Pugh Maureen; Dean JacquiMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you Madam Speaker and I thank the member Duncan Webb for that history of the Girl Guides Association. I think we must have googled the same information because I have exactly the same to present today. So the Girl Guides Association (New Zealand Branch) Incorporation Amendment Bill does seek as the colleague across the House has said to make a minor change to the Act to sell Otimai which is a property they hold in the Waitakeres in Auckland and they want to apply the proceeds of that sale to Girl Guides New Zealand's general operations. This bill is unusual in that it is a private bill and they don't come into this House very often as members would be well aware. Private bills are commonly used in this House for matters relating to trusts—for example lands held on trust for community use. There are other things such as changes to the trustees' administering of a trust or the validation of scholarships allowances provided by a private trust and the board matters are for private and not general legislation. So almost a privilege to be speaking on this private bill today and as we've noticed a private bill supersedes members' bills. So that is why it has gone straight to the top of the Order Paper. That's why any amendment to a private Act must be introduced as a private bill and will appear ahead of members' bills. So the history as we've heard began after the Sea Scouts were established over in the UK by Lord Baden-Powell in 1907. That's because one of his colleagues that served with him Lieutenant Cossgrove served in the Boer War with him and brought the Scouts idea back to New Zealand. As Duncan Webb has said he was a schoolmaster in Christchurch. He was blessed with four daughters and they wanted—or the youngest one especially—a girl's version of the Scouts. So that is how it happened here in New Zealand. They were called the Peace Scouts for girls and in 1908 were established and well ahead of the UK as well. Twenty years later it actually became the girl guides. New Zealand was a founding member of the World Association of Girl Guides and we are still among 150 countries that belong to the association. Their mission is to empower girls to take action to change their world. They hold national and international camps they take part in training and they have leadership development. There are a variety of other activities that the guides programme and all their programmes are tailored to achieve across a range of age groups. For instance they take on science experiments to learn about STEM: science technology engineering and maths—so maybe we should have the girl guides advising the Minister of Education. They learn how to lead a healthy lifestyle. They do fund-raising for causes they care about and of course we all know of the famous girl guide biscuits that traditional consistent recipe that has been sold for many years as one of their key fund-raisers. They look after communities by doing clean-ups and they plant trees and they work with other community groups. But of course they also love getting into the outdoors and that is one of the key things that they challenge the girls with. But one of the key features that they're very proud of is that they have fun. I imagine that there are not too many women in this House now that would have joined girl guides. I was part of a break-off group that wasn't actually girl guides but we're going back a few years now. It must have been a country thing a rural thing. But what we've heard today is quite rightly the drop in the membership of girl guides. One of the things that I believe has been the cause of that is because back in around 2007—I couldn't get an exact date—the Scouts became co-ed. The girls were invited to join Scouts and so the two organisations almost created that competition between themselves. Then there was other competition for membership such as sports groups and extracurricular activities and school activities. So we've seen the numbers of guides decline over time and of course with the drop in membership comes the drop in income. That has led to the situation with Otimai in that the Girl Guides Association have found themselves the owners of property and are in charge of property that is very expensive to run and maintain. But I just thought as a comparison with girl guides—if any of you remember Scouts and one of the big fund-raisers they used to do—when I was putting these notes together I recalled with some fondness they would tow a trailer around town and knock on doors and collect empty drink bottles because they could cash them in. So that was a major fund-raiser for Scouts. We had a local bottling plant and so they would buy back their empty bottles—a great fund-raiser. My folks had a dairy and I would work in the dairy. On the weekends we had this enterprising young man that would come in and he would sell us his four or five or six bottles and he'd swap that for lollies. In those days you could get four wine gums for a cent so actually their bottles went a long way. But what we didn't know was this enterprising young man was going around to the garage where we stored our empty bottles and bringing them back around the front and selling them to us several times a weekend. I don't think he was a Scout. But the land that we're talking about today is tied up with the Girl Guides Association (New Zealand Branch) Incorporation Act that went into law in 1942. It governs the girl guides and as Duncan Webb has mentioned there are two clauses in there that have caused conflict which has led to the bill being in the House today: sections 4 and 6. The Wilson family donated the land and unfortunately the trust deed that the Wilson family set up has the clause in perpetuity" in it so it created a bit of tension between the girl guides Act and the trust deed that gifted the land to the Girl Guides Association. The Otimai land of course is now running into disrepair and costing girl guides a lot of money and in order to clear it up they had a couple of options. They could have taken this and got a court ruling on it but there was no guarantee of the outcome of that and it was going to be an expensive exercise. So the simplest way was to bring it to Parliament and have the Act amended. It is the intention of the National Party to support this bill but to select committee because there are a few things that we just need to be careful about and make sure that we have a bit of oversight over. The reason I'm a little bit cautious about it is because I've seen other national bodies that have relied on fund-raising they have relied on communities to buy property to run it to maintain it to train their leaders and their supervisors and then as populations go up and down head office will step in if it does go into decline and they will sell that property and although it has been bought by local funds and fund-raising they have no legal ability to prevent the sale. So I think what we've got here is an opportunity to ensure that this bill is fine-tuned so that it includes some safeguards for local communities if local land is going to be sold. I think that is a very responsible position for us to take. We want to hear from girl guides from across New Zealand because this is in effect their property that the Girl Guides Association wants to sell. But I also think it would be appropriate for us to invite any descendants of the Wilson family to share their views on the disposal of this land. So we will support it to select committee and then we will work with the submitters and take guidance from them about whether we support this further because I think it would be a travesty if we enabled legislation that enabled a head office of a national organisation carte blanche to go out and sell property that really is the property of its members. Although they may be elected to those roles I think it is responsible for us to ensure that any sales are agreed to by the whole membership. We support it for first reading. I commend the bill to the House. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to."