Goudie Sandra: Māori Trustee Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoudie Sandra: Māori Trustee Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 05 May 2009. Volume:654;Page:2857. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel):I am delighted to support the Māori Trustee Amendment Bill. It appears that there is general support for the bill from throughout the Committee and that is rightly so. When one looks at Part 2 one sees that it is largely procedural. It is about the procedural matters to do with the Māori Trustee and with the Māori Trust Office. I looked up the current legislation regarding the Māori Trust Office because I was interested to know what the situation was. Essentially it is an office of the Public Service and that will continue. One of the aspects that I particularly like is that there is some oversight in regard to the Māori Trustee. I think that is actually quite important.I will digress slightly with the indulgence of the Committee and talk about an actual trust because I think this bill is a really good example of doing things right—a really good example. We do not always get things right. I would like to talk about a particular trust the Earthwise Living Foundation New Zealand. The same person from this trust also happens to be involved with Kiwi internships and provides activities under the auspices of being a trust. This can be very misleading. One of the things about this bill is that there is some oversight here for the activities of a trust. In the case of the trust I have just mentioned—the Earthwise Living Foundation New Zealand—the main individual involved with it one Jon Traylen provides the activities gets donations and funding and is paid considerable sums of money for what he says he will provide but does not deliver. Often the young people who come from overseas looking for Kiwi internships or who provide voluntary labour for the Earthwise Living Foundation New Zealand do not get the sorts of care support education activities or services that have been promised.I will tell members about one girl who was assigned to go and feed the chooks—this is an environmental trust. She was assigned the job of feeding the chooks. Everyone had been working very hard day after day doing all Jon Traylen’s dirty work and she actually refused in this instance. Mr Traylen said that if she did not feed the chooks he would kill them all. She still refused to feed the chooks because she did not believe him but that is exactly what he did. He killed the chooks and then he made her bury them. This is seriously unconscionable behaviour. This is not the sort of behaviour for somebody to engage in who purports to be a representative of a trust and who offers these sorts of opportunities to young people from overseas—and not necessarily just young people. Earthwise Living Foundation New Zealand purports to be an environmental trust but it is not offering the sorts of things that the trust purports to offer.That is why I applaud this bill. There is some oversight here. Yes I have digressed but it is very difficult to try to bring the Earthwise Living Foundation New Zealand to account. This is one of the real issues that Fair Go is exploring tomorrow night on television. That is why I applaud this bill—and what I have said is a long stretch from the bill we are discussing but there are some things that one can say here that one cannot say elsewhere and I am taking full advantage of that opportunity. It is very important that trusts have integrity and are accountable. This is why this bill is particularly important in terms of the Māori Trustee and the Māori Trust Office.As I said previously Part 2 is about fiduciary rights and liabilities. It is about the new Māori Trustee succeeding to existing undertakings and about the dissolution of the Māori Trust Office. It is about contracts and other instruments the status of existing securities the effect of the Act registers the registrar of deeds and the Registrar-General of Land. It is also about the transfer of employees the protection of employment conditions and continuity of employment. One certainly could not say that with regard to Jon Traylen because when he did employ the services of young people they were volunteering and they were paying money for services they did not receive. In actual fact Mr Traylen would claim any moneys that were left unspent as a non-refundable donation. I have never heard of a donation being able to be enforced but in this instance that was the case.