Adams Amy: Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeAdams Amy: Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 06 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3273. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice):I did want to come down to the House and take a call on this bill as a member from Canterbury and a member who has had obviously an involvement right through the period of the earthquakes and the recovery. Can I just begin by acknowledging my colleague in the chair the Hon Nicky Wagner who has not only brought the bill as the local MP for Christchurch Central which she has successfully been for some years now but also in a happy coincidence in her capacity as the Associate Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery.As I think every Canterbury member of this House will agree there are certain milestones in the recovery and certain parts of the recovery that we look to as being a real sense of: “Yes that’s another one under our belt that makes us feel like we really are making significant strides.” All of the progress steps are good but there have been certain points where you can just feel a collective sense of: “Yeah you know we’re getting there.” I can name a number of them and they will be different for every member. Certainly one of the earliest ones for me and it sounds a little bit sort of trite and frivolous was the first night sitting in the new temporary AMI Stadium watching the Crusaders horsemen gallop around the park the crowd going nuts and the red and black flags flying proudly. There was that sense of: “You know what we might be down but we’re still here.”The Arts Centre in a totally different way has the same sort of community cohesion and sense of being like a living member of our community because I do not think there is a Cantabrian who does not have fond and numerous memories of the Arts Centre in a number of ways. I obviously went to law school at the University of Canterbury and there is a real sense in Canterbury when you talk to the University of Canterbury graduates of “Were you in town or out at the new campus?” and that was a real dividing line in the history of the University of Canterbury. The law graduates from the good old days as they would have it back in the Arts Centre would talk lovingly about their lectures in the Arts Centre buildings and of going off to court and doing their articles during the day with local law firms.The Arts Centre has obviously progressed through a number of iterations. We are talking about more than a hundred years of history. Over its life it has had quite a number of iterations through to a market and sort of an arts precinct with local food cinemas craftsmen and obviously the famous Dux de Lux.There are a couple of things that I think are worth commenting on. Firstly this Committee—and a number of speakers have done it before me—has been absolutely right to pay tribute to the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Board. They have paid tribute to both the trust board that is there now—Jen Crawford and her team of trustees—and the trustees who have been there right the way through this incredibly difficult period and actually those who even earlier did have the foresight to think about preserving protecting and strengthening the centre and also taking out significant insurance which has been obviously in hindsight an absolute blessing.Not only that but I have been as a local member hugely encouraged and impressed by the unwavering commitment the trust board has to taking the time it takes to put the Arts Centre back in a way that is as true to its original design as possible. That is not a small undertaking. As a member of a trust board you have obviously fiduciary responsibilities and yet it has understood the importance of doing this right. I do think it needs to be acknowledged for that work. It is a shame that we cannot see the same sort of collaborative consensus and community-wide support for some of the other restoration decisions in the city because equally important buildings unfortunately have been caught up in much more contentious processes.Interestingly enough—and it may sound a little like a tangent—one of the things I cannot help reflecting on as the Minister of Justice is the impact we see through this legislation of trust boards not remaining fit for purpose and trust deeds that are written with the best will in the world very quickly becoming rigid and unhelpful documents in the face of adapting to the modern world. Really this is what we have in this legislation. It is a piece of legislation to give a proper legal foundation for the trust board and the operations it needs going forward and I am delighted that this House is able to set aside the time to do that. It may not reach the significant impact of some of the other decisions that we debate but it is critical to this organisation which is doing a good job and to see this House come together recognise that and make the time to do it is critical. But there is a salutary lesson for people setting up trusts and charitable trusts and vesting property in such trusts all over the country: they are not without complications and are not easy to amend when you do need to amend them. I think that there is a critical lesson in that.Finally I read through the report back from the Local Government and Environment Committee. As a member of this House who does not sit on that committee I want to thank and acknowledge the work of that committee. It has clearly been a process of quite some detail and I commend it for that.