Wagner Nicky: Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWagner Nicky: Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 03 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4274. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central): It is with great pleasure and delight that I bring this Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill for its third reading. As we have heard in the House over the last few weeks—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The Minister must move the third reading—not the preamble—just move the bill’s third reading and then you can go into the substantive matter of what you want to say.Hon NICKY WAGNER: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I move That the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill be now read a third time. This bill is very important for Christchurch and for the Arts Centre so it is my delight to be here at its third reading.As we have heard in this House over the last few weeks the Arts Centre is beloved by the people of Christchurch and actually also by the visitors and tourists who come to our city. It is a magnificent site. It is the site of 23 neo-Gothic buildings it is something that every Christchurch person has spent time in and it is part of our everyday life. The Arts Centre has been a centre of activity full of arts events. It has a weekend market that I think most tourists visit it has craft stalls it has the Dux de Lux—and we have heard about lots of events there over past years. It also has Le Café which was also frequented by many of us often.Of course the site suffered dreadfully in the earthquakes. In fact it was damaged in both the September and February earthquakes and 23 of the 24 heritage buildings were badly damaged. The first of these buildings was built in 1876 and the rest were built over a period of time until the last one was built in 1923. They have been such an important part of our city as they were used for different purposes and so it has been enormously difficult for the people of Christchurch and also very sad for us to see them damaged.It is fortunate that the buildings were well insured. What the trust board is now facing is about a 7-year restoration and rebuild period and nearly $300 million worth of restoration. Actually the work is well under way. It is going very well. We have already seen the Registry Building on the corner of Montreal Street and Worcester Street completed and now that is tenanted. The gym has also been completed. That is now used as a performance space and people are able to go in there and enjoy that art.The grand hall is the next one to be completed. This is a magnificent building. It had a turret which has been put back up there. It also had immensely special stained glass windows which fortunately survived the earthquake and will be put back into that building. The trust board is also expecting that the work on this restoration will be finished earlier than in 7 years and so I think it is really a feather in the cap of the people working on that to see that this work is being done beautifully. It is really restoring these buildings and also it is going to be on time and on budget.This Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill is a really important element in the protection and the preservation of the Arts Centre for the future. It sets out to modernise the governance arrangements of the trust and sets out the charitable objects of that trust in legislation. This is to give greater certainty around the original intention of the trust deed and to formally recognise the heritage and cultural significance of the Arts Centre.The modernising of the governance arrangements brings the trust in line with currently accepted best practice and this is absolutely vital. It is really important that the trust board maintains a strong set of skills not only during this restoration phase but also into the future as the Arts Centre is repopulated and again becomes a central important part for the people of Christchurch and those who visit our city.I really want to commend the work of the Arts Centre board—commend it for the way it developed this bill. As we know people are very fond of the Arts Centre and they also want to have their say on the Arts Centre so there have been quite a lot of controversial debates over the years. The way that the board discussed talked to stakeholders consulted widely and explained its rationale to the people of Christchurch was very well done indeed. I would like in particular to recognise the Hon Margaret Austin who has talked about the Arts Centre I have to say to all and sundry probably for decades but she was particularly active in this area explaining what was going on and putting people’s minds at rest knowing that this was a good thing for the Arts Centre.I also want to acknowledge the work of Jen Crawford the chair of the board and André Lovatt the chief executive officer. Both of them have led this process and while they have been leading this process it was on top of managing this huge restoration but also future planning for the site. So it has been a huge job—a lot of energy a lot of effort a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of hard work by a lot of people to get it to this stage.I just want to recap on the bill. What it will do is first modernise the trust governance arrangement; second set out the objects of the trust in legislation to reflect the cultural and heritage significance of the Arts Centre; third provide legal foundations for the trust board to continue to recover from the earthquakes; fourth provide for a skills-based board appointed by an appointment committee; and fifth ensure that there is a safe pair of hands in the short term if the circumstance ever arose that the board could not perform. I think that is really important. It gives us much greater certainty than there was in the past. Finally the bill sets out in legislation the trust’s current objectives—again giving that certainty.I would like to thank the Local Government and Environment Committee for its hard work on this bill. Committee members took it very seriously. They even visited the Arts Centre and I think that was really important because it gave them an opportunity to see why it is important to the people of Christchurch. I would like to commend the work of Scott Simpson as the chair.The committee made some very helpful amendments. In particular it introduced a new subclause 5(2) for clarification which requires all income to be used to advance the charitable purposes of the trust. It also deleted clause 8 which provided for the transfer of the trust property to the Crown on an interim basis. That is what clause 8 was going to do. Instead the committee inserted clause 9 and that states that the Charitable Trusts Act 1957 applies. So that is standard right across the country and I think it is a better solution. Basically I think the work the committee did improved the bill and made it a much more certain and more acceptable bill to the public of Christchurch and actually to the board itself.I just want to make a comment about the importance of the references to the historic stone buildings. The buildings were central to the intentions of the original trust deed so it is particularly important that the stone buildings are referenced in the preamble and in clause 4 of the bill.Finally it is my great pleasure to be here at the third reading. The Arts Centre is a magnificent cultural and heritage site for New Zealand. It is beloved by the people of Christchurch and beyond by our visitors and our tourists. It is a hub of activity. It is something that we all go to for arts for crafts for the market for entertainment to the pub—something that all Christchurch people can enjoy. The passing of this bill gives it a fantastic footing for the future and it will be there for many many generations to enjoy. Thank you.