Bishop Chris: Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBishop Chris: Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 02 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9324. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS BISHOP (National): What a pleasure it is to stand and take a call on the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill. Just at the outset of my speech I want to acknowledge the very hard-working Government Administration Committee. It is fair to say that this is the select committee of the Parliament that deals with somewhat odd pieces of legislation—the ephemera of the Parliament: things like fireworks; things like private bills like this; but also things like marriage equality which went to that very important committee chaired I know by the Hon Ruth Dyson and deputy chair Sarah Dowie—they do a great job. It is fair to say that it examined this bill in some detail. The committee had only two submissions on this bill but it has recommended that it be passed and I am sure from the support that the House has indicated tonight it will indeed pass into law and so it should.The history of this bill has been well canvassed and it is actually a fascinating history. I am not on the Government Administration Committee very sadly but I went back and I read the first reading speech from the Hon Dr Nick Smith and read about the history of the Christian Churches of New Zealand and indeed it is a fascinating history. And it is not a history that I am familiar with. I was brought up a Methodist and in fact just the other day I went to the Wainuiōmata Coast Road Church’s 150th jubilee out there in the Hutt where one of my—I have got to get this right—great great great grandfathers used to be a lay preacher. He was a peripatetic evangelist. He used to journey from Pētone over to Wainuiōmata. It would have been a tough journey back then.Stuart Nash: Do you think he voted National?CHRIS BISHOP: No. I think it is safe to say Mr Nash he was not a National Party voter. On my mother’s side of the family they were certainly not National Party voters. I think it is fair to say that you had a monopoly on their political support my friend. They would have been very great fans of the late Norman Kirk no doubt about that and Mr Nash as well.My faith—or my faith growing up anyway—was very much of the Methodist faith but it was fascinating to read about the history of the Christian Churches of New Zealand. I note that one of the Churches that is affected by this bill is in the Hutt. In fact there are two Churches in the Hutt but the one Church that is in the electorate of Hutt South is the Hutt City Link Church which is of course on Laings Road. I am not familiar with this Church but I was reminded this afternoon that I used to go to events at that Church and I know that it plays an important role in the community. It is just around the corner from the Laings Road Methodist Church which was—disgracefully I have to say—demolished in 2002. That Church sat on the site in Lower Hutt for 75 years before it was demolished for a private development—I think it was a Briscoes—in 2002. My parents got married there and I think it should never have been demolished.This is an important bill for the Christian Churches and in some ways it is slightly odd that Parliament has to sit on a Wednesday afternoon to pass a private bill to become a private Act to give effect to what is a very sensible change to the trust deed. So as the sponsor of the bill said so very succinctly in the first reading the bill dissolves the trust repeals the Act transfers all of the property of the trust into a new trust and basically allows it to manage its property more sensibly. I think as Jan Logie said in her contribution that is actually pretty much it. There is a lot of history behind the Churches and their trust. There is a lot of long and important history and a lot of important work that they do in the community but the bill is actually pretty simple and that is probably why it has got unanimous support and it is probably why only two submissions were made.In closing I do have to wonder for the House whether there is a better way of Parliament dealing with things like this bill. You know we are sitting here on a Wednesday on a members’ day. It is a non-controversial very small change to something that affects a very important group of people in our community that is actually a very small subset of the community. Private bills you could argue are actually anachronistic in this modern age. The fact that we have to every now and then—and I looked it up actually. Since the modern parliamentary website was developed there have been 20 private bills that Parliament has passed so on average that is about two a year. They were things like the Sullivan Birth Registration Bill on which Parliament spent a lot of time to require the Registrar-General of Births Deaths and Marriages to basically change the birth certificate of a particular person and things like the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill and the Westpac New Zealand Bill. You have got to wonder whether there is a better way of dealing with non-controversial private bills that affect incredibly small subsets of people and I just leave that for the House to ponder. This is an important bill. I look forward to its passage and I wonder whether there is a better way.