Clark DavidHon Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin): This debate is an important debate and the work that we are doing here is important. I did a little bit of background research to find out a little bit more about Mr McLean and where the family came from and where they'd spent their time before arriving in New Zealand. I learnt that Allan McLean was the son of Alexander McLean on the Isle of Coll one of the Scottish Western Isles. His father was a farmer and a fisherman and then he like many Scots lads at the time learnt the trade of a cooper. I had to look up what a cooper was and I don't know—there'll be experts here in the House who can tell us about the trade of a cooper. I suspect Mr Brownlee probably can. A cooper is a person trained to make wooden casks barrels vats buckets tubs troughs and many similar containers from timber staves that were usually heated or steamed to make them pliable. So we have here a family with a traditional trade. There was then a death in the family. The father died in a boat accident. He died as a result of the injuries he received in that accident and didn't drown at the time but he left a widow and five children—namely John Allan Robertson Alexandrina and Mary. John was just 18 when he took his father's place on the farm. Mary their mother realised through the dark years that followed where there was disease and crops that failed and so forth that their plight might be much better if they left—basically they might avoid starvation. They left their beloved homeland in 1840 that family—and it was really under the threat of dying of starvation—and then they came here via Australia. This story is available on the internet for all to see but you can see the deprived and challenging background that may well have inspired the subsequent generosity. The assets that were in the institute to carry on Allan McLean's legacy to support women into long-term housing along with their children and to provide the daily necessities for beneficiaries were there for a purpose. When one considers the background one can understand how the trust came to be set up and how the will that preceded the trust came to be written and we can also understand how good it would be—and will be when we as a Parliament pass this bill—to have a situation where the original purpose of that trust is able to be met fully again. We're told that the board of the institute observed that the charitable purpose of the institute had been eroded over time since the passing of Allan McLean in 1907 and really because of the circumstances and the way in which society expresses itself the changes in societal norms and language—all of those things have made it more difficult to give effect to the original charitable objectives that the trust was set up for. Of course the Parliament has revisited we know this legislation over time—I think in 1957 from memory—and today we have this bill which aims again to empower and enable women to live independently as was the original purpose behind the gift that the institute supports. That we know involves ensuring that women have warm dry housing and that women who find themselves with mental health or addiction issues a disability or trauma homelessness poverty terminal illness or long-term or permanent disabilities can gather the support that they need through the support of the institute. So I'm very proud to support this bill in the House. I think this is the kind of thing that the Parliament can do which does support the good works that are already happening in our community and which come out of a long and difficult past which I think—I hope—I have alluded to in my initial comments. We can see why this trust was set up and we know—all of us here in this House—people who have fallen on hard times and we'd want to support the purposes of this institute. So I'm very pleased to commend this bill to the House.