O'Connor Greg; Rurawhe AdrianGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): As a member of the Justice Committee that considered this bill it does give me some pleasure to stand and speak on it. I must admit I faced the prospect of the Trusts Bill with some trepidation. I had some experience of trusts when I was a detective but usually I was armed with a search warrant which enabled me to get beyond most of the provisions of the trust and didn't require me to have too much of an understanding of the provisions of the trust and how they're built. Simply put generally I was unravelling the actions of someone who had used a trust for criminal activities so I came into it with that very little understanding.Standing here speaking on the bill at a time that it is obviously going to become law—at the end of tonight at the conclusion of the vote—it is with a far better understanding than I did have at the beginning of the process. We were aided of course by the Hon Chris Finlayson and my colleague Duncan Webb who are people whose enthusiasm with which they both approached the task did give me some confidence that the product that we would be putting before the House on this occasion would be a very robust document and there I was on the precipice of believing that it would perhaps be beyond those of us who were on the committee at the time.With these trusts what I've found over the years is that trusts come into pre-eminence generally around the time of an economic downturn because that's the time when the activities of people who have often been hidden away—probably able to be secluded by the fact that there was massive growth and there was plenty of money around—and the activities of some of our more shall we say less salubrious members of society come to notice. Of course when the tide turns when we actually find that there is a lot of criminal activity exposed that is when trusts and the fact of what is hidden away in trusts—people who had perhaps frittered away the money of trusting investors suddenly were able to still drive around in their very flash cars and live in their highly flash houses despite the fact that those who had had trust in them had allowed the activities of those people to basically steal their money for want of a better word but they still seemed to have that money behind trusts.It was with that knowledge that I worked through the process of rebuilding these trusts. I understood then how little understanding people as trustees had and I think it was a little bit scary. I have been a trustee of several trusts over the years and I understood really how little knowledge I had and how exposed I was when I saw this. There were just some little things that I really didn't understand and it's been outlined by this bill: what core documents must be kept by trustees and how long core documents must be kept. They're very important but again if you're a trustee it's something easy to remain ignorant of. If you are someone who is a trustee tasked with administering funds it's very important.With many of the trusts that I've sat on many of the beneficiaries were disabled and their parents had died or those dependants—they were very dependent. So there was an actual need to ensure that for those people who had absolutely no power themselves those who were the trustees were going to do the job that they were entrusted to do—even things like the presumption of what information has to be provided to trustees. So often when we were doing an archaeological dig of some of these trusts later on in these criminal inquiries there was no information these trusts existed and there was absolutely no information anyone had and having to rebuild them was quite some task—also what factors had to be considered when deciding whether to give beneficiaries information or withhold it and who made that decision. So again this bill is outlining those matters—in Part 3 in particular.Also the bill abolishes a common law rule against perpetuities. It actually repeals the Perpetuities Act 1964 simply because what this exposed is that they're actually quite archaic and complex. The bill sets out a clear-cut maximum duration period of 125 years. We had some discussion at the committee about that very aware that modern medicine is allowing human beings to live longer and longer but we felt we were pretty secure that 125 years would go beyond one generation. However who knows? Our successors in this House may be discussing the need to go beyond that with modern medicine and the means we have of extending life. So we settled after some discussion that 125 years with our knowledge of modern medicine was probably a pretty safe bet.Going on to Part 5 of the bill—again outlining comprehensive and clearer processes around the appointment and discharge of trustees. Again it's a little bit like I suppose becoming a member of some blue seats: once you're in you're in for life and you'll never ever get out of there until perhaps there is an act of God somewhere along the line. So on these trusts it's very important that we understand how it is that we can discharge trustees who are simply not doing their business.Who can be appointed as trustees and how they are appointed—again looking back on my own experience I guess I was appointed because people felt generally that they wanted someone that would give some reassurance about the trust but I did go into that without a lot of knowledge of how those trusts operated. Perhaps on reflection I could've done with a little bit more training at the time.What happens when a trustee retires or dies? Again unravelling these—we find out a trustee has died and nobody has actually done anything about the trust until we want to actually do something about it. How can you challenge removal? So there was none of these processes which obviously make common sense in place and sadly we heard examples during submissions where trustees have gone rogue for want of a better word. So how do we deal with this? Trustees and ageing trustees their capabilities—how do you deal with it? So again it's important that this bill does put in place a means to do that. But then again we needed a process so they can challenge that removal at the same time which is obviously making sure there is fair play and just the right of fairness and of course challenging and changing transferring ownership of trust property when there is a change of trustee.Underlying this and underpinning all this is this whole conflict of interest. So often when trusts do come to light the reasons they come to light—and certainly where trusts have got I suppose a bad name—is when we've seen that massive conflict of interest where someone is a trustee. We suddenly find where the investments have gone the investments may have gone into an area where the beneficiary happened to be a trustee. So again it's just important that we have this framework. I often thought when I was dealing with these cases as an investigator that they were conceived in a different time when relatively few people dealt with this. Perhaps if you'll remember the Wellington club Auckland club various other places—it was a very small group of people that oversaw this and that was another time when perhaps a person's word was their bond. I think we've had to realise we've had to move far beyond this and ensure that the courts do actually have oversight of the trusts. So the courts still do have oversight at the end of the day.I have no hesitation. Again it's been a great education for me to be on a committee that considered this bill. I am now satisfied that the next time I am asked to be a trustee I will be much better equipped and that there will be—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired.