Sharples Pita: New Zealand Guardian Trust Company Amendment Bill — Second Reading Third Reading 
Sharples Pita: New Zealand Guardian Trust Company Amendment Bill — Second Reading Third Reading 
[Volume:675;Page:14415] 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. The concept of guardianship is well known in Maoridom. In fact we live by the concept of kaitiaki where there is spiritual and cultural care and guardianship of others. It is something that is derived from one’s whakapapa and one has a responsibility to look after things. We also refer to our taniwha tipu which act as protectors over water land and other things. This is represented in our carvings. So it is an important concept to us. 
It is with these thoughts in mind that the Maori Party comes to consider the New Zealand Guardian Trust Company Amendment Bill. The bill amends the New Zealand Guardian Trust Company Act 1982 to enable the New Zealand Guardian Trust Co. to establish business with its present parent company Suncorp-Metway Ltd. The Guardian Trust is our largest independent investment funds manager and has been in existence since 1859. Twenty-three years later it merged with the South British Guardian Trust then later in 1916 it merged with the New Zealand Insurance Trust Department. One could say that mergers are fairly common in this line of business. 
Suncorp-Metway is an Australian banking insurance and financial services company. The company boasts over 7 million customers with approximately 223000 shareholders. Numbers are all well and good but the central issue concerning the Maori Party is what these groups do and what relevance this work has to tangata whenua to Maori. Does the notion of “guardian” as understood in this bill bear any relationship to the concepts and philosophies in Te Ao Marama? 
The work of the Guardian Trust is pretty much as expected—wills trusts mortgages estate administration enduring power of attorney property finance financial planning—and so it goes on. But there are a few interesting features. The Guardian Trust is a major supporter of the Cancer Society and it has recently been funding research with the Canterbury Respiratory Research Group into the key causes of asthma and allergies in young children. 
That is a good start given the disproportionately high statistics for Maori in all these areas. It has never been clear to me why Maori are 18 percent more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than non-Maori but nearly twice as likely as non-Maori to die from cancer. One would hope that the Guardian Trust in supporting key advocacy groups will advance our knowledge in unpacking such inequities. Similarly I must ask why it is that although the prevalence of paediatric asthma in New Zealand is similar for Maori and non-Maori Maori children have more severe symptoms when they present to the health provider require hospitalisation twice as often as non-Maori and are less likely to receive adequate asthma education or to be prescribed preventive medication. All these questions of the day may of course now be answered through the support of the Guardian Trust. 
There was a third area of support and I think this is important to refer to when thinking of the Guardian Trust. This is in relation to its trusteeship role of the Palmerston North Maori Reserve as a trust under the Te Ture Whenua Maori Act. The Palmerston North Maori Reserve Trust owners are descendents of the Taranaki people who settled in Wellington in the early 1800s. The Guardian Trust and 10 managing trustees appointed by beneficial owners are motivated by the primary objective of retaining and growing the core asset as well as being risk-averse in terms of decision making. 
All these examples of the role of the Guardian Trust are by way of background to our support for this bill. We believe that there are some potential gains through lower costs and increased financial stability through the merger of Guardian Trust with Promina Group and Suncorp-Metway. If these changes are able to assist the work programme of the Guardian Trust in protecting the ongoing welfare of the people then clearly nothing should stand in their way. 
Finally I make a brief comment on clause 5(4) of the bill as it relates to the conclusions of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. This provision authorises the Governor-General by Order in Council to amend the principal Act whenever there is a new parent company without the need for legislative amendments. The issues of the day that this House could be debating include another series of police raids on Tuhoe the revelation that the district health boards have committed 182 serious mistakes involving patients the current situation in which so many New Zealanders are caught in the midst of a severe housing unaffordability crisis or even the fact that the vital mechanism for maintaining our electricity supply the Cook Strait cable is old unreliable and in need of major repair. Instead the House has been debating whether a trustee company can change its parent company. It just defies reason. 
We do however support the bill in its final readings and welcome the initiative taken to move the responsibility for parliamentary scrutiny of the amendments included here to the approval of the Regulations Review Committee—a committee that I can vouch to this House will do a proper job and give proper scrutiny as it does with every item that comes before it on the table. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker.