Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki-King Country): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well it really is a pleasure this afternoon to be speaking on this bill. In my time in Parliament we've dealt with a lot of bills that perhaps come from the 1950s or the 1960s or a relevant amount of time ago but very seldom do we ever deal with one that comes from 96 years ago and actually from 1927—and it really is a no-brainer to be working on the updating of this bill.I really do want to commend the Governance and Administration Committee—I'm an ex-member and a chair of that committee and it really is interesting and I have worked with Rachel Boyack in the past and there are some very interesting pieces of legislation that come through there. And perhaps I can sort of understand—having not been on the committee through that phase—thinking about how we might deal with some of these bills in the future because the time and effort that churches and other groups have to go through in getting a bill like this passed through Parliament can be quite onerous and for a lot of groups are also quite costly unless there are some charitable legal options that they're able to take in terms of people doing some of the work for them.I also have noted that the church has been extremely good and I've taken a lot of lead from the Hansard on the first reading particularly the speech done by the Hon Grant Robertson talking about how the church has provided important community services for the people of Wellington and worked really hard on issues like climate change working for families living wage—a range of things in the social justice area. And I must say that at a time where we've only got a matter of hours left in this House and sometimes the tensions of politics—particularly at election time—tend to take over and tolerance disappears it's actually really nice to be standing here and working with a group of people who have provided so much tolerance and love for all. And if it means that we become more tolerant of each other in this House then maybe you might like to come back more often because at the moment it's having a really good effect on the House of Parliament.So the bill has been through significant consultation with the St Peter's parish community and I have to say from all accounts—and not having any involvement in this but the feedback that I've had is that the church has worked extremely hard to get the bill to this stage. It is a significant achievement and you should all be proud of where you've got this to. We note that the bill restricts the size of the distributions to the lesser of either the amount of income earned in the current year or the amount of income earned in the preceding year. And for good reason the trust board wishes to amend the deed to resolve this. So now the bill basically states in clause 5 that the Trust may … distribute up to 4% of the [trust] fund in [any] financial year … lend to the parish … [and is able to] make … additional distribution[s]"—in certain circumstances up to a limit of 20 percent. I can understand why the Governance and Administration Committee have had a discussion about "certain" and "exceptional" circumstances except that I can also understand how that could be very hard to define and probably something that is probably best left to the judgment of those who sit on the trust board because each exceptional and certain circumstance may end up being quite different and we hope that you don't face too many of those because often they come in adverse situations.So the St Peter's Endowment Fund according to the information I've been given is worth $5.7 million in land property and financial security. So I must say over the course of many many years it has been a very soundly-run fund which has been put to some extremely good use. And I think it's commendable that the trustees wish to modernise and reflect because modernising after 96 years is a very fair request. To take account of the provision of all relevant legislation that currently exists a lot has changed in 100 years. I lost my grandmother about 2½ years ago and she was 104 years of age and I often reflect on the things that she would have seen in her lifetime and it's really been interesting probably for her and many other people who have the luck of reaching that age—hopefully in good health—that they do see a lot of change in their lifetime. Certainly 96 years is a fair period for a piece of legislation to be lasting.So Crown Law did advise the trust board that to vary the provisions of the trust deed they must seek to do this through a private Act of Parliament which of course is why we're here now and it has taken quite a considerable amount of time but we're here now—and I really think that this is a very good bill to enable the trust board to lend to the St Peter's Anglican Parish in Wellington but also to be able to carry out the good work that they've been carrying out through until this time. So with that it's my pleasure to commend this bill to the House. Thank you."