Parker David: Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill — In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
Parker David: Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill — In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
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Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I hope that the Television New Zealand charter ensures that that last speech is played on public TV—played again and again on public TV. 
It would be an overstatement to say that the gallery is full for the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill but I am sure that former old boys of Christ’s College are fairly represented in the gallery for the momentous occasion of the Committee stage of this bill. Indeed at one stage I saw Rod Oram one of New Zealand’s most notable financial journalists up there; he was there for just a second. I thought “Well I did not know he went to Christ’s College.” I knew he had the accent but then I thought— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: He’s still there! 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: No Mr Oram is not there now. Then I thought to myself that Mr Oram actually got that accent because he was born in England and that he was not a Christ’s College graduate. So I had to correct myself and say that not all of the people who are crowding the gallery today are former Christ’s College members. 
The governing board of Christ’s College came to Parliament and said that it needed to change the terms of its empowering legislation because the current legislation was too restrictive about the purposes to which it could put money donated to the school. Trust law requires that if a donation is given to an institution on trust it can be spent only for the purposes that are set out in the original donor’s intention. The purposes of the trust cannot be unilaterally changed by the trustee. The trustee—in this case Christ’s College—is bound to apply the money in those trusts to the purposes for which the donor of those moneys gave them. 
There are good reasons for those rules at law; otherwise the purpose for which donations are made could effectively be varied by the people who are trustees and put to some different purpose the original donor would not have agreed to. For this reason there are restrictions at law about changing those terms of trust. There are different ways that one can in some circumstances change the purposes of a trust. One can go to the High Court in respect of each trust and make an application to vary the terms of that trust if the terms had become redundant. There are provisions in the Trustee Act that enable an application to be made in respect of an individual trust so that the purposes to which that money can be put can be varied because the original purposes have become impractical. The term “impractical” does not mean that the trustees have just changed their minds to think that the money could be applied in a better way because that is not a legitimate ground. It has to be that the original ground has become impossible effectively to be carried out in accordance with the donor’s wishes because of some change of events in the meantime. That is the background to this bill. 
Christ’s College which is a venerable and old institution has had many donations over the years from some of its well-to-do former pupils who have wanted to put something back into the community via their donation to the school for a particular purpose. But that purpose has been frustrated as a consequence of some change in the intervening period. We have had examples of that. One of the examples we were given at the Government Administration Committee was about a donation for the benefit of the children of former servicemen in World War I. Not many servicemen from World War I are still alive; indeed there are none in New Zealand now. There are certainly no Gallipoli veterans left alive in New Zealand. I do not know whether there is even one serviceman left from World War I. It may be that before the last of them passed on from this world they left progeny who are still not of school age. But if there are children of World War I veterans that is not a very big class of beneficiaries these days. 
The Christ’s College trustees quite understandably said that they needed to vary the terms of that particular trust. I think from memory that some tens of thousands of dollars—it may even be over $100000—is now sitting by way of accumulated interest as well as the original trust fund and is available to be put towards some purpose. But the school feels that it cannot meet the terms of that trust; there is a need to vary it so that that money can be put to some other good purpose for the school. 
One of the things that we on the Government Administration Committee had to check—and I served on that select committee along with National members and other Labour members—was whether the range of new purposes to which those funds could be applied was too wide. That arose from our consideration which involved a consideration of the existing trust terms. I know that that matter was of concern to Jacqui Dean as well as to Grant Robertson to me and to others on the committee. We were a little uncertain in fact about whether we were convinced that in all of these cases the terms of the existing trust could not be adequately adhered to. In particular I was concerned about some of the trusts that were effectively for the benefit of pupils coming from lower-income families to the school. I took some convincing that there were not appropriate people in existence in the community or school who could have had those funds applied for their benefit. I do not accept that in some of those trust situations there were not appropriate people within the class of potential beneficiaries for whom the moneys in the trust could be properly and legally applied if those in authority at Christ’s College wanted to do that. For that reason the select committee has sought information from and asked questions of the representatives of Christ’s College about whether that might be the case. Those representatives conceded that that might be so in some cases and they also agreed to the insertion of a provision in the legislation to make it clear that before they could change the way in which this money was spent they had to be—[ 
Interruption 
] Oh Nikki Kaye was also on the select committee paying particular attention to this. I say I am sorry to the members of the extensive Christ’s College former community in the gallery that I forgot to mention Nikki Kaye; I am sorry about that. 
In any event we decided that it was to be made clear that the terms of trust could not be varied unless there was a need to vary them and where there was a need to vary the purposes of the trust the new purpose for which the money could be applied had to be as close as possible to the old purpose. Although it might be true that there are not many children of World War I veterans around there are no doubt relatives of people who have served in the armed forces in the Christchurch area and they could be the beneficiaries of some of the moneys of that particular trust. Similarly in respect of some of the sporting prizes that are now redundant because those codes are no longer popular there are now new sporting codes that have become popular in the intervening period and the moneys could still be applied to support a sporting code. 
I think that is the essence of what the preamble attempts to achieve when it states: “(2) Over time some of the purposes have become redundant uncertain as to application impractical to implement or the income derived from the property is inadequate or in excess of the amount necessary for the purposes …”. In respect of the amount being in excess of what is necessary for the purpose I would be very surprised if those in authority at Christ’s College could suggest that the money intended to be applied to people who were not of great means would be in excess of the amount that could be applied to that purpose. I would hope that those in authority at Christ’s College will see that if they have that sort of purpose then they might need to change slightly the class of people they are looking at applying it to so that beneficiaries do not necessarily have to be the children of old boys but could be other impecunious persons. None the less the money could be used for effectively helping people from lower-income groups rather than being applied to some building project or sporting project. 
Those are my initial contributions on this bill. I am sure that my colleagues will want to make some other more erudite comments for the edification of the many old boys in the gallery. Thank you. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Before I call the next member I will make a little comment. The Committee of the whole House has chosen to debate this bill clause by clause as it is wont to do. No one has transgressed yet but I should say that we will be pursuing the matter of relevance as we work our way through this debate. That is a general comment to the Committee.