Boyack RachelRACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a real pleasure to take a call on the St Peter's Parish Endowment Fund Trust Bill. I unfortunately missed the first reading—I was not in the House and so was unable to take my call that day—so it is a real pleasure to be able to take some time today to speak to this bill. I do so with two hats on I guess the first being the deputy chair of the Governance and Administration Committee that considered the bill but my other hat is being probably one of the staunchest Anglicans in this House. There are many who I am looking at in the gallery today who I know and who my parents know through being a very proud member of the Anglican Church for 43 years of my life.I do want to begin as well by acknowledging the member for Wellington Central Grant Robertson and his 15 years in that role. I know he will still hold the role of Minister of Finance from the middle of October and going forward for at least another three years. But I do want to note the remarkable contribution and just reflect on the small role I had in his selection for that fine position as the member for Wellington Central having been a member of the Labour Party living in this fine electorate at that time. I know that for the member the work of churches and other groups such as unions and other NGOs in the area of social justice was one of the dear causes for his heart for Wellington Central. So I do just want to acknowledge the work that he has done and how pleased I was to be able to play my very small part in helping him be here in this House.Hon Grant Robertson: You had your wedding in a different Anglican Church though.RACHEL BOYACK: But yes—no I was married at—Hon Grant Robertson: The larger one.RACHEL BOYACK: —at the larger one. At the one that sometimes—I'm not going to use the colloquial term we have for it because I might get in a bit of trouble. But at the one across the road where I married my wonderful husband Scott who I am just going to mention because he intimately understands some of the work that's involved in these bills.Scott is an accountant in Nelson but has spent many years until recently on the Nelson diocese finance team. So he's spent a lot of time meeting regularly to look at the finances of the Nelson diocese as a volunteer within the church as well as being a church treasurer of two Anglican churches which is how he ended up becoming an accountant. Initially that's what I was going to be when I was growing up.I just want to turn to the bill briefly and then just make some comments if you'll indulge me around the role of the church in social justice and some of the times we face now. Firstly though I will turn to the bill.The purpose of the bill is to make amendments to the trust deed governing the endowment fund that the church holds. One of the challenges that we do face in the Anglican Church—it's not just the Anglican Church; it's other organisations—is that because these institutions are so old they are often governed by statute as opposed to sitting alongside a trust deed of some sort that's come through current law that we hold. We've actually seen a few of these bills come through the House this term such that the Governance and Administration Committee has said we're quite keen to take a look at what other options we could have for amending these. On one hand they do take up the House's time—which I don't suggest is something we shouldn't be doing—but it also takes up a significant amount of time for the organisations that put forward private bills. I note that we probably will be discussing some matters that are relevant when we have discussions around Standing Orders because we want to make sure that those organisations that are the holders of these pieces of legislation are able to make changes to them in a way that is nimble and flexible. But also there is a useful option here for the House and for the select committees to be able to test out those changes and any changes that could be of concern to the House.It's something that our committee has grappled with this term and it's a good thing for us to discuss. I am not suggesting any wholesale changes to Acts and how they operate because I would probably have the Bishop of Nelson on the phone to me tonight saying to me What are you doing?" But I do think that having these bills come through has allowed to have that conversation which is really good.Essentially as the member in charge of the bill Grant Robertson has pointed out the main purpose of the bill is to ensure that the parish can use the funds that it has available to it to do the work that it wishes to do. I have a number of examples I can use from my own experience where money is set aside—for example in some of our parishes in Nelson—where it can only be used to maintain the church organ. We end up with literally millions of dollars sitting in accounts to maintain the pipe organ. Now being the holder of a music degree an Anglican Church musician myself and the daughter of a church organist maintaining the pipe organ is very important. We often have these situations where we end up with money being attached to a specific item within the church and actually the church's objectives and what they want to do with that money—and in this case St Peter's plays a huge role in social justice—it means it makes it very very difficult for the church to be able to achieve the objectives of both the people who establish the parish what they want to achieve for the parish but also the current members of the parish.So what this bill does is it allows that flexibility in terms of how that money can be spent while still ensuring that the capital account can be maintained in perpetuity because that's important that it doesn't get drained and the funds be reduced.One of the things the committee did grapple with was the comment in the nature of an "exceptional circumstance". So I just want to make some commentary around that because clause 5(3) states that "In exceptional circumstances the vestry may request that the Trust Board make an additional distribution." We did have a discussion around whether we needed a definition for what "exceptional circumstances" were but we in the end decided to stick with the case by case basis that should be exercised if an exceptional circumstance does materialise that would require a larger amount to be dispersed.I'm sure we will be able to ask the member in charge a couple more questions during the committee of the whole House stage. Before do though I just wanted I guess turn to some comments around social justice because a couple of weeks ago I had quite a moving moment when I was walking down the corridor on level two of this House. One of our retiring members Jamie Strange called out to me and said "Rachel I've got this in my office and I don't what to do with it and would you know what to do with it?" And I went into his office and he had a banner with the Anglican Church logo on it from the 1998 Hīkoi of Hope. I opened it up and I was extremely moved to open up this banner. It was given to Jamie Strange by former MP for Christchurch Central Tim Barnett. So I contacted Tim to find out how he came into possession of the banner. It had been given to him by a Christchurch priest from the Canterbury diocese who had arrived in Wellington and given it to him and it ended up hanging on his wall while he was in Parliament. So he gave it to Jamie Strange who's given it to me. So I've been in touch with Michael Hughes who's the General Secretary of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia and I'm going to be returning it to the Auckland diocese—they've determined that's where it should go—on Saturday when I'm in Auckland.It's been remarkable for me to just reflect on the Hīkoi of Hope and talk to mother about it because it was a formative time in my life when we had a cost of living crisis in the 1990s. At the end of that time we had seen—well during that time actually early on we'd seen benefits cuts we'd seen high unemployment and we'd seen selling off of State houses. That Hīkoi of Hope was one of the turning points I think in the life of New Zealand which did lead to the election of a 1999 Labour Government and certainly influenced the first vote I took in 1999.In these times which are very very tough as an Anglican who proudly stands on the values of social justice being able to talk to this bill tonight is actually a real reminder to me of the Anglican values and the Labour Party values that I hold that I believe align very closely. This is a time where we need to put hope first and where we need to look after those who are most vulnerable at all times. That's why I'm so proud to be a member in this House—on this side of the House that is looking at how we house people lift incomes for our most vulnerable and at this time focus on hope and not fear. I commend this bill to the House."