Pallett Sarah; Williams PotoSARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's with great pleasure that I rise this evening as the final speaker in this second reading on the Thomas Cawthron Trust Amendment Bill which is as we've heard a private bill that amends the Thomas Cawthron Trust Act 1924. I'm very conscious that we have heard from many members this evening and I think we've traversed many of the paths to be traversed fairly thoroughly but I do hope that I can add a little of value to this conversation.But before I start I would like to just take a moment to thank Rachel Boyack the member for Nelson because she is an extremely hard-working member of Parliament and I don't think Nelson could do better. She has brought an excellent bill to the House—it's my personal view and I'm entitled to it but I think that all of us here today can be extremely proud of the work that she has done in bringing this to the House.We've heard that Cawthron is New Zealand's largest independent science organisation with key areas of research in aquaculture in seafood safety algae and bioactives and freshwater health and ocean health. I am going to expand a little bit on the exciting work that they've done but I too want to share my appreciation of Thomas Cawthron. There's an old saying isn't there that you can't take it with you but Thomas Cawthron set up a $127 million - equivalent fund which he bequeathed for the purpose of setting up this institute as well as others. My goodness—you can't take it with you but you can do such a lot of good with it if you bequeath it in a manner such as he did which brings such enormous benefits to people so many years later. We've heard that the trust itself was established in 1921 so we're looking at 102 years of benefit which is brought not just to Nelson in the employing many many people—and we've seen around 300 skilled staff from across the world from China Poland the United States France Fiji many many other places. So not only to Nelson not only in local employment but in bringing such extraordinary research to the fore we can see benefit not just to Aotearoa New Zealand but to the entire country.It's no secret that I'm passionate about research. I'm passionate about health-based research in particular and it absolutely warms my heart to hear of the revenue that the Government put to Cawthron Institute because science is important—we recognise that. Research is important; quality research even more important.I'm going to speak a little bit about the work of the institute but before I do I just want to highlight a little bit the work of the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee which is so ably chaired by Naisi Chen. It's also appropriate at this juncture I believe at the second reading to address the submitters to really thank them always for their contributions that they make to ensure that bills such as this when they come before select committee actually do end up in a better state than when they came in. We have heard from speakers earlier but from the Hon Michael Woodhouse in particular about some of the changes that were made.But there were 11 submitters I understand on the bill seven individuals and four groups. Three of those submitters were members of the trust board including Rachel Boyack and a submission was also received from the trust board itself. Five submitters supported the bill as a whole; one submission supported measures to modernise the bill's governance and administrative arrangements but didn't explicitly support the bill. But changes were made. There were some fairly interesting and—forgive me; I'm just going to explore those changes in a little bit more detail.One of the changes that was made was to provide for remuneration for members of the trust board and board of directors. Some of this is to address inconsistencies in the law brought about by amendments to section 17 of the principal Act. We heard—or rather the committee heard; I didn't have the privilege of sitting on that committee but they heard from the Hon Dr Nick Smith. The Hon Dr Nick Smith recommended amending clause 11 to prohibit the Mayor of Nelson City and he in himself does hold that role at the moment the Mayor of Tasman District and also the member of Parliament for Nelson Rachel Boyack—it's amending that clause to ensure that those members of the board are not reimbursed for discharging their functions under the principal Act. Dr Smith said in his submission that he didn't feel it was appropriate for mayors or members of Parliament who already receive payment as determined by the Remuneration Authority to receive any additional payment for a role as they said that arises directly as a consequence of their holding that office. The committee agreed and that change was made with the new section 17(1A).There are other changes that were made: section 13 of the principal Act provided for a capital conservation account—that that should be repealed. That recommendation was accepted by the committee.But before I get too deep into the weeds here I'd like to spend a little bit of time just talking about some of the work that's been done because I found it so interesting and I know that the House will too. One of the things I found particularly interesting was the bubbly boat berths. I am standing not terribly far from a member who is particularly keen on bubbly spas and the Cawthron Institute—I'm not going to say who—has instituted a bubble blower from beneath a pontoon at Waikawa Marina in the Marlborough Sounds as an experiment to mitigate against—we heard I think it was Helen White who was speaking about biofouling might have been Ingrid Leary; forgive me. In effect what this is using is the power of the spa as a positive thing—not that it ever isn't positive to sit and enjoy the bubbles of a spa but the bubbles themselves cause a disturbance in the water which hopefully they say will prevent damage-causing organisms from attaching to the underneath of marina structures.We know as we move through life—not so much from conversations here in the House—that actually it's a genuine issue. Actually having dirty hulls to boats is a real problem. Anybody who has seen rock snot in our precious rivers will realise that we need to take action we need to do research to find new and better ways of making sure that our boats are clean that our marinas are clean. We've heard even those massive cruise ships that come into our waters—we heard earlier on in the year that we had to prevent some of them from coming into port because they were dirty. So if a bit of a spa action can help us in that way then that's got to be a good thing.We have bubbly spas bringing benefit from the Cawthron Institute but we also have more exciting—to me—initiatives with algae-based local anaesthetics. In my role as a midwife before I entered Parliament I did find myself using local anaesthetics fairly frequently. You'll understand that this is something that's incredibly important and a new partnership between Government and the institute has delivered a potent microalgal ingredient for the world's first algae-based medication. I was incredibly proud to see that the Government's Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund partnered with Cawthron 2020 on the project and both invested $950000. This is something that's going to be I hope of enormous benefit to New Zealand. Incredibly exciting to think that we've actually managed to get—I can see by your faces you're absolutely enthralled by the idea of New Zealand having the first algal anaesthetic on the market which is completely in line with the Government's aquaculture structure.I could go on—I have pages of it—and I know that you want me to but I am limited for time so I'm going to commend this bill to the House.Motion agreed to.Bill read a second time.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): In accordance with a determination of the Business Committee this bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Thomas Cawthron Trust Amendment Bill.