Hipkins Chris: Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Hipkins Chris: Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 It is always privilege to follow a speaker as eloquent as Mr Gilmore. I reassure him despite what he may think that the college was not named after him. However I was impressed at the way in which he managed to work Harry Potter into his speech. I want to recap on what a good job the Government Administration Committee did on this bill— 
Grant Robertson 
: Great committee. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: The all-powerful Government Administration Committee is chaired by the Hon David Parker who did a sterling job. The committee is very ably deputy chaired by Jacqui Dean from the National Party and she is accompanied by Mr John Hayes who is always a beacon of light and hope. He is a bit like the Waldorf to Allan Peachey’s Statler; he always brings joy to the room whenever he arrives at the Government Administration Committee. 
Aaron Gilmore 
: That was actually funny. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I thought it was quite good. I enjoyed the hearings on this bill. The Government Administration Committee took it very seriously as we do all of the legislation referred to us. Not very much gets referred to the all-powerful Government Administration Committee and it is always a privilege to have a piece of legislation that we can actually do something with. 
We raised a number of concerns throughout the hearings on this legislation. The first concern was whether there was any justification for the wording in the bill being different from the wording in the Charitable Trusts Act. I put that question to the college. The college lawyers who appeared before the committee several times could not really give us a good quality reason why it needed to be different from the Charitable Trusts Act. They had drafted the bill in such a way that it did not link to what the Charitable Trusts Act said and I thought there may have been a reason for that. They were unable to give us that reason so we thought that in terms of the legal situation it was probably safer to go back to the wording of the Charitable Trusts Act so that if at any point there is a dispute about what this bill is intended to achieve the courts will have a body of case law already there. There is a strong body of law already around the Charitable Trusts Act and we wanted to make sure that that was not overridden simply by the minor wording changes that the original draft of the bill contained. 
The committee also recommended inserting a new section to allow the governing body to use for another purpose excess income from trusts that generate more than is necessary for the donated purpose. I think that is quite important and it is consistent with the provisions in the Charitable Trusts Act. We saw no reason why those trusts should continue to grow unnecessarily simply because the purpose does not require the amount of money that trusts are able to generate so that was a fairly pragmatic and sensible thing to do. 
The committee was concerned about what some of the more redundant trusts involved and whether it would be fair to say they were redundant and we had robust discussions with the college about this. One trust that was listed in the schedules we were given by the college related to providing financial support to a student experiencing hardship. The committee put some pretty tough questions to the college as to why it needed to change that trust deed. To this day I do not believe that the college could seriously put its hand on its heart and say that there are no students experiencing financial difficulties and therefore it could not dispense that money somehow. The college gave us a variety of reasons and in the end after we had quite a long discussion about it I was satisfied that there was justification for rearranging the trust as part of the wider rearrangement of the trusts it is doing. 
We were concerned that the bill as introduced was too general in describing a purpose for a trust as for the benefit of the college. “For the benefit of the college” could have included renovating the grand hall that Aaron Gilmore talked about before and which he likened to the grand hall in the Harry Potter books. We thought that although that would certainly be for the benefit of the college it would probably be inconsistent with what the money was gifted to the college for in the first place. We wanted to make sure that it was for charitable purposes not simply for the benefit of the college and that was one of the changes we made by inserting a requirement for trust property to be used for charitable purposes. Again I think that was a fairly sensible amendment. 
The committee also recommended inserting a requirement for a new purpose of a trust so that it is to be as close as reasonably possible to the purpose for which the property was given. In the case of the example I mentioned before—supporting students who might otherwise be in financial hardship—if there were reasons why the trust as it stood could not practically be used for that purpose we wanted to make sure that it was applied in such a way that it was as close as possible to that purpose. For example it could be that a number of very small trust funds could be grouped together and a common purpose found for them that was as consistent as possible with the original trust funds but accumulating a more substantial sum of money so that it could be a more meaningful grant and so on. I think that is very sensible. We did not want the college to be able to simply say “Well we don’t think this is important any more so we’re going to focus on our priorities.” potentially against the wishes of the people who had donated the money. 
I think it is really important when we are talking about bequests and donations that we show good faith towards the people who make those kinds of donations and bequests. I think that if we create a situation whereby somebody cannot be certain when giving money to any kind of trust that it will be applied to the purpose that they wish it to be they will be more reluctant to do so. We need to tread very carefully to ensure that we do not create a precedent that allows a college such as Christ’s College to apply the funds in such a way that was never intended by the donor. 
We did look at the Anglican Presbyterian Catholic and Methodist Churches and at the way in which they had brought similar legislation before the House. We modelled a lot of our discussion around the provisions in that legislation to ensure that it was consistent. I will be interested to look at the Supplementary Order Paper that the Greens will put forward. I understand that they want to put forward a Supplementary Order Paper that strengthens some of the checks and balances in a similar sort of way as the Methodist Church of Australasia in New Zealand Act does. At the moment the bill even as reported from the select committee does not contain quite as fulsome a checks and balance process as the legislation regarding the Methodist Church does. 
Generally speaking the Labour Party is comfortable with this bill. We put some pretty tough questions to the college during the course of the hearings on the bill. I was pretty comfortable that the college answered the concerns and the questions we raised. I acknowledge Nicky Wagner. She sat through all of the committee’s deliberations on this legislation. It was a test of stamina and I was impressed that she had the perseverance. I acknowledge her contribution and that of the other committee members. Overall it is good legislation and I commend it to the House.