Robertson Grant: Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill — In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
Robertson Grant: Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill — In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
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GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I want to take some time to talk about the purpose clause of the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill because this is where the Government Administration Committee did the majority of its work. As previous speakers have outlined we certainly understood as a committee why Christ’s College had come to us. It was in a position where it was not able to undertake a number of the activities it wanted to undertake. Money was locked up in trusts that the college was not able to use for the purposes it wanted to use them for or indeed the trusts had generated significantly more income than they needed to achieve their purposes. It was difficult sometimes for the committee to work through the reasoning behind that and I will highlight a couple of the trusts as examples. 
There is the T H Lowry gift which was to be applied for the encouragement of athletics and athletic sports in connection with the college. Obviously athletics is still a sport and it is still a sport that is competed in at Christ’s College so it would perhaps seem odd not to be able to fulfil the purpose of that trust. But the college was able to tell us that it has a lot of other income and funds available for athletics and the income from the trust was exceeding what it could spend in a reasonable way. This is the area that the committee struggled with because we felt that presumably there would be purposes related to athletics where the trust could be used in the future but perhaps not at the levels mentioned. 
A different example of a similar concern was the Ben Masefield Memorial gift which is an annual prize for the most promising under-17-year-old member of the cadet corps or air training corps as at 31 December in a particular year. Cadets are probably completely off the scene in high schools in New Zealand nowadays. Certainly they are in respect of Christ’s College so it would be very difficult to spend the— 
Jacqui Dean 
: Air training cadets. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Are air training cadets still going? Which schools still have the air training cadets? 
Jacqui Dean 
: Oamaru. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: I ask the member whether that is in a school. 
Jacqui Dean 
: Yes. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: I stand corrected by the member for Waitaki. Air training cadets are still in schools. The question is not so much whether air training cadets exist but whether schools still have them. I think we will find that Waitaki Boys High School and St Kevin’s College down there are probably not providing them just as Christ’s College is now not providing them. But we could check and I would be happy for Ms Dean to take a call at some point and let us know. I know she followed this bill extremely closely at the select committee so it would not surprise me if she would like to take a call. 
Those are just two trusts where the committee grappled with the fact that although we understood— 
Jacqui Dean 
: I think the member has covered the issue. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: I thank the member for that. 
The committee felt that we needed to make some changes to the purpose clause to be able to accept Christ’s College’s point but also to ensure that integrity was kept in terms of how money was distributed. The way in which the committee did that was to replace subsection 4 in new section 5—which is set out in clause 5—which lays out the criteria by which the college can change what it is doing with these trusts. 
Subsection 4 states: “The circumstances are that—(a) it is impossible impracticable or inexpedient to apply the property for the purpose for which it was given to or vested in the College; or (b) the available amount of the property is inadequate to carry out the purpose for which the property was given to or vested in the College; or (c) the purpose for which the property was given to or vested in the College has already been carried out.” That was pretty much what the board of the college wanted when it came to us but we wanted to add into that some more criteria more guidance for the college. So we added subsection 4A. 
Subsection 4A states: “If the governing body is satisfied that the property given to or vested in the College is more than is necessary for the purpose for which it was given or vested the governing body may apply any excess property for charitable purposes for the benefit of the College …”. The key phrase is “for charitable purposes for the benefit of the College”. So this is to keep it inside the same boundary by saying that the property will still be used for charitable purposes and for the benefit of the college. 
The committee raised the question of what would happen one day if Christ’s College ends up with a commercial arm as part of its operations. Schools are evolving in all sorts of ways and that is possible. We asked whether we be comfortable with some of the proceeds of these gifts going into that kind of area. The committee decided that it was not and that the provision would be consistent with the Charities Act and we put it in that kind of language. So that was an important addition to this part of the bill. 
We also added subsection 4B which states that in exercising the powers I have just outlined: “the governing body must apply the property for a purpose that is as close as reasonably possible to the purpose for which the property was given to or vested in the College.” Again we were trying to make sure that although it is quite clear as David Parker said earlier that there is not much Greek divinity or other such things being taught— 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: Divinity? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Divinity is probably still taught but not in Greek; that is the issue. We certainly understood that it would not be possible to do that but we thought that it was in the spirit of the gifts that were given to the college that we should have a clause that obliges the college to put the gifts to purposes as close as reasonably possible to the original purpose. 
So those are the amendments we made to new section 5(4) in clause 5. I think it is worthwhile outlining them because as I think I said in my second reading speech on this bill private bills often sail through. This is an example of the committee taking its job seriously and recognising an issue. The governors of Christ’s College were extremely cooperative and understood what the committee was trying to do and therefore they have gone along with this change. Private bills will not necessarily be waved through the House and the amendments made are an example of that.