Tremain Chris: New Zealand Guardian Trust Company Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Tremain Chris: New Zealand Guardian Trust Company Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 I begin by saying that National supports the New Zealand Guardian Trust Company Amendment Bill. We will be taking the bill to the Finance and Expenditure Committee where it will be ably steered through by the chairman Mr Shane Jones who sits on the other side of the House. 
It is probably quite easy to be flippant about this bill. It is one of those bills that comes before the House and one wonders why the House’s time is being wasted on it given that it is such small and insignificant legislation. I will pick up on a couple of points raised by members who have spoken earlier about why the bill is important and why it is important that we change the way that we look at dealing with the change in names going forward. 
The first point I will pick up on was made by Minister Judith Tizard when she quoted Stephen Franks who said that if there were a banking collapse the Aussies would come first and the Kiwis would come second. The point that Stephen Franks was trying to make was that we owe it to ourselves as a nation to look at the ownership of the Guardian Trust and to look at the parent company and to run it through a parliamentary process. We need to look at the company that will ultimately be the parent trustee and to pay due consideration to whether we should allow that legislation to pass and allow that parent company to be allowed to continue to transact in that way. 
That raises a bit of a point because the reality of the situation is that Suncorp-Metway has been trading since 20 March with transactions in this regard anyway. The size of the transactions that take place between the parent company and the minor company is significant so that brings me back to thinking that maybe the fact that the bill is coming through the House is somewhat flippant and does not pay due consideration to the situation. I will have to ask the Minister whether we could change the legislation and stop the parent company from being acknowledged. I do not think we could do so and that is why we have to bring these other changes to the bill that are proposed. 
Before moving on and getting to the guts of the bill I acknowledge what Tariana Turia said in regard to the support of the Guardian Trust for community groups particularly the Nikau Centre in Napier which is a school that has been set up to support young children who fall through the cracks and need a second chance. I want to emphasise that this school in Napier is supported by the Guardian Trust and it is doing a very good job. 
This bill has three purposes. Firstly it is to enable the New Zealand Guardian Trust Co. to transact business with its parent company Suncorp-Metway. 
The second purpose is to allow for the identity of the parent company to change in the future without having to amend the legislation every time so that we do not have to come before the House time after time whenever there is a change in the parent company. New section 2(2) which is to be inserted into the New Zealand Guardian Trust Company Act by clause 5(4) states: “The Governor-General may by Order in Council made on the recommendation of the Minister of Justice given after consultation with the Minister of Commerce … (a) add the name of a body corporate that is a holding company of the new company: … (c) omit the name of a body corporate that ceases to be a holding company of the new company.” So that section will allow that particular purpose to occur. 
The third purpose is to retrospectively validate transactions that have occurred between the change in the parent company on 20 March 2007 and the commencement date of this bill. That is where I wonder how much power or authority Parliament has in actually making these name changes. If we decided for instance that the parent company was not of good merit that it should not be the parent company for the Guardian Trust in New Zealand do we have the authority to go back and stop the transactions? I would doubt it and I would be interested in the Minister taking a call on that. I am not sure what authority or power we have to do that. If it is just a box-ticking exercise then I totally agree that perhaps it should be done by Order in Council. If Parliament does not have the ability to reverse the transaction then it is just a box-ticking exercise. 
The New Zealand Guardian Trust as the Maori Party member Tariana Turia said has been in existence for 125 years. In fact its anniversary is this year. It currently has about $30 billion under management through its corporate trustee. The Guardian Trust is empowered by a special Act of Parliament that facilitated the merging of the trust operations of South British Guardian Trust which was originally formed in 1882 and of New Zealand Insurance. The trust department is authorised as a trustee company. The primary operation of these companies has been as a trustee acting for their clients in the growth and protection of their wealth and this continues to be a core competency of the business going forward. The trust on its website states that its aim is to be New Zealand’s premier provider of trustee and financial solutions. 
Since its inception the trust has been through many ownership changes. More recently as Minister Tizard pointed out the parent company was bought by Promina Group and a change to the legislation was required back in 2001 and 2004. The Act currently defines Promina Group as the parent company but earlier this year Promina Group was bought out by Suncorp-Metway. Incidentally Promina Group which is defined as the parent company currently owns Asteron Guardian Trust Vero and—members will be interested to know—the Tindall Foundation. 
Promina Group’s merger with Suncorp-Metway is a deal worth about $7.9 billion so it is pretty significant. I had a mind to vacillate about Suncorp and its sponsorship of various rugby venues in Australia but I thought I would not bore the House with that particular line of attack. In essence the merger between Suncorp-Metway and Promina Group brought about the name of the new parent company that has now taken on the ownership of the New Zealand Guardian Trust. That merger requires a change to the legislation and that is what we are discussing in the House today. 
In summary the purpose of the bill is to enable the New Zealand Guardian Trust Co. to transact business with its parent company. I argue whether in allowing that to happen we have any ability to change what has already happened and whether it is a box-ticking exercise. In that regard I agree with the Minister that there should be a change to the legislation through the amendment in clause 5(4) to allow it to happen by Order in Council without having to go through this legislative process. One way or the other and whether or not I agree validating those transactions is important going forward.