SpeechIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to take a call on the Thomas Cawthron Trust Amendment Bill in 2022. The bill has been brought to the House on behalf of the Thomas Cawthron Trust by the member for Nelson Rachel Boyack who's also a statutory trustee and I'll get into that part of it in a little while.We don't often get private bills through Parliament so it's quite interesting and it will be very interesting to see it go to the select committee. Unfortunately it's not coming to the best select committee in the House; I understand it's going elsewhere and I don't know what I'm doing speaking on it but I'm here—because I really only speak on things that concern the Governance and Administration Committee the best select committee in the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps by popular demand Mr McKelvie.IAN McKELVIE: Thank you Mr Speaker. When one visits Nelson one immediately knows you're in a place that's different than just about anywhere else in New Zealand. I'm not going to comment on the quality of it but it certainly is a nice place to go to. But the thing that's so different about Nelson is that once you get past the apples the wine the grapes the hops and a little bit of dairy and sheep you get to a lot of forestry and a lot of fishing—both topics that I've had interests in in my time in the House and both very fascinating things. Certainly Nelson was the largest fishing town—or port or city—in New Zealand and contains branches of all the largest fishing companies in New Zealand and certainly is the home base to at least two of those large fishing companies. It has by far the largest fishing fleet in New Zealand and it's a very important industry to Nelson—and I'll tell you what that's got to do with the Cawthron Trust in a minute. A little down the road one comes across a very special entity the Cawthron Institute. The Cawthron Institute as the previous speaker Rachel Boyack said was started as a result of what can only be described as an extraordinarily generous gift by a benefactor of some £230000. Now there's not many of us in the House that can remember pounds; I can. I'm not saying you can Mr Speaker but I can. And I could tell you that's a lot of money and that was in the year I think round about 1905 or something like that. It was an awful lot of money.Chris Penk: What was that like?IAN McKELVIE: I can't remember that. None the less the Cawthron Institute is a very special entity and it was formed as a result of that gift. It was formed really to I guess help the New Zealand agriculture industry at the time and to provide scientific backing to that industry. But of course Nelson's changed a lot since then and the institute has certainly changed its emphasis too to be much more concerned with things that are connected to the Nelson community and to the Nelson population. Now it spends a lot of its time addressing issues related to the oceans to fishing to the vast seafood industry that includes the salmon industry and the mussel industry. And particularly Cawthron's had a great impact on the mussel industry over the years with their research into spat and things like that so they've had a very significant impact in the community that they operate in. The Cawthron Institute employs some 300 scientists and it's really quite interesting when you look through the list of them. There's a lot of scientists there—and I don't know whether scientists get paid better than MPs; they probably do—so they would add a significant amount to the Nelson economy those scientists that are employed in Nelson. No doubt there are some employed elsewhere in the country and the world as well.So it is a very significant organisation for Nelson and to bring a bill to the House to change an entity that has been around for over 100 years and to change it in a manner that maintains its relevance today is pretty important. One of the things that really interests me about this reading through the notes that we were provided by Rachel is that it has a statutory board effectively set up. It's probably quite unusual in New Zealand now to have a board set up for a start with an Anglican bishop on it—sorry Mr Speaker—but it also has the Mayor of Nelson the local MP and it has community leaders on that board. And whilst that trust board operates the trust it doesn't operate the business of Cawthron I don't imagine for a minute. None the less it sets the parameters for the CEO and the CEO and the board operate the Cawthron Institute from there and direct what it does. So it's probably a very stable organisation and set up very well. And so the bills come to the House effectively to change some of those things that after a hundred years clearly need changing. And as the previous speaker said some of those issues have been created by rulings of the courts over the years and I think it's typical of New Zealand and I suppose our penchant for trusts because there are an awful lot of trust in New Zealand and many of them date quite quickly—in spite of the fact that we think they're going to see us out. And so the fact that they date means they need to be resurrected and altered quite frequently. And so what this bill sets out to do is to modernise some of those issues to ensure the stability of the Cawthron Trust to ensure the trustees are protected within the role they're expected to do and also to appoint a new trustee from the Te Tauihu iwi. That just adds I guess another statutory trustee and gives them a place on that trust. And I understand that the chairman John Palmer has spent a lot of time making sure that that negotiation is satisfactory and that it works well for both parties. And as I said before it contains the MP for Nelson the Mayor of Nelson the Mayor of the Tasman District and the Anglican Bishop of Nelson. And I think a previous Mayor of the Tasman District may also be on the board of the entity itself. So it is an interesting organisation. It's an interesting thing that we've got to bring a private bill to Parliament to alter it. But I think when you see the magnitude of that organisation and the contribution it makes to New Zealand as well it's well worth this Parliament's time investigating further through the select committee process where it gets to and ensuring that this bill goes back in the form that both the trust the community and the Parliament want it to be presented back in. I can't resist the opportunity to talk very briefly about I suppose the establishment that I think succeeded Cawthron as an agricultural institute in New Zealand and provided the research and development for agriculture of course which is in the Rangitīkei electorate in the Massey University. And Massey University of course is a very important part of our agricultural and productive sector in New Zealand as we speak today. That was one of the reasons that Thomas Cawthron set this institute up of course. It was to do the things that are now to some extent carried out by other entities in New Zealand. But they have found not quite a niche because they're pretty broadly spread and they're even into growing such things as algae for many many years trying to find ways of growing algae in a more efficient manner because algae historically has been a pretty inefficient—well we'd imagine it's inefficient because you need such a vast lot of water and such a vast lot of sunlight and of course Nelson would tell you they have sunlight but we have sunlight in the Manawatū too. Even in Wellington there's sunlight. But you need a lot of sunlight and a lot of water to grow algae effectively and it's I suppose an onerous process. They are going through that process and they're looking at alternative forms of that and of course some of those—[Baby cries] Point of order Mr Speaker. I didn't know I had that effect on people!DEPUTY SPEAKER: It aroused some in the House Mr McKelvie!IAN McKELVIE: Obviously not everyone's asleep. So I suppose I've probably got almost to the end of where I wanted to be but I just want to talk about one or two other Nelson entities that Cawthron has a significant impact on: one of those being King Salmon. When you look around the world the salmon industry around the world is moving at a great pace. We have some challenges in New Zealand with it because we're I guess a little more challenged as to where we can locate these things from an environmental perspective. But certainly that company has benefited from research done by Cawthron. It certainly looks around the world for opportunity and again the fishing industry as a whole and the industries that Cawthron service really rely on us having a decent set of environmental laws that enable people to do what they want to do. So from the National Party's perspective we totally support it. We'd be very interested to see where it gets to in the select committee. It's a shame it's not coming to a good select committee but none the less they'll manage it well I'm sure. And that's probably my lot.