn. Actually she needed far more support than some of the more high-profile or public ones. I think of a young dad who lost the mum of his three kids and now he has to give up work and to work part-time to look after the kids as well and he needed more support than perhaps those we might expect. So what matters here is that we set the conditions that allow them to thrive into the future. We can't predict the future but we can plan and protect ourselves from it and that's what this bill is doing. I commend this bill to the House."